Muu Shuwuu, Moh Shubuu, or Moh Shuvuu, is a supernatural creature from Buryati Folklore. The Buryati are a nomadic ethnic group from the Republic of Buryatia, a region located between Mongolia and Siberia, and currently part of Russia.
This creature is described as a demonic bird, born when a young girl or woman suffers a violent death without ever knowing true love. Normally, a Muh Shuwwu will attack men that she can seduce using her youthful looks. She can change between bird and human form at will, but can never get rid of her beak, hiding it with her hands or clothes when possible. By the time the seduced man lowers his guard, the demon will reveal its ominous sharp beak and use it to kill her prey with a blow to the head. After that, Muh Shuwwu will proceed to suck out and consume the brains of her victim. [1]
The name Muu Shuwuu supposedly means evil bird, and is misspelled both in the Megami Tensei Franchise and in the western internet at large. In Russian, the name is spelled as Муу шубуун, with "Moh Shubuu" and "Moh Shubuun" being the preferred transliterations. [1]
The renowned Russian folklorist Matvey Nikolaevich (1858-1918), celebrated in his time by his expeditions to Buryati settlements to study their culture, catalogued the Muu Shuwuu in some of his work. Three tales concerning the creature are described by Matvey: One is about a young couple, in which the husband died and the wife became a Muu Shuwuu after eating his corpse. The second tells the tale of a hunter that manages to outsmart a Muu Shuwuu that became stuck in a tree, and after shooting her (either with an arrow or gun) he burns the remains. The third one is about Muu Shuwuu that inhabited a forest, causing mayhem in nearby regions. A warrior won against a Muu Shuwuu there, where he found out that she had a husband, who pleaded for his wife's life. Male Muu Shuwuu are also present, and explain that the habit of attacking humans was exclusive to the females. As an apology, the couple teach the warrior how to defend himself from their relatives, by using magical words.[1]
Another common trope described by Matvey is that Muu Shuwuu usually holds two flints within her clothes, tucked under her armpits. One is a bright red flint in a good shape, while the other is decayed and rotten. It is said that to defeat one, the decayed flint should be taken and destroyed, as it's linked to her vital energies. The Muu Shuwuu, however, will try to deceive her opponents into taking the red one instead, causing them to become weaker and easier to kill. [1]
Design
Muu Shuwuu clothing closely resembles Buryati traditional female attires. However, the demon designer: Kazuma Kaneko, never stated anything about this allegedly inspiration, being purely speculative.
Meaning "evil bird", it's the ghost of a young girl who died without knowing love in Buryat folklore.
She seduces travelers only to crack their heads open and suck out their brains with her beak.
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Nomenclature
Names in Other Languages
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References
↑ 1.01.11.21.3Matvey, Collected works Volume 3.(reprinted in 2004) - (Хангалов М.Н. Собрание сочинений в 3 т. Т.3. / Под ред. Г.Н.Румянцева.-Улан-Удэ: Изд-во ОАО «Республиканская типография», 2004.’’)
