Mi-Go are a fictional race of
extraterrestrials
Extraterrestrial life, colloquially referred to as alien life, is life that may occur outside Earth and which did not originate on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected, although efforts are underway. Such life might ...
created by
H. P. Lovecraft and used by others in the
Cthulhu Mythos
The Cthulhu Mythos is a mythopoeia and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth
August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971) was an ...
setting. The word Mi-Go comes from "Migou", a Tibetan word for
yeti
The Yeti ()["Yeti"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. is an ape-like creature purported t ...
. The aliens are fungus-based lifeforms which are extremely varied due to their prodigious surgical, biological, chemical, and mechanical skill. The variants witnessed by the protagonist of "
The Whisperer in Darkness
''The Whisperer in Darkness'' is a 26,000-word novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written February–September 1930, it was first published in ''Weird Tales'', August 1931. Similar to ''The Colour Out of Space'' (1927), it is a blend ...
" resemble winged human-sized crabs.
Mi-Go are first named as such in Lovecraft's short story "The Whisperer in Darkness" (1931). However, since they are described in this story as "fungi" that come "from Yuggoth," they can be considered an elaboration on earlier references to alien vegetation on dream-worlds in Lovecraft's
sonnet cycle A sonnet cycle or sonnet sequence is a group of sonnets, arranged to address a particular person or theme, and designed to be read both as a collection of fully realized individual poems and as a single poetic work comprising all the individual son ...
''
Fungi from Yuggoth
''Fungi from Yuggoth'' is a sequence of 36 sonnets by cosmic horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Most of the sonnets were written between 27 December 1929 – 4 January 1930; thereafter individual sonnets appeared in ''Weird Tales'' and other genr ...
'' (1929–30).
Description
The Mi-Go are large, pinkish, fungoid,
crustacean
Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...
-like entities the size of a man; where a head would be, they have a "convoluted ellipsoid" composed of pyramided, fleshy rings and covered in antennae. They are about long, and their crustacean-like bodies bear numerous sets of paired appendages. They possess a pair of membranous bat-like wings which are used to fly through the "
aether" of outer space. The wings do not function well on Earth. Several other races in Lovecraft's Mythos also have wings like these.
In the original short story, the creatures cannot be recorded using ordinary photographic film, due to their bodies being formed from otherworldly matter.
They are capable of going into suspended animation until softened and reheated by the sun or some other source of heat.
The Mi-Go can transport humans from Earth to
Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...
(and beyond) and back again by removing the subject's living
brain
A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a v ...
and placing it into a "brain cylinder", which can be attached to external devices to allow it to see, hear, and speak.
In "
The Whisperer in Darkness
''The Whisperer in Darkness'' is a 26,000-word novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written February–September 1930, it was first published in ''Weird Tales'', August 1931. Similar to ''The Colour Out of Space'' (1927), it is a blend ...
" the Mi-Go are heard to give praise to
Nyarlathotep
Nyarlathotep is a fictional character created by H. P. Lovecraft. The character is a malign deity in the Cthulhu Mythos, a shared universe. First appearing in Lovecraft's 1920 prose poem "Nyarlathotep", he was later mentioned in other works by ...
and
Shub-Niggurath
Shub-Niggurath is a fictional deity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft. She is often associated with the phrase "The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young". The only other name by which Lovecraft referred to her was "Lord of the Wood" in ...
, suggesting some form of worship. Their moral system is completely alien, making them seem highly malicious from a human perspective.
One of the moons of
Yuggoth
''The Whisperer in Darkness'' is a 26,000-word novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written February–September 1930, it was first published in ''Weird Tales'', August 1931. Similar to '' The Colour Out of Space'' (1927), it is a ble ...
holds designs that are sacred to the Mi-Go; these are useful in various processes mentioned in the ''
Necronomicon
The ', also referred to as the ''Book of the Dead'', or under a purported original Arabic title of ', is a fictional grimoire (textbook of magic) appearing in stories by the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and his followers. It was first menti ...
''. It is said that transcriptions of these designs can be sensed by the Mi-Go, and those possessing them shall be hunted down by the few remaining on Earth.
The narrator of "The Whisperer in Darkness" learns that, ostensibly, a group known as the Brotherhood of the
Yellow Sign is dedicated to hunting down and exterminating the fungoid threat, though it is unknown if this is actually true since it was given as a pat explanation for the Mi-Go remaining hidden. The name "
Hastur
Hastur (The Unspeakable One, The King in Yellow, Him Who Is Not to be Named, Assatur, Xastur, H'aaztre, or Kaiwan) is an entity of cosmic horror.
Hastur first appeared in Ambrose Bierce's short story "Haïta the Shepherd" ( 1893) as a benign ...
" is mentioned in passing among several other places and things, was eventually applied into a god-like alien being by
August Derleth
August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971) was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, and for his own contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the ...
who gave Hastur the title "Him Who is Not to be Named". However, in Lovecraft's story, a human ally of the Mi-Go mentions "Him Who Is Not to Be Named" in the list of honored entities along with Nyarlathotep and Shub-Niggurath, and "Hastur" in connection with the cult of the Yellow Sign opposing the Mi-Go's work on Earth. Lovecraft never made a connection between Hastur and "Him Who Is Not to Be Named", and indeed didn't even imply Hastur was a being; Derleth was the one to do so.
Origin of the word
It is possible that Lovecraft encountered the word ''migou'' in his readings. ''Migou'' is the
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...
an equivalent of the
yeti
The Yeti ()["Yeti"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. is an ape-like creature purported t ...
, an ape-like
cryptid
Cryptids are animals that cryptozoologists believe may exist somewhere in the wild, but are not believed to exist by mainstream science. Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience, which primarily looks at anecdotal stories, and other claims rejected by ...
said to inhabit the high mountain ranges of that region.
[''Mi-Go'' is the compound word for "man-wild" (wild man; Wylie: mi rgod; Tib: མི་རྒོད་) in Tibetan and is pronounced ''me-gö''. (See Goldstein, pp. 251, 792, 794.)] While the Mi-Go of Lovecraft's mythos is completely unlike the ''migou'' of Tibetan stories, Lovecraft seems to equate the two, as can be seen in the following excerpt from "The Whisperer in Darkness":
It has been suggested that the Migou and the Yeti legends, both originate from the belief of or sightings of a high altitude bear known as the Chemo bear of Tibet.
Notes
References
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mi-Go
Cthulhu Mythos species
Fictional fungi
Fictional extraterrestrial characters
Fictional extraterrestrial life forms
Fictional monsters