Word.ws English Dictionary

kushtaka

kushtaka noun: a mythical part-otter, part-human shapeshifter, in Tlingit and Tsimshian folklore, sometimes represented as tricksters and at other times as helpful beings who save (and turn) drowning victims.

Noun

kushtaka (plural kushtaka or kushtakas)

  1. A mythical part-otter, part-human shapeshifter, in Tlingit and Tsimshian folklore, sometimes represented as tricksters and at other times as helpful beings who save (and turn) drowning victims.
    • Written by a non-native scholar, this book contains nine Tlingit and Haida tales concerned with shamans and kushtakas. Land otters were fearful hybrid beings of the spirit world. Able to live on land and in water, they had the special mission of ...1994, Resources in Education, page 114
    • Ordinarily they can't be seen at all, but sometimes kushtakas reveal themselves in elusive shadowy forms; sometimes they are only heard; sometimes the contaminated victim experiences their reality in the furriness of his own arms and legs ...2003, Mary Giraudo Beck, Shamans and Kushtakas: North Coast Tales of the Supernatural, Graphic Arts Books, →ISBN

Examples of kushtaka in a sentence

  • If a body could not be recovered and cremated, a drowning victim might become a kushtaka, a half-man, half-otter changeling that occupies the realm between life and death.2010, Lynn Schooler, Walking Home: A Traveler in the Alaskan Wilderness, a Journey into the Human Heart, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, →ISBN...
  • I learned that kushtakas “saved” drowned people by transforming them into their own kind.2010, Mark A. Zeiger, Shy Ghosts Dancing: Dark Tales from Southeast Alaska, Yeldagalga Publications LLC, →ISBN, page 85:

Forms of kushtaka

pluralkushtaka
pluralkushtakas

Origin of kushtaka

From Tlingit kóoshdaakaa (“land-otter man”).

Questions about kushtaka

What does kushtaka mean?
Kushtaka means a mythical part-otter, part-human shapeshifter, in Tlingit and Tsimshian folklore, sometimes represented as tricksters and at other times as helpful beings who save (and turn) drowning victims.
How do you use kushtaka in a sentence?
If a body could not be recovered and cremated, a drowning victim might become a kushtaka, a half-man, half-otter changeling that occupies the realm between life and death.
What part of speech is kushtaka?
Kushtaka is a noun.
What is the plural of kushtaka?
The plural of kushtaka is kushtaka.

Words near kushtaka in the dictionary

  1. Kushners
  2. Kushnir
  3. Kushnirs
  4. kushoon
  5. kushoons
  6. kushtaka
  7. kushtakas
  8. kushti
  9. Kushtia District
  10. kushtis
  11. Kusiak

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kushtaka (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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