N.W. Thomas wrote in the 11th ed. of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" (1911) that according to Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794–1868), the "kanaima" was a human being who employed poison to carry out his function of blood avenger, and that other authorities represent the "kanaima" as a jaguar, which was either an avenger of blood or the familiar of a cannibalistic sorcerer. He also mentioned that in 1911 some Europeans in Brazil believed that the seventh child of the same sex in unbroken succession becomes a were-man or woman, and takes the form of a horse, goat, jaguar or pig.