Even before Jacob and palls were called 'shapeshifters' (I'll get back to you on that, I am not letting go), we should have known they couldn't be. And here's why.
First off: the origin or werewolves.
In the year 60, 70 people started believing in werewolf lore. The oldest myth I know about this is Ancient Greek, Lycaon.
Lycaon invited the king-god Zeus to dinner, but he was unsure if it really was him, so he decided to serve Zeus human meat. Turns out, it was Zeus. And Zeus was ticked. So he killed Lycaon' 50 sons and turned him into a wolf.
Right there, that's the first account of a man turned wolf, in the antiquite! But Lyncus was doomed a wolf for ever, no one-night-only deals or silvery fear.
In the 15 to 17 century in europe, that is where the werewolves we know come in.
The first recorded Werewolf sighting took place around the countryside of German town Cologne and Bed burg in 1591. An age-old pamphlet describes those shivering moments vividly. Few people cornered a large wolf and set their dogs upon it. They started to pierce it with sharp sticks and spears. Surprisingly the ferocious wolf did not run away or tried to protect itself, rather it stood up and turned out to be a middle-aged man he was Peter Stubbe from the same village.
Stubbe was put on a torture wheel where he confessed sixteen murders including two pregnant women and thirteen children. The history behind his downfall was rather bizarre. He had started to practice sorcery when he was only 12 and was so obsessed with it that even tried to make a pact with the Devil. Wearing a magic girdle he started to attack his enemies, real or imaginary. After several months, he would take the guise of a wolf and continued with his evil acts with more brutality. In the wolf form he used to tear up victims' throats and suck warm blood from veins. Gradually his thirst for blood grew and he roamed around fields in search of prey.
No punishment could match the magnitude of Stubbe's crime. His flesh was pulled off with red-hot pincer, his arms and legs were broken and he was finally decapitated. His carcass was burned to ashes.
Read more: link (I'd heard this legend before but I needed a written copy)
*side note- This might explain why Sam went off on Emily once.
And Germany was not alone; France, England, and probably others too closed their shutters, barricaded their doors, and trembled in their beds the night of the full moon. Just take the Beast of Gévaudan, one of my favorite werewolf stories for example.
link
The story says that the beast would always heal no matter what wounds it receiver, to the exception of one, silver. This is a little like our Twilight 'werewolves'. Heal fast with one deadly strike- vampire vennom and bites.
And the final Ancient legend you need to know to comprehend this article- shape shifter. Yup, these things exist! In Native American legends too! The legends the Native American have are often not about wolves, but often portaying different animals, like eagles. So did Stephenie Meyer plan this all along?
Anyways, I looked up Quileute myths and figured I was writting the name wrong all along doing so. After passing over anything that mentioned Jacob Black, I found this link, which I find good.
link
Quickly it was confirmed that the "cold-ones" exist for the soul purpose of Twilight, but the idea that the Quileute people decend from wolves is actually correct. The name "Quileute" actually comes from the work "Kwoli", wolf. So for this, I understand why the Quileutes became shapeshifters.
Alright, now this is why we should have known something was up from the start.
Werewolf stories started in 1775. So under what circumstances did the Quileute's ever know anything about silver and full moons? They didn't. Right there, we know, that the Quileute shape-shifters were there before the idea of classical werewolves ever came into play. And would nobody at the Push realise that? Would they not realise they could not be werewolves simply by the date the myth could have been introduced to their ancesters?
Next comes the definition of "werewolf". I have 2.
A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope (from the Greek λυκάνθρωπος: λύκος, lukos, "wolf", and άνθρωπος, anthrōpos, man), is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or an anthropomorphic wolf-like creature, either purposely, by being bitten by another werewolf, or after being placed under a curse. This transformation is often associated with the appearance of the full moon, as popularly noted by the medieval chronicler Gervase of Tilbury, and perhaps in earlier times among the ancient Greeks through the writings of Petronius - wikipedia definition. since some dont trust wikipedia, and neither do I really, here is another.
•a monster able to change appearance from human to wolf and back again -Google "define: werewolf"
The first definition states that a werewolf must be affected by the full moon.
The second doesn't.
And in all I've found that subject stays pretty fair play, though I find more of the first then the second due to many classical accounts.
Between the moon, the fact that it's a bite or a curse, they must have realised that what they were, was not what they called themselves.
I understand that Jake was relatively new to all this, and so were many of the older members, but doesn't it make sense? How come I thought of how the dates didn't fit and not Jake, Leah, Emily even or Edward? How come Carlisle, who is always described as having superior knowledge of the things around him, who knew about the attack on one of the Volturi members by a werewolf, and stayed in Europe as a vamp for a while did not realise that a werewolf, which he had to have seen, was not what he had under his eyes at Forks?
Whether you decide to believe S. Meyer did the research or this is a lucky turn of events is up to you.
That concludes my little explanation on how shape-shifters wasn't something Stephenie Meyer pulled out of the blue and how nobody at the Push should've thought they were werewolves for one second.
Hope you enjoyed,
Hecate
