And, by the way, if you guys aren't convinced by ctar's painstakingly accurate statistics, the species -> villager roll was confirmed by datamining. The mechanism ctar describes is the one that physically exists ingame.
Here's the word of The Guy (who found the Leif references, among other things, pre-release), if you don't believe us either:
All of these rumors keep starting up because YouTubers pick up on things friends say and then broadcast them to massive audiences. There's nothing to back this up- and the numbers, as well as the code, disagrees.
I hate to get so worked up, but it is genuinely so frustrating to see people's time wasted and to see players continually get fooled by misinformation!! I'm glad people are open about discussing this on the boards, or we'd be in big trouble.