RICHARD FREEMAN: They don't make 'em like this anymore

A dishevelled tramp peddling gridirons wandered up the garden path of Etherlreda Lewis’s Johannesburg home one day in 1925. Most folk would have shooed such an unwholesome fellow off their property but Mrs Lewis, being a kindly soul, invited him in for some refreshments. As it turned out this was a stroke of luck both for the vagrant and for Lewis, who was a novelist. The old man began to reminisce about his past and literary immortality for both him and his host was assured.

The tatty old man of the road was none other than Alfred Aloysius Smith-or ‘Trader Horn’ as he was better known. The novelist realized she had a gold mine sitting in her living room and transcribed his stories into a series of best-selling books.

Horn’s tale was the stuff of pulp fiction. Born in Lancashire in 1861 he was educated at St Edwards College Liverpool. Here he was taught French, Portuguese and Spanish but he was soon expelled for “always being on the roof”.

He took a ship to the West African country of Gabon were he got a job with the British trading company Hatton and Cookson’s, buying ivory and rubber and selling various trade goods. This is were Horn’s story really takes off. He claimed all kinds of jungle adventures, canoeing down unexplored rivers, hunting just about ever wild beast, saving a princess, freeing slaves, meeting Cecil Rhodes and generally behaving in a manner fitting of a character in a H. Ryder Haggard novel.

After five years of jungle shenanigans he came home to Lancashire and married his childhood sweetheart. Soon after they moved to London and Horn became a reporter, and then a policeman. But these jobs didn’t satisfy him. He joined up with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Circus and moved to Pittsburg USA. After his wife died he shipped his two children back to England and decided to roam the world. Like some kind of Wandering Jew he traveled all across the globe visiting Mexico, Australia, Madagascar and finally his beloved Africa once more. Eventually poverty caught up with him and he ended up in a Johannesburg doss house. Soon after he met Etherlreda Lewis and Dame Fate smiled on him again.

The books the pair wrote about his life proved a runaway success. Horn died in 1931 and was buried in Whistable, Kent.

How much of his wild stories can we trust? We have to remember this was an old man remembering events decades past. Could it have been that Horn was spinning yarns merely to keep a roof over his head and warm bed? Equally Etherlreda Lewis as a novelist may have spiced up the stories.

However, many reputable people believe Horn’s stories to be accurate. One such was Dr Albert Schweitzer a Franco-German medical missionary and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr Schweitzer also spent years in Gabon running a hospital. Schweitzer said of Horn’s tales:

“Apart from a few unimportant slips the statements made by Trader Horn about the country are generally accurate.”

Horn had a run-in with a cryptid too. By some lakes in the Cameroons he came upon three-toed tracks the size of a frying pan and linked them with some unknown beast known locally as the Amali or Jago-Nini. Horn also found a cave painting of the beast depicting it as a long-necked creature. He is said to have carved the painting out of the cave wall and presented it to US President Ulysses S. Grant in the early 1880s.

In his 1927 book Trader Horn, he writes: 'Aye, and behind the Cameroons there's things living we know nothing about. I could 'a' made books about many things. The Jago-Nini they say is still in the swamps and rivers. Giant diver it means. Comes out of the water and devours people. Old men'll tell you what their grandfathers saw, but they still believe it's there. Same as the Amali (N’yamala) I've always taken it to be. I've seen the Amali's footprint. About the size of a good frying pan in circumference and three claws instead o' five.'

On the year of his death, 1931, MGM produced a film of Horn’s life. It has never been released on DVD but I recently tracked it down on YouTube. It has to be seen to be believed and the story of what happened whilst it was being filmed is almost as amazing as the story of Trader Horn’s life itself!

The movie Trader Horn directed by W. S. Van Dyke was the first non-documentary film to be shot on location in Africa. It stared Harry Carey (a well know actor who was one of the silent screens first big stars) as Horn, Duncan Renaldo (who later found fame as the Cisco Kid) as Horns sidekick Peru, the lovely Edwina Booth as the ‘White Goddess’ and Mutia Omoolu as Rencharo, Horn's Gun Bearer. The story follows Horn and Peru as they search for a murdered missionary’s lost daughter who was kidnapped by natives as a baby. After many adventures they find her living as a White Goddess (much like ‘Haggard’s She’) worshipped by the Isorgi ‘the savagest tribe in Africa’. Horn and Peru are about to be sacrificed when the girl, in reality Nina Trent, falls in love with Peru and sets them free. The three of them then have to escape the clutches on the enraged tribesmen.

The filming of the movie sounds like one of Horn’s adventures. One of the African crewmen fell into a river and was eaten by a Nile crocodile. Another was killed by a charging rhinoceros. This was captured on film and used in the movie. The camp at what was then Tanganyika was destroyed by a couple of hippos forcing them to relocate to the Belgian Congo. The second unit crew filmed in Mexico to avoid American laws protecting animals. Apparently leopards, lions and hyenas were starved to make them aggressive and fight for the film. Back in the Congo local pigmies who were paid in salt to appear in the film, mistook the black cables that lead from the cameras to the sound truck for black mambas and fled in terror.

On another occasion the pigmies surrounded Edwina’s tent and danced for three hours in an ever closing circle. The camp was empty apart from Edwina the pigmies and her interpreter. The latter told her that the pigmies had decided that she really was a White Goddess and had decided to take her back into the deep jungle with them. The little people grabbed her and put her on their shoulders. She screamed and fought until she heard laughter. Looking up, she saw film company members appearing from behind the surrounding trees. Edwina realized at once that she had been set up, and she suspected Harry Carey was behind the prank.

If this wasn’t enough the three main actors were forced to confront wild lions at their kill! One scene during their escape from the Isorgi tribe called for Edwina, Duncan and Harry, who were crazed with hunger, to drive feeding lions off their kill and eat the meat themselves. The filming crew found three lions feeding on a topi. The director, Van Dyke, ordered them to charge and drive the lions off the carcass armed with nothing more than sticks!

On the same day they filmed this segment, and after shooting for hours under the hot sun, Van Dyke ordered Edwina to climb a tree as part of another lion scene. Native workmen scattered carrion around the tree to attract the lions.

After sitting in the tree in the hot sun for an extended period of time, Edwina suffered sunstroke and fell to the ground. Fortunately, the lions had not yet gathered. Enraged by Van Dyke's behaviour, Duncan, according to his own account, charged Van Dyke shouting, "You son of a bitch, I'm going to kill you."

The dangers the director put the cast through seem insane by today’s standards. Wild animals loomed large in most of the cast’s misadventures. A white hunter broke an arm by tumbling into a stream bed while running to rescue Edwina from a threatened attack by enraged baboons. A big crocodile tipped over a canoe in which Edwina was paddling and almost plunged her into water. A week later, a hippo rose unexpectedly from the water and tipped over a boatload of cameramen. Duncan sprained an ankle in a wild rush while escaping from 38 panic-stricken elephants. He had earlier shaken a stick at them for the benefit of the camera. In fact it is amazing more people did not die during the filming of Trader Horn.

Van Dyke also apparently scared the natives into behaving by placing a microphone in a drum and making it ‘speak’. Carey, who had been a cowboy in Montana, lassoed a python and a baby hippo earning him the name Mr Hippopotamus with the locals. Van Dyke became "Big Boss," Duncan Renaldo was called "The Young One" and Edwina was dubbed "Miss Few Clothes."

By today’s standards the film is very racist. Horn refers to Rencharo the native gun bearer as a ‘black ape’ and to one porter at a trading post as a ‘monkey’.

The cast and crew, including the director, were beset by mosquitoes and tsetse flies.

Edwina Booth, who was required to don a skimpy costume for her roll, suffered the worst. She was cut by elephant grass and thorns, and covered with ticks the size of fingernails. The studio had neglected to provide a decent insect repellent and Edwina was struck down with malaria and became hysterical as well as suffering from hallucinations.

Actress Olive Golden, (who played the missionary mother Edith Trent) also remembered the young actress's emotional trauma. She said Edwina "would get a funny look in the eyes, almost a demented look, an irrational look, a starry look, and get up and pretty soon she was gone. ... She'd get back to her tent and then lie down and say “Oh I am sick!"

During a bout of hysteria at Murchison Falls, Dr Clark gave Edwina a quarter grain shot of morphine to calm her. That would normally have been enough of the drug to knock out a horse, but it had no effect on Edwina.

These attacks occurred about every two or three days without any apparent cause, and sometimes they would last all night. Golden asserted the company's physician, Dr Clarke, would say Edwina had malaria one time, and the next time he'd say he didn't know what she had.

A number of accounts report that Edwina slept only a few minutes at a time while she was in Africa. Fitful dreams seem to have bothered her during those brief moments of sleep. Five months after her return from Africa, Edwina told a Hollywood magazine: "One night ... I heard Mother calling me. I got up and ran. A native boy caught hold of my arm just as I was going down the bank into the Nile."

Edwina’s malaria effectively put an end to her acting career. Upon returning to the US she was bedridden for six years leading to stories that she had actually died from the disease. Whilst she had been in Africa her young husband had had their marriage annulled. The wife of one of the actors on the picture sued Edwina for $50,000 for alienation of affection.

She sued MGM who apparently settled out of court $35,000. She used the money to seek medical help at a tropical-disease treatment center in Europe. She stayed in hospitals in London, Berlin, Vienna and Paris. She retired from acting and finally died in 1991 at the age of 86.

This cinematic extravaganza can be seen in its full glory here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXFICTd0XzA&playnext=1&list=PLD1AC4079BED91FA7

MIKE HALLOWELL: A miscellany of odd Geordie tales

A miscellany of odd Geordie tales follows, all of which are true because a) their provenance is well attested in learned tomes penned by our nation's greatest scholars, and b) I like them.

On June 1 1853 a young fellow by the name of George Wallis was fishing near the rocks at Tynemouth. Tynemouth is an ideal spot to fish at, for the sea is there. Now George was not fishing for fish, but for crabs. And he found one, scuttling in amongst the rocks. But this was no ordinary crab. What was it then? One of the legendary South Shields Devil Crabs from across the river, as detailed by the eminent Ronan Coghlan in his splendiferous tome A Dictionary of Cryptozoology? Nay; t'was a quite unremarkable crab, save for the fact that it had, welded to its back, a silver sixpence. This shocked young Wallis for, as everyone knows, crabs are wont to keep their sixpences in a purses made by Versace or wallets made by someone in China.

The author of The Historical Register of Remarkable Events, Mr T. Fordyce, attempted to explain the conundrum thus: “The coin had probably fallen upon the crab when its outer covering was in a soft state, as the shell had grown considerably over the edge of the piece”.

Mr Fordyce's explanation is as good as any I can come up with, but I'd appreciate it if any colleagues out there who specialise in either crabology and/or sixpencism could explain to me just how the coin stayed in place long enough for the shell to grow around it.

And another: on March 9, 1842 a butcher by the name of George Watson, from Stockton, was driving a rather obese cow from the market when for reasons not clear, the animal decided to take a right turn into a narrow alley called William Street. There she found an open door. Curious, she poked her bovine snout inside and espied a stairwell.

“Ooh”, she exclaimed, “a stairwell!” Then, all excited like, she proceeded to climb the stairs and without warning or ceremony, intrude upon the living room of a flax dresser named Franklin. Mr Franklin, who seems to have worked from home, was dressing flax for all he was worth, assisted by his able wife and several children.

“Here”, said Franklin, all authoritative like, “We're flax-dressing in here, and you can't come in”.

Unfortunately, Daisy – for that was her name – was already in, and had no intentions of being out. Not long after, Mr Watson arrived and in a state of high dudgeon, said that he was right annoyed, like.

“You're annoyed? I'm bloody annoyed! I've spent all bloody night dressing this flax, and - “

“Excuse me”, interrupted Mrs Franklin, “WE'VE been dressing this flax all bloody night!”

“Oh, alright, keep your hair on”, retorted her beloved. “Anyway, look at the mess. This flax looks like its been dragged through a hedge backwards. That cow of yours has trampled it to bits and eaten half of it”.

“What's the damage, then?”

“Five shillings should cover it.”

“Done. Here's five shillings; now help me get Daisy down the stairs before she decides to 'drop the kids off at the pool' so to speak, and covers your precious flax with a pat."

With some difficulty, the flax-dresser and the butcher managed to entice Daisy back down to the alley where, chuffed with her little adventure, she proceeded on her way.

Postscript: the Franklin family, just one week later, are gathered around the table for Sunday lunch.

“Here”, says young Benjamin, “this stewed tripe is a bit of alright mother, but why has it got bits of semi-digested flax in it?”

“That's 'cause your eating Daisy”, said Mr Franklin, with some satisfaction. “I knew I'd see my day with that gate-crashing bovine b*****d”.

Alas, a radio interview beckons, so I must dash, but I'll be back with more Geordie crypto-lunacy as soon as poss....

DALE DRINNON: Dissection of and Discussion on the Marked Hominid

Dissection of and Discussion on the Marked Hominid

[Alleged photo of "Old Yellow-Top" seen around Cobalt, Canada]

I. Introduction

Mark A Hall identified a type of hominid report that was distinct from Sasquatch and the Almas types and which became know more widely under the name Loren Coleman bestowed upon it, the Marked Hominid. I do not see a need for separate species of Almas and Marked Hominid to be involved, but I DO see that the two forms are distinctive. What Coleman calls the Marked Hominid lives in a different environment to the North, is taller and tends more to lighter colouring (blondism). However, the key feature which is supposed to separate Almas from this Marked Hominid is that it can have contrastingly coloured head-hair and body-hair, or differently-coloured patches of hair on the body. This is also reported in the regular Almas series and so is not determinative. What IS determinative is that the Marked Homind lives in the taiga (sometimes going out on the tundra) and the Almas lives on the steppe, forest-steppe or semideserts, or in mountain-refuge forests.

So I have made up a map to show the difference. On the map you shall see that I included a (?Patagones) indication for Southern South America in the possibility that there are (or were once) "Bigfoot" types like the EASTERN Bigfoots of the USA down there, but if so it is an entirely different biome and it does not really go with the rest.

[Sanderson's Boreal Bigfoot sightings North of the Red Line]

Coleman cites the Marked Hominid as the type which is identified in European Folklore as Trolls, and also the Tunijuk and Wendigo as they were defined in articles by Ivan Sanderson. They are thus also similar to the Onis of Japan and I have added this map to the Trolls photo album. Another distinctive feature is that these Marked Hominids are more often seen wearing clothes (fur capes, hoods and loincloths, and occasionally moccasins) carry hafted hatchets or spears, and are said to have fire and live in little bush-covered huts where the smoke can be seen to arise from their fires. This includes also the Bush Men of North America, otherwise very similar to the Chuchunaa. They are thus cultural animals and a step up from the usual "Abominables" that go about without much obvious tool use and supposedly an ignorance of fire. This too is more akin to the stories of Trolls, Onis, Toonijuq, Wentigoes and so on (As categories of Hairy Wildmen: they are also said to "Recruit" humans into their ranks, but this is a separate sort of insanity where normal humans are supposed to hear the "Call of the wild" and seek to join them. This is a recognised Psychological problem in the Boreal forests area, known as the Wendigo Psychosis, and the reason why people are sometimes said to be "Possessed by Trolls". There is at least one good case in Pennsylvania where a witness was somehow deranged after a sighting of an Eastern Bigfoot, and began acting like an ape. The Bigfoot he sighted did not actually act or sound like that, be it noted-it was all in the witness' imagination)

[Wendigo as a Cannibal Giant, "Marked Hominid" colouring]

II. The Definition of The Category

The term, Marked Hominids, is often used to describe a group of unusually tall hairy hominids reported to live in the woodlands and tundras of polar and sub Polar Regions of North America, Europe, Asia and Siberia. Marked Hominids are called so because these individuals appear to be piebald, a term used to describe an animal which displays a spotted pattern of large white and black patches, hence some would say they appear, marked; they vary from two toned, multicolored hair patterns, a lighter haired mane, and in some cases a partial to wholly albino appearance. In fact, Loren Coleman reported in his book Cryptozoology: A to Z, that at least one member of this species was given a personal distinctive name by nearby natives. They called him Mecheny (which translates from the native Mnasi dialect as The Marked One) due to the fact that this creature allegedly bore a distinctive patch of white hair on its forearm. Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe used this name as a basis for dubbing these creatures as Marked Hominids in their Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti And Other Mystery Primates Worldwide. Loren Coleman also saw this naming as a tribute to his fellow researcher Mark A. Hall, who, according to Coleman’s book, Cryptozoology A to Z, first identified these beings as markedly different from Sasquatch. This would seem to be a strained reference because the creatures are not being called "Mark Hall's Hominids", which would be the proper reference if that were actually the case.

Marked Hominids are often called Bigfoot when being reported by eyewitnesses; however Marked Hominids are actually more human looking and tend to be shorter than Sasquatches. The males average six foot six in Siberia and seven feet tall in North America-the former is more probably correctand the latter more probably exaggerated. Marked Hominids often have powerful bodies with much muscular development of the shoulders and limbs. Reports of these creatures often state that the creatures arms do not reach below the knees, as with Bigfoot, and that they have prominent buttocks and visible genitalia (larger penis in the males than in the other types, and several reports say the females have little or no hair on the breasts.) Marked Hominids Tracks commonly measure ten to fourteen inches long, have a curving sole impression and are three to five inches wide. These tracks translate to creatures from a normal human stature up to six foot six or seven feet tall, hence confirming the reports.

The skull of a Marked Hominid rests very low in heavily-muscular shoulders which makes the creature appear to have no neck. A Marked Hominid has very large eyes, well adapted to the creature’s nocturnal life style and said to be noticeably larger than regular human eyes. They are said to glow red when light is directed at them (like human "red eye" in flash photographs). The creature’s hair is often short overall and usually some shade of brown. There is a common reference to yellow or blonde hair, either on the head or generally. The hair is slightly longer on the creatures head, under arms and pubic area, and so they have the same types of body hair as on regular human beings.Some male individuals have beards of varying length and normally at least the face is hairy from the tops of the cheekbones on down. Marked Hominid sightings are often accompanied by a very strong odor, sometimes compared to a wet dog.

Marked Hominids have been known to approach the villages and small town of the native people that they share their harsh environments. Though they are sometimes said not be as intelligent as these natives, Marked Hominids sometimes trade with these people, and reportedly communicate with them non verbally, often using sign language. Verbal communication is also sometimes stated in traditional stories. Due to this closeness with humans, Marked Hominids often encounter dogs, and it is said they are not particularly found of them, sometimes killing the canine out of annoyance. The diet of the Marked Hominid does show a preference for larger game mammals, but also includes small game, birds and eggs, and some plant material.

In August 1987, scientist Maya Bykova encountered a Marked Hominid while staying in a hunting cabin in Western Siberia. Her account would later be published in a book by Dmitri Bayanov in 1996, the book was entitled In the Footsteps of the Russian Snowman. In Maya Bykova's published account, the individual creature known as Mecheny was described from the sighting she had made while staying at a co workers hunting cabin in Western Siberia.

On Saturday, August 15, Volodya, Nadya, myself, and their three-month old puppy, named Box (the old dog was no longer alive) set out for the cherished hunting cabin. The path was difficult, the last leg passing through bogs, so we reached our destination in the evening pretty worn-out. Before settling down for the night, Volodya put some logs under the window and covered them with a piece of plywood used for drying cedar nuts. "Lest he surprises us," said Volodya.

His foresight was not in vain. At dawn we heard someone step on the plywood and make two quick knocks on the window. I shot out from the bed, dashed to the door, threw off the hook, and popped outdoors. Volodya and Nadya, fearing for my safety, followed suit.

It was dawning and the first thing I saw in front of me was a white spot against a dark background of trees. After that I saw his figure. He was standing five meters away. His right shoulder leaning against the bark less trunk of a dead cedar. Sharply in view were the white forearm and brightly glowing red eyes. Detail. He stood two meters, give or take five centimeters. Looking down at us (Volodya is 180 centimeters tall, I am 168, Nadya is shorter), he shifted his glance from one to another and made a sound, something like "Khe" as if clearing his throat without parting the lips. On the whole, judging by his build, especially the lower extremities, he resembled a man, not an ape or a bear standing on the hind legs. But like an animal he was covered all over with fur, some six or seven centimeters long, red-brown in color, except the left forearm which, as already mentioned, was white.

I drew the creature's portrait from head to foot as it stuck in my memory. The head, when facing me, looked round, but later, when he turned, I noticed that the back of the head was elongated. The hair on the head was short, no more than three centimeters, I did not see any skin on the face, it was all covered with hair, including the ears, the nose and the nostrils. I could only see his eyes, almond-shaped like a man's but sunken under prominent brow ridges. The jaws were slightly put forward and showed a long narrow slit of the mouth. The head sat right on the shoulders, without a neck. The shoulders were strikingly wide and strongly muscled. Such musculature in humans can only be seen in body-builders. The chest was powerful and barrel-like. Hefty arms, set somewhat forward, hung loosely down. Their relative length seemed within human proportions. The hands were enormous and shaped like scoops.

I could see the skin of the palms and it was reddish. In the groin the hair was longer, the genitals were not seen. The legs were long and straight, with enormous feet. They were also covered with hair and I did not see any skin.

[Mecheny]

In 2005, Matt Wakeley reported his sighting of a Marked Hominid near White Pigeon Road and Highway 9, in southeastern Walworth County, Wisconsin. Mr. Wakeley’s encounter was published in a book by Cryptozoologist Linda Godfrey in 2006 entitled Hunting the American Werewolf.

[Supernatural Windigo]

III. The Traditional Background: North America　

[Partially from Wikipedia]The Wendigo, sometimes referred to as Windigo, Wiindigoo, Windago, or Windiga, is considered by some modern paranormal researchers to be a regional name for Bigfoot or Sasquatch. However, Native American Indian legend portrays the Wendigo as another, infinitely more dangerous, creature all together. In both cases the creature has very similar descriptions, a large bipedal creature reaching heights up to over 10 feet, with sunburnt complexion, glowing eyes, long yellowish fore teeth, thin lips drawn back taut, and in the case of the Wendigo, a long and lolling tongue. Other accounts of the Wendigo say that the creature has no fur at all and a pale almost dead looking skin, or that it wears the hides of other animals it has killed..

[Cannibal-Hominid Wendigo, From Deviant Art]

The first accounts of the Wendigo myth by explorers and missionaries date back to the 17th century. They describe it rather generically as a werewolf, devil or cannibal. Different origins of the Wendigo are described in various forms of the myth, besides a warrior giving his soul to save his village other versions of the myth state that a hunter may become a Wendigo when encountering it in the forest at night, others state that a person may become a Wendigo as a result of being possessed by the creature in a dream. When the cannibalistic element of the myth is expressed, it is said that anyone who eats the flesh of a human will be transformed into a Wendigo.

It is the cannibalistic aspect of this myth that has caused some to speculate that the Wendigo myth was used as a deterrent and cautionary tale among northern tribes whose winters where long and bitter and whose hunting parties often were trapped in storms with no other option but to turn to cannibalism and consume members of their own party to survive. Some researchers have noted that the Wendigo maybe a myth based on the personification of the hardships of winter and the fear of those who would resort to cannibalism. Believers in this theory often cite the Wendigo’s physical deformities and how they are suggestive to starvation and frostbite. Of course a Cryptid might equally well be afflicted by malnutrition and frostbite.

In 1907, the same year that Algernon Blackwood wrote a short story entitled The Wendigo, a Cree man named Jack Fiddler claimed to have killed 14 of theses Monsters during the course of his lifetime. This story generated international attention when Mr. Fiddler, who at the time was 87 years old, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a Cree woman, whom he claimed was on the verge of transforming into a Wendigo. It was said that neither Jack, nor his son Joseph, hesitated in pleading guilty to the murder, however both insisted that their actions averted what could have quickly become a greater tragedy should the woman have been allowed to transform.

["Unknown Explorers" banner for Chuchunaa. Much of the summary below is excerpted from that site. No copyright infringement is intended]

IV. The Traditional Background: Siberia　

The Chuchunaa which are sometimes referred to as the "Siberian Snowman" or "Tjutjuna", are unique among their kind for numerous reasons not the least of which being their purported penchant for appearing before eyewitnesses clothed in animal skins. Their name translates to Outcasts or fugitives which many of the eyewitnesses called them. This fact that the Chuchunaa are said to wear animal skins has led some researchers to believe that these creatures may have less in common with Gigantopithecus-like creatures such as the Sasquatch, and may possibly be a part of what some have speculated are a relic population of paleo-asiatic aborigines or possibly even Neanderthals.

The Chuchunaa has been described by most eyewitnesses as being a tall (6-7 feet tall) and human-like, with broad shoulders, a large protruding brow, long, matted hair and occasionally bearing unusual fur coloration. They are often described as being a pale shade of yellowish-brown or a sort of tan rather than the expected darker shades of brown. Some witnesses and report collectors have specifically compared Chuchunaas to the Neanderthal reconstructions made by artist Zdenek Burian.

Although reports of these creatures were first brought to the attention of the academic world in 1928, when the Soviet government sent expeditions into the upper regions of the Indigirka and Yana rivers in order to collect accounts of these unique man-beasts, most reports of these creatures hail from native nomadic tribes such as the Yakuts and the Tungus. The tales and reports from the Yakuts and Tungus tribes date much further back in time than 1928,

Much the same sort of reports are also found in the southeastern portion of Siberia. Here they are often referred to as Mulen, which is the Tungus (Evenki) word for bandit. This name no doubt stems from the fact that these creatures are notorious for their midnight raids on barns and other dwellings, as well as regular predation upon reindeer herds which appear to be their main item of diet.. It appears that Mulen and Chuchunaa are the same thing, but in different regions. There are also reports that these creatures have, on occasion, taken to eating human flesh

[Neanderthals by Zdenek Burian]

In 1933, Professor P. Dravert became incensed when he heard reports that these creatures were being hunted, and petitioned the Soviet government to put an end to this heinous act, stating that Chuchunaa were also citizens of the Soviet Union, and therefore deserved equal protection under the law. Obviously the Soviet government at the time had no interest in such things. His plea went unheeded. By the 1970s however, times were different, even in the midst of a cold war. Geologist Vladimir Pushkarev conducted research throughout Siberia. He also heard native accounts of these native creatures, but - due in part, no doubt, to the overwhelming encroachment civilization - he concluded their numbers had dwindled since the dawn of the 20th century. -There were tales of a strange being wandering the remote forests of Tunguska near the scenes of devastation. The nomadic reindeer herdsmen of Siberia sighted the gigantic grey humanoid figure some 50 miles north of the Chunya river. They saw the man, who seemed to be over 8 feet in height, picking berries and drinking water from a stream. The superstitious Tungus herdsmen regarded the freakish-looking stranger as one of the fabled Chuchunaa. Others who supposedly investigated one of man kinds greatest mysteries "the Tunguska blast" have also claimed to have seen the Chuchunaa. - Previous to 1928 both sightings and stories regarding the Chuchunaa were not common play but certainly widespread enough to be passed down through time and have the stories make their way into modern cities. - In 1928, the Soviet government sent expeditions into the upper regions of the Indigirka and Yana rivers in order to collect accounts of these unique man-beasts. They documented a handful of sightings. - Some old people claimed that in 1957 hunters from the surrounding villages killed a Chuchunaa, the snowman. It is said that its body was brought on the Lena river to Yakutsk [capital of Yakutia] and disappeared there. - Many claim the last "reliable sightings" of the Chuchunaa came out of Siberia in the 1950s. Many speculate the sightings slowed because the grasp the Soviet Union had on the entire region during the cold war. However, the remote stretches of Siberia are still to this day some of the most barren areas of our planet. It could be feasable that the Chuchunaa may still exist, and recent communication with locals may suggest that is a fact. Yakutia, one of the leading newspapers in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) published in May 2004 an article concerning nature and its protection in Yakutia. It had the following paragraph: "The Screaming of Sendushnyj. Mount Kuorat-Khaja lied opposite the fishing village of Chekurovka 2) . On a dangerous steep slope lied the ruins of an aeroplane. Some old people claimed that in 1957 hunters from the surrounding villages killed a Chuchunaa, the snowman. It is said that its body was brought on the Lena river to Yakutsk [capital of Yakutia] and disappeared there. The legend has it that Chuchunaa lived in the mountains of Verchojansk. It caught reindeers, the skins of which it wore. It is further said that upon meeting people, the snowman would scream quite terribly. In the Tundra, this snowman was named Sendushnyj, after ˜sendukhaa", an old name of Tundra. Although this legend defied common sense, it refused to die. On the other side of the mountain range, in the areas of Najba, some reported of a highly discreet creature that was called Ikki-Mterlljakh, literally meaning ˜two meters tall". It is claimed that those who were hunting, fishing and/or collecting firewood along the riverbank saw the snowman. It is also reported that as dawn set in, he would enter the village." Other informants give the creature the name Aabasi Kiila. There are also other modern day reports of the Chuchunaa. The place where this happened lies on the arctic circle in the autonomous Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), eastern Siberia, with the capital Yakutsk about 200 kilometers east of the main ridge of the Verkhoyansk mountains. This area is one of the coldest on Earth where the winter temperature can fall to minus 70°C. It is possible to reach many settlements only by air or over roads which are passable only at certain times of the year. This makes the Chuchunaa one of the most difficult cryptids in the world to reach. [Wendigo, from the internet and slightly adjusted] V. Wendigoes (The Cannibal Giants, not the Insanity) In going over the various depictions intended to show Wendigoes or Cannibal Giants of the Native lore from Eastern Canada and the Northern United States, I noticed several depictions which showed them with deer skull heads and antlers and sometimes what looks like the attached deerhide as a cape. This immediately reminded me that some peoples were known to send out hunters wearing deerskins and attached antlers as camoflage for sneaking up on deer in herds. Conversely, they might also be dressed in wolfskins and wearing wolfhead masks, which immediately also suggests the Native legends of Skinwalkers. [Deerstalker Cloak] [Skinwalker, Deviant Art] This does suggest to me that some of the legendary hairy hominids of North America were in the habit of wearing animal hide capes with attached heads as camoflage. [Buffalo Hunters Wearing Wolfskins, by G. Caitlin] There is independant evidence that the general Wildman type was in the habit of weaving small branches, twigs and leaves into their hair as camoflage. The immediate purpose of wearing deerhides and antlers would be to stalk deer, and there have been recorded statements that wildmen or "Bad Indians" were in the habit of raiding herds of Raindeer in such a disguise, only they were lacking in the use of bows and arrows and so used hurled stones (This does not exclude the possibility that they used slings or bolases) and clubs. [Native Caribou Hunt, Posted on "Primitive Art" Internet Site] I have a suspicion that the Mulena and Chuchunaa of Eastern Siberia also ordinarily follow this way of life. As in the case of the Wendigoes, they are also prone to hunt human prey. Hence the rather incongruous imagery of a man-eating Devil Deer depicted as a Windigo or Cannibal Giant. Apaches also have such traditional imagery. [Wendigo=Boreal Bigfoot, ie, Marked Hominid] One of the internet descriptions of a Wendigo going from Native tradition (and ending up with the statement that Wendigoes were possibly based on sightings of Bigfoot including this photo of a Northern Bigfoot wooden statue) runs as follows: "Wendigos were often described as ugly giants or ogres with yellow-orange skin and amber to deep brown hairy bodies. They also reportedly had overly large, talon like clawed hands, glowing eyes, sharp fangs, and long tongues." In this case the description is unusual in that the colouration is yellowish to brown, or in other words, blond. This also corresponds to Coleman and Hall's definition of Marked Hominids, which goes along with the Vegetological map already submitted earlier. It is also probably important to mention that the "Bad Indians" that follow the Reindeer are supposed to have extra-large but SHOD footprints-that they wear moccasins like the Bush Men or Nakanni, orr indeed like the Chuchunaa. Presumably, many Wendigoes are supposed to do likewise, although "Naked human" tracks are seen more commonly further to the South. Coleman and Huyghe clasify the Bush Man, Bad Indian, Nakanni or Nuk-Luk as a Neanderthal type. The descriptions of its use of clothing, footgear, hafted tools, huts with the home fires burning and tendancy to headhunting and cannibalism, is exactly the same as the Chuchunaas of Siberia on the one hand and the Wendigoes of North America (however spelled) on the other hand. [Krapina Cannibal Neanderthals by Z. Burian]

Wed Feb 2, 2011 6:34 am Show Message Option View Source Use Fixed Width Font Unwrap Lines Dale Drinnon dale_drinnon Offline Send Email

[National Geographic Painting of Arctic Neanderthals]

VI. -The Toonijuk
Ivan Sanderson, "Things", 1967, Pyramid Books
Chapter 9 (pages 93-107)

The possibility of the continued existence of some fully haired or
furred human primitives, submen, or even possibly subhominids [apes] on the continent of North America has now for long been mooted. Most of these have originated from north of a line that may be drawn from about the 40th parallel (i.e.80 miles north of San Francisco) on the west coast of the United States; north up the eastern face of the Cascades; around the Guttered Scablands of Oregon; to the Idaho Rockies in the region of the Salmon River.
Thence, this line of southern demarcation crosses the Rockies to their eastern face in Montana, and then runs (back) northwest to the lower Nahanni Valley about the Laird River in the Canadian Northwest Territories [and thence all the way down the Yukon to the Behring Strait]. From that point it travels southeast through the northern third of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba to the south of the great Clay Belt, rimming James Bay of Hudson Hay, and thence continues almost due cast to Cape St.Charles at the eastern extremity of Labrador. Immediately west of Lake Superior, however, one report emanates from the true wilderness
area of extreme northern Minnesota.

These reports were previously for the most part concentrated
around the lower Fraser River area of British Columbia, and north up the coast of that province. In this area Burns and others have reported upon many dozen cases of alleged sightings of such creatures and finds of their foot-tracks. They are, in that area, called Sasquatches, a coined name derived from several similar-sounding names for them given by various indigenous Amerindian tribes. The existence of such very large if not truly "giant" (seven feet or over) creatures thereabouts has always been fully accepted by the Amerinds and of later years has become quite widely current among white people. In the unopened strip of forested territory along the coast and on the multitudinous islands off that coast their existence is fully accepted by everybody, and it is notable that when the Amerinds of that area speak of them in English, they call them
"apes," though they still assert that they show many human traits-- notably, being able to throw stones, over-arm, with great force and accuracy. It should be noted that as Prof. Kortlandt has recently suggested no animal, other than man, is known to be able to perform this act.
The matter of the Sasquatches, however, has until recently been
considered so esoteric that anthropologists have not only failed to take it seriously but also have not found it worthwhile reading the reports, all of which have necessarily been by non-specialists without scientific training, and have, unfortunately, been published in the daily press or popular magazines. Nevertheless, the body of reports from the British Columbia area that are now on record--and including some official ones, and several sworn affidavits--is quite considerable, and at least one properly equipped scientific expedition was launched, in 1962, in pursuit of them.

There have, however, also been rumors and reports of similar
creatures made throughout the past century, emanating from a very much wider area; in fact, from all over the subarctic and arctic regions of North America north of the line demarcated above, and all the way from Alaska to Labrador and north even it to Greenland. During the course of some twenty years' research into the question of what have unfortunately become popularly and almost universally known as "abominable snowmen" (and which we have recently designated "ABSM's"), a number of these reports came to our attention, but always secondhand, even as regards their
alleged publication. It was therefore decided some years ago to endeavor to track down the original statements. This effort has now brought to light a number of important items, which are herewith preliminarily discussed, but none of these is yet in any way exhaustively researched, as will be noted in the body of the text below. From each, a number of further references have been obtained. At this stage of our investigations, however,
we have to put on record our surprise at the wealth of this material, and
even more so at the recent date of the publication of a great part of
it. That such reports--and coming from persons of such standing as Knud V.J. Rasmussen --could be universally ignored, seems inexplicable.

As will be further discussed below, [Harold]Gladwin, over a decade ago, suggested in a scientific-though in some aspects wholly unacceptable--context [Men Out of Asia, a popular book meant for the general public and thoroughly illustrated with humorous cartoons-DD] that several waves of extreme primitives (including some, in his opinion, of pigmy stature); of submen [(in the form of Neanderthalers); and possibly even of subhominids, which we would today probably assign to the Pithecantbropine branch of the anthropoid stem of the Primates, {but on up to the Australoid type of modern primitives and NOT differentiating the Australoids from any older more primitive peoples}] crossed the Bering Strait and populated the Americas. If Gladwin was right in this basic suggestion, almost everything that we have to say hereunder
displays perfect conformity.

[It should be noted that Sanderson badly misrepresented what Gladwin had said and in fact he need not have invoked Gladwin at all. Gladwin was more interested in the later waves of humanity to populate the New World, and he assuled basically via Beringia. The Australoids were Gladwin's first wave, NOT specifying any others but broadly hinting at them. The successive waves included five more different ethnic types and culminating in a last wave of mixed Middle-Easterners and Orientals bearing civilzation to the New World via the idling fleet left behind by Alexander the Great! Which is great fun but basically only popularizing a series of older Anthropological notions circulating since the turn of the twentieth century. Gladwin for example frequently cites Roland Dixon in The Racial History of Man, and if you were to make a serious statement of the theory, the best course of action would be to cite Dixon and not Gladwin.This is of course all Anthropology As Is Currently Severely Denied-DD]

Pre-Amerindian Man was in North America and probably South America. Nobody can any longer deny this fact, for these proto-Amerinds have left us too many ["Pre-Projectile-Point"] artifacts and encampment sites that, by radiocarbon and other precise dating methods, have now been shown to be of origins prior to the last,
and possibly even to the one-but-last [eg, Calico Hill], southward advance of the polar ice.
There is no reason to suppose that all these types were wiped out prior to post-glacial times, and there is no evidence that they were so exterminated; while there is now considerable evidence that some may have survived until today in the vast and as yet unexplored territories of the far north.

The Eskimos of today maintain a large body of tradition about a race of very primitive people with revolting habits who occupied their territories prior to their own arrival. This tradition spreads all the way from Alaska to Greenland and throughout the Canadian Arctic Islands. These creatures are said to have been very tall, fully haired, dim-witted and retiring; but to have fought savagely among themselves, been carnivorous, and to have gone [sometimes partially to fully-]naked, though they built circular encampments of very large stones with whale-rib and skin roofs.

[PreDorset House Ring, 1500BC NWT]

[Litter of PreDorset Stone Tools]

The Eskimos say they had primitive stone and bone implements.

[Advanced-Mousterian Neanderthal Stone Tools]

They are referred to today on Baffin Island and north to Greenland as "Toonijuk" but are called by many different though similar names to the west. This tradition has been reported upon by many, including Rasmussen and, most notably, by Katharine Scherman in her Spring on an Arctic Island. Rasmussen has even stated that some of these creatures [Actually, archaic types of "Paleo-Eskimoes" mistakenly identified with the Toonijuk-DD] existed in Greenland within the current century but were driven up into some "inaccessible valleys" by Eskimos. This, as Scherman has pointed out, seems hardly credible, since the interior of that country immediately behind the narrow coastal strip is an ice cap. However, there are still large areas of Greenland not fully explored despite massive air-travel over much of its periphery. Also, the extreme north, around the Cape Maurice Jesup area, is not glaciated and is extremely hard of access over land, and even from the sea, due to its fjord-like topography.
These Toonijuk are said by the Eskimos to have been of giant size [Again, 7 feet tall and up] and to have had some exceptional and, to them as well as to us, disgusting habits. They are said to have preferred rotten meat [ie, they scavenged corpses]and, it is alleged,
their females tucked meat under their clothing (?) to promote
decomposition by their body-warmth. Further, since they did not know how to cure skins, they are said to have wetted them and then worn these raw to dry them; and then to have used them for bedding. Perhaps the most peculiar custom ascribed to the Toonijuk, as reported by Scherman, is that young men were sewn up in fresh seal skins containing "worms"(maggots) which, by sucking their blood, reduced their weight and so made them fleet, lightweight hunters.[This is recognisable instead as a reference to a sort of Shamanic initiation story-DD] These maggots are believed by the Eskimos to have been fostered in the rotting carcasses of birds and one such--an auk--was said by Rasmussen to have been discovered in Greenland in his time and to have been declared by the local Eskimos to have been left there by a party of Toonijuk who, they said, had only just fled back into these "inaccessible valleys" of the interior. While regarded as being utterly primitive, the Toonijuk are said to have lived in underground houses (though without sleeping platforms) and to have had pottery--or at least "cooking pots"--and some weapons. In Greenland, the Eskimos say that they went naked but that their bodies were covered with feather-like fur; in more westerly areas, they are said to have used skin clothing. Everybody agrees that they were very good hunters; could call game by voice or gesture; and were so strong that they could back [sic] an adult Bearded Seal. [More recent artwork found on the internet shows them hauling full-grown walruses around on their gigantic backs-DD]

In addition to these details, Scherman records--from information obtained from the Eskimos of north Baffinland, as transcribed by P. J. Murdoch, an agent of the Hudson's Bay
Company, who speaks fluent local Eskimo--that the Toonijuk were not dangerous to the Eskimo but, to the contrary, were very timid and cowardly, and were particularly afraid of dogs, which they apparently did not understand. All agree that they fought a great deal among themselves, but some Eskimos assert that their own ancestors hunted the Toonijuk down individually [Because they were cannibals-DD] and so eventually exterminated them. Yet, Greenlanders insist that even today some linger on in their country but that they are excessively wary--in fact, more so than animals.
Scherman further notes that: "Until 1902 an extremely primitive tribe of Thule people lived on Southampton Island, and some of their customs were those (alleged to be) of the Toonijuk." (The Thule along with groups named the Dorset Islanders and the Sarquaq, constitute known previous inhabitants of the Canadian Islands and the far north.)

[Reconstructed Dorset Inuit from his remains after DNA analysis]

[Pre-Dorset Mask-Possibly depicting a Tornait]

[The Toonijuk are sometimes equated with the Thule and Dorset Paleo-Eskimos, who are known mostly through their remains, and it is the remains of their houses and implements that the later Inuit pointed to as evidence of the former race of Hairy Giants.These people were however not giants and are known to be merely earlier and less-advanced waves of Inuit settlers into the area, each new wave displacing the older wave before it. Evidently the tradition confuses them all and collapses them together, especially when speaking of "Survivors still living in the back country"-DD]

Scherman(1955) herself visited what was then stated by the Eskimos of Baffinland to be a Toonijuk settlement on Bylot Island, and gives a clear description of it. In a small isolated valley her party was shown a series of circular mounds. These proved to be composed of very large stories half buried in the permafrost. Each circle was dug out and had obviously once been roofed; they were entered by what had been a three-foot high tunnel; were paved with large flat stones; and had stone benches at the back. Around the walls were very old rotten bones of the Greenland Right Whale. The party was greatly impressed by the ability of' the original builders to have dug so deeply into the permafrost with only crude stone and bone implements; and, even more so, by their having transported these enormous stones, which were not of local origin, even if they had had the use of dogs and sleds. Their Eskimo companions told them that the Toonijuk could lift rocks that no Eskimo could handle; that their houses were roofed with whale ribs; and that two whale jawbones were placed on either side of the entrance tunnel. However, this site, as Scherman remarks, showed abundant signs of having been occupied by Eskimos [not Toonijuk-DD] for long and frequent periods since its original construction. It is most significant to note that the description of these round-houses coincides very closely with the Neolithic [Megalithic] "Round-Houses" of the Shetlands, Orkneys, and the Hebrides off the coast of Scotland, which also were circular, sunk about three feet, surrounded by stone walls that rose some three feet above the ground, and had domed roofs made of a "wheel" of large whale ribs over which skins, peat-sod, or other insulating material was placed. [There is a separate theory that some of the stone structures of the American Arctic were built ny Megalith-builders from Northern Europe, for which see the recent book The FarFarers-DD]

The Eskimo still make stone igloos with ingeniously constructed roofs of overlapping stone slabs and which also have tunnel entrances--but they are of nothing like the size described; nor do the stones of which they are built in any way approach the size of those used in the structures said to have been built by the Toonijuk.But of even more interest is the description of a nearby cairn of very large stones, which had partly collapsed. The interior of this is said to have been hollow, and in it lay a number of large human bones. One
of the party leaned in and extracted what is said to have been a female pelvis; but, as there were no professional anthropologists in the party, they very properly replaced this and closed up the cairn to the best of their ability. Scherman quite rightly makes a strong plea for this site to be visited by competent experts and thoroughly examined before such potentially priceless relics finally disintegrate; and she ends by asking the pertinent question "Aside from the Toonijuk, if they ever existed, who else could have been here?"
Her only other thought is that they could have been Norsemen, whose sturdy build and stature, greater than that of the Eskimo, coupled with their propensity for feuding, might have given rise to legends that in time became transferred from one alien race to another; and she ends with the extremely significant remark that there were traditions and apparently detailed knowledge of

[?Megalithic] White Men among the Eskimos long before.

[The following passages seem extraneous to me and I have left them out Graves of Pygmies have nothing to do with stories of Giants, and a four-footed creature with pointed heels that leaves marks of claws in its tracks is most likely a bear. -DD]

[The Following supplemental Traditional material comes from the internet: THE TORNIT:

In olden times the Inuit were not the only inhabitants of the country in which they live at the present time. Another tribe similar to them shared their hunting ground. But they were on good terms, both tribes living in harmony in the villages. The Tornit were much taller than the Inuit and had very long legs and arms. Almost all of them were blear eyed. They were extremely: strong and could lift large boulders, which were by far too heavy for the Tunit. But even the Inuit of that time w ere much stronger than those of today, and some large stones are shown on the palm of Miliaqdjuin, in Cumberland Sound, with which the ancient Inuit used to play, throwing them great distances. Even the strongest men of the present generations are scarcely able to lift them, much less to swing them or throw them any distance.

The Tornit lived on walrus, seals, and deer, just as the Eskimo do nowadays, but their methods of hunting were different. The principal part of their winter dress was a long and wide coat of deerskins, similar to the jumper of the Eskimo, but reaching down to the knees and trimmed with leather straps. When sealing in winter they wore this garment, the lower edge of which was fastened on the snow by means of pegs. Under the jacket they carried a small lamp, called tumiujang (literally, resembling a footprint) or quming over which they melted snow in a small pot. Some Eskimo say that they opened the seals as soon as they were caught and cooked some meat over these lamps. When the seal blew in the hole they whispered, "Kapatipara" (I shall stab it) and, when they had hit it, "Igdluiliq." Frequently they forgot about the lamp and in throwing the harpoon upset it and burned their skin.

All their weapons were made of stone. For the blades of their knives they used green slate (uluqsaq, literally material for women's knives), which was fastened by ivory pins to a bone or ivory handle.

The points of their harpoons were made of bone, ivory, or slate; those of their lances, of flint or quartz, which was also used for drill heads; and they made neither kayaks nor bows. Their method of hunting deer was remarkable. In a deer pass, where the game could not escape, they erected a file of cairns across the valley and connected them by ropes. Some of the hunters hid behind the cairns , while others drove the deer toward them. As the animals were unable to pass the rope they fled along it, looking for an exit, and while attempting to pass a cairn were lanced by the waiting hunter, who seized the body by the hind legs and drew it behind the line.

This tale is related as a proof of their enormous strength and it is said that they were able to hold a harpooned walrus as the Eskimo hold a seal.

The Tornit could not clean the sealskins so well as the Inuit, but worked them up with part of the blubber attached. Their way of preparing meat was disgusting, since they let it become putrid and placed it between the thigh and the belly to warm it.

The old stone houses of the Tornit can be seen everywhere. Generally they did not build snow houses, but lived the whole winter in stone buildings, the roofs of which were frequently supported by whale ribs. Though the Eskimo built similar structures they can be easily distinguished from one another, the bed of their huts being much larger than that of the Tornit.

Though both tribes lived on very good terms, the Inuit did not like to play at ball with the Tornit, as they were too strong and used large balls, with which they hurt their playfellows severely.

A remarkable tradition is told referring to the emigration of this people. The Tornit did not build any kayaks, but as they were aware of the advantages afforded by their use in hunting they stole the boats from the Inuit, who did not dare to defend their property, the Tornit being by far their superiors in strength. Once upon a time a young Tuniq had taken the kayak of a young Inung without asking him and had injured it by knocking in the bottom. The Inung got very angry and ran a knife into the nape of the Tuniq's neck while he was sleeping. (According to another tradition he drilled a hole into his head; this form is also recorded in Labrador .) The Tornit then became afraid that the Inuit would kill them all and preferred to leave the country for good. They assembled at Qernirtung (a place in Cumberland Sound), and in order to deceive any pursuers they cut off the tails of their jumpers and tied their hair into a bunch protruding from the crown of the head. [The hair sticking up in a bunch from the top of the head might be a symbol of this lost people-DD]

In another form of the tradition it is said that while playing with the Tornit a young Inung fell down and broke his neck. The Tornit feared that the Inuit might take revenge upon them and left the country.

Many old ditties are sung which either treat of the Tornit or are reported to have been sung by them. Some of them will be found in the linguistic account connected with my journey."

http://www.itk.ca/english/inuit_canada/history/tunnit.htm ]

...Through the mail, the author has received over the past fifteen years a number of letters from interested parties, giving accounts of alleged ABSMs in a large number of localities spread all across Canada from the Mackenzie, Stikine, and Rocky Mountains in the west, to Labrador in the east. During the past years, over a hundred such letters have been received, but only two of these warrant comment at this time. The first relates an incident alleged to have occurred about 1911 in the northern tip of the State of Minnesota. As received (from a lady who was a resident of said district at the time) two men were hunting in the deep forest several miles from a small town in that state when they came upon some strange foot-tracks. Following these, they came up with what they described as "a human giant which had long arms and short, light hair, covering most of its body" (italics mine). One man remained while the other ran back to town, collected a posse, and returned. The woods
were then beaten for a considerable distance but nothing more than the tracks were found. Northern Minnesota is on the southern fringe of the great northern boreal forests and, even today, little but a highroad separates it from them.[I have almost the same exact story told as a "Ghost Story" and reported to me by one of the Reference Librarians at Indiana University at Indianapolis, but located due north of that location and even in the tundra areas East of Lake Dubawnt, story being told to me in the 1980s, having been told before in 1970s and presumably relating to events a decade or two earlier. Those tracks apparently showed no individual toes-DD]

If ABSMs existed in those forests in 1910, there is no reason why one should not have wandered south to this point. Of significance in this report is the color of the hair. It agrees
with several reports of the larger Sasquatches. The other item of interest is a series of new expressions on the nature of the famous "Wendigos" or "Wentigos" of the northern forest
Amerinds. These ghosts, spirits, or demons of Amerindian myth and legend have always had much in common with the "Trolls" of Scandinavia and other traditional humanoid monsters in other parts of the northern subarctic. In a brief article for a Canadian magazine, a retired fur-trader related a description of Wentigos given to him by an old Cree of Amisk Lake, named George Custer. This, like other previous descriptions, stated that Wentigos were mentally unbalanced persons who did not respond to treatment by local medicine men and who, being exiled to the woods, developed certain supernatural aspects. However, George Custer's description mentions that medicine men could "smell" them at a great distance[They smelled of dung clinging to their hair in another passage cited by ITS]; that they traveled in packs like foxes[wolves?]; followed trails but always kept off them; defended themselves by biting; lived underground; and were finally exterminated by his people. In fact, it seems clear that there is much of ancient factual observation of ABSM-type primitives involved in the tradition of the Wendigo--a tradition that incidentally, is spread almost all across Canada. (The Wendigo, Windigo, Whitico, or "Ice-Giant" of the Algonquians is of the same tradition.) One of the most extraordinary accounts of what we call ABSMs that has come to my attention may be found in a book entitled True North, by Elliott Merrick, and concerns certain affairs on the Traverspine River at a point where that stream flows into the Grand or Hamilton River near Goose Bay, Labrador; and specifically at the homestead of a family named Michelin. The date was about 1913. The author of this book regarded the report as a "ghost-story" and notes that such are very real in what he describes as "this land of scattered, lonely houses, and primitive fears."
However, in the light of discoveries made since his book was published, one may perhaps now legitimately consider it in quite another light. It is best quoted directly; and for permission to do this we are indebted to the publishers, Messrs. Charles Scribner & Sons, of New York. The pertinent passage reads as follows: "About twenty years ago one of the little girls was playing in an open grassy clearing one autumn afternoon when she saw come out of the woods a huge hairy thing with low hanging arms. It was about seven feet tall when it stood erect, but sometimes it dropped to all fours [dropping to all fours to get under cover in the bushes is a common feature of such reports-DD]. Across the top of
its head was a white mane. She said it grinned at her and she could see its white teeth. When it beckoned to her she ran screaming to the house. Its tracks were everywhere in the mud and sand, and later in the snow. They measured the tracks and cut out paper patterns of them, which they still keep. It is a strange-looking foot, about twelve inches long, narrow at the heel and forking at the front into two broad, round-ended toes.[footgear again?-DD]
Sometimes its print was so deep it looked to weigh 500 pounds. At other times the beast's mark looked no deeper than a man's track. They set bear traps for it but it would never go near them. It ripped the bark off trees and rooted up huge rotten logs as though it were looking for grubs. They organized hunts for it and the lumbermen who were then at Mud Lake came with their rifles and lay out all night by the paths watching, but with no success. A dozen people have told me they saw its track with their own eyes and it was unlike anything ever seen or heard of. One afternoon one of the children saw it peeping in the window. She yelled and old Mrs.Michelin grabbed a gun and ran for the door. She just saw the top of its head disappearing into a clump of willows. She fired where she saw the bushes moving and thinks she wounded it. She says too that it had a ruff of white across the top of its head. At night they used to bar the door with a stout birch beam and sleep upstairs, taking guns and axes with them. The dogs knew it was there too, for the family would bear them growl and snarl when it approached. Often it must have driven them into the river, for they would be soaking wet in the morning. One night the dogs faced the thing and it lashed at them with a stick or club, which hit a corner of the house with such force it made the beams tremble. The old man and boys carried guns wherever they went, but never got a shot at it. For two winters it was there. They believe to this day it was one of the devil's agents or more likely 'the old feller' himself."
This item was kindly brought to our notice by Mr. Bruce S. Wright, Director of the Northeastern Wildlife Station, operated cooperatively by the Wildlife Management Institute of Washington, D. C. and the University of New Brunswick at Fredericton, N.B.
From the cases cited above, together with the now-massive reports of the Sasquatches--now having continued for over a century--and the numerous other isolated incidents claimed by people to have occurred all across Canada, it would seem manifest that at least one ...type of hairy Primitives or submen were once widely distributed over the arctic and subarctic belts of North America. Further, it would now appear to be increasingly difficult to assert positively that none of these could have survived until today. The obvious question is then--and it is quite permissible--what exactly might these creatures be?
We have mentioned the name of [Harold] Gladwin. This student, though never professionally employed as an anthropologist or archaeologist, prosecuted a great deal of worthwhile and original fieldwork; and the foreword to his book was written by none less than Earnest Hooton. In this preface, moreover, Hooton states that, while several of Gladwin's opinions were not then acceptable to established thinking [Singling out "The Nearchus Fantasy"-DD], his basic thesis required most careful consideration. This thesis states simply that several waves of Hominids passed over the Bering Strait from eastern Asia and thence spread all over the New World. Gladwin's chronology hints at, first, subhominids (such as Pithecanthropines) arriving; next, Neanderthal types; then representatives of what we call Primitives (as represented today by the Bushmen, the Negrillos, and the Negritos); then some early Modern Men of, in his estimation, a Proto-Caucasoid, or Australoid type [What Gladwin actually specifies is the Australoid type and he basically assumes Neanderthal or Homo erectus traits "in solution"-DD]; [Then Negroids or proto-Negroids, becoming Folsom man-another hotly contested item,] and finally the Mongoloid[s, Algonquin-] Amerinds and Eskimos [Counting each one SEPARATELY, and lastly Armenoid Arawaks-cum-Polynesians crossing both the Indian and Pacific Oceans, genetically snowballing all the way and arriving during the Classical Period-DD].
Whether all these types did so immigrate to the New World is, of course, very far from being accepted: in fact, it is only very recently that it has even been considered that any hominids, other than modern Mongoloids, ever reached North America. But, the possibility that more primitive peoples did so, cannot be positively denied; while there seems to be some valid reason for supposing that some did. The Pekin Pithecanthropines lived at the same latitude and on the edge of the same vegetational belt as the ABSMs of Canada, and we have recently received information from Professor B. F. Porshnev of the Russian Academy of Science that [Neanderthaloid-Chuchunaa-]ABSMs have now been reported from far eastern Siberia. There is no reason why such creatures should not have crossed over the Bering Strait. If they did so, in either the first or middle Interglacial, along with several other large mammals, there is no reason why later, more developed types, such
as the Neanderthalers (who were available in far eastern Asia) should not also have done so; and, still later, the Negrito-Negrillo or Pigmy type; then the Proto-Caucasoid, or Australoids; and,[Plus the others in between that GLADWIN was actually concerned with-DD] finally, Mongoloids. As each of these successive waves of more highly cultured races appeared, the former immigrants must have been pushed back into the less hospitable areas.And, it is from just such areas throughout South, Central, and North America that reports of hairy primitives and other ABSMs emanate today!
- ---

[BTW, E. A. Hootin was happy with H. Gladwin's work because Gladwin made frequent usage of Hootin's works. The theory is of course considered very badly racist today. The base data is from a comparison of human skulls. Since that is a specialization of mine, I know exactly what they are talking about although it would probably go right by most readers of both Gladwin and Sanderson. However I had always thought that Sanderson's badly misleading retelling of the theory would be much better left off simply because he was basically putting words in Gladwin's mouth and then saying that "He said it!" The theory is out of favor but the basic idea is sound once you say only that primitive humans supposedly crossed the landbridge, therefore why could not their more primitive predecessors do likewise?]

VII Some Final Comments

The last of the Neanderthals of Europe as recognised by Archaeology lasted up to about 25000 years ago in refuge areas of Spain, France and Italy, but apparently also in other areas such as the Caucasus Mountains-and by that late date, they had begun to adopt some of the tool types and lifestyle of the newcomers-settlers of modern Homo sapiens from Africa. If most of the Neanderthalers which survived as the Almas were dispossed refugees and apparantly lost most of their cultural development (Although probably not including woodworking, if Sanderson is right about Wudewasas), then the latest/Perigordian-Neanderthals that went north with the forest zone and apparently adopted a Reindeer-hunter lifestyle did not regress, they simply moved Eastward and into obscurity. But from the accounts of the Chuchunaa, Tunijuk and Wendigoes, they continued making stone blade tools and some antler and ivory tools, continued to use fire and hide clothing, and continued to build pit-houses (the stone-circle huts allegedly built by Toonijuk are similar in principle to the old Neanderthal huts built up with mammoth-bone bases.

And according to Mark Hall, this type of Hominid is definitely represented by known bony remains found in Greenland, the Gardarene skull AKA "Homo gardarensis". This is a skull of a vague Neanderthaloid pattern but larger and more coarsely made than usual. Indications are that this individual was very large in life; six feet six inches tall and 400-450 pounds has been suggested. Hall reprints photos from its original newspaper announcement in his discussion and I reproduce them here:

[Gardar Cranium Above, Lower Jaw Below]

[Original Newspaper Notice]

[From Mark A Hall, Living Fossils]

["Solo Man" skull cast from Java to show comparable profile]

The Greenland skull is sometimes explained away as being a deformed skull of a modern human. In fact it has the same characteristics as fossil human types. These fossil skulls are in fact also explained away by Creationists as being human beings suffering the same sorts of deformities. It need not be necessary to insist on the deformity part: since Neanderthals are classified as a subtype of Homo sapiens by the majority of experts, the classification is much the same whether the Trolls, Toonijuks and Wendigoes are outsized-Neanderthals or merely deformed Homo sapiens-because Neanderthals would still be Homo sapiens. And actually, if the large boreal-forest variety of Neanderthal called Marked Hominid and exemplified by the Chuchunaa is as advanced and adaptable as the indications go, they are on top of the game. Until they ran into firearms, they were the ones that had all the advantages over the regular humans that came into their environment. They didn't even need dogs (which they hated anyway, but they could kill without much bother)

[Neanderthal Deerhunters, Reconstruction by Jose Antonio Penas at

http://japa2.cgsociety.org/gallery/539267/ ]

ROBERT SCHNECK: Visit North Dakota: Now You Have a Reason

Big stupid people might not be appealing but the same cannot be said for big stupid sculptures. It's hard not to love a 40-foot-long turtle made of over 2000 steel rims, with a head that actually bobs up and down; grasshoppers 60-feet long, or a Holstein cow standing 38ft tall.

Look upon North Dakota's works, ye Mighty and despair!

http://www.realnd.com/giantsofnd.htm

OLL LEWIS: A higher porpoise at work?

As you might expect from something that covers two thirds of the planet's surface there are a lot of myths and legends about the sea. Some are about lost civilizations swallowed beneath the ocean waves or phantom island and strange superstitions but most of the sea's tales involve the animals that may live there like tales of sea monsters, kraken, giant squid and dolphins. Dolphins are a particular favourite among storytellers because of their supposed human-like traits, intelligence and apparent affinity with man.

Dolphins are considered by many to be of a level of intelligence near to that of man due to them apparently being self-aware, capable of problem-solving, tool use (as much as a dolphin can use a 'tool'), ability to learn and apparently make decisions based on a logical thought process rather than simple reward training or luck. Dolphins also are capable of using and understanding language between members of their own species and to understand certain words in human languages should they be given enough training. However, to date there have been no successful experiments where a dolphin and human have been able to properly converse, even by the use of a Morse-code-like system of clicks to get round the fact that human and dolphin vocal cords are very different. It would seem that dolphins do not appreciate language in the way that a human does and things like sentence structure, verbs, nouns and all manner of other building blocks that have evolved in human communication throughout thousands of years of social interaction are completely alien to dolphins as the many subtleties of dolphin speech must be to humans.

I once read something online, which was a sort of survival sheet that gave instructions on what to do and how to behave if it turned out aliens existed and you happened to be their first contact with the human race. The idea was that in order not to simply be collected as a sample, killed and plonked in a jar aboard their space ship, you should show some evidence of intelligence and the best way to do this would be to draw a diagram of Pythagoras' theorem as any species capable of interstellar flight would be able to relate that to their own version of mathematics. Sure, the aliens would be unlikely to count in base 10 like us - we only do because we started counting using our fingers and thumbs - but there would likely be some common ground somewhere. With dolphins we wouldn't even have the common ground of mathematics to share; what use is knowing how to calculate the length of a hypotenuse to an aquatic mammal?

Despite all our differences it would seem that dolphins are certainly interested in man at least as some sort of curio. Dolphins who have regular contact with humans often make clicks and chattering noises using their blow holes and moving their jaws up and down in imitation of humans holding a conversation. If you've ever owned a cat or a dog you've probably engaged in similar behaviour (although you might not want to admit it in public) by holding a conversation with them in 'mews' or 'whines' while getting their dinner ready, whatever it is you're saying to the animal probably doesn't make much sense but you do feel good for having made the effort. Dolphins certainly do because they get rewarded by fish most of they time they do it.

Stories about dolphins usually play upon this apparent interest in man and by far the most widely told is that of the dolphin rescue. These stories have been cropping up for thousands of years in mythology, travellers tales and more recently in newspapers and other news media. One of the more recent stories to come to light happened to perhaps the last person you would expect. 82-year-old Dick Van Dyke is best known for playing Dr Sloan in the brilliant Diagnosis Murder and in his younger days, playing the iconic film cockney, Burt, in Mary Poppins but in his youth he was quite the action man. In November of last year (2010) D.V.D. talked to the press about something which had happened in his youth when he was a surfer. He had fallen asleep on his surf board and drifted out to sea.

“I woke up out of sight of land... and I started paddling with the swells and I started seeing fins swimming around me and I thought, "I'm dead!"”

Luckily for D.V.D. what he thought were circling sharks turned out to be a pod of friendly dolphins happy to lead him back to the beach.

Most stories like this are completely true and this had led some people to assume that dolphins have a special affinity with man. The truth is though that most dolphins will just instinctively push or lead anything that looks like it might be a sick dolphin into shallow water where it will be less likely to drown. They aren't really intelligent enough to know the difference between a swimming human and a wounded dolphin in distress.

ARCHIVING PROJECT: General Forteana Part 40

As you know, Oll has been working on the archiving project since early February 2009 and he is now working on a general mish-mash of a section known as `General Forteana`.

This 39th collection once again really is a collection of completely uncategoriseable stuff, including a strange UFO-linked suicide, Satanic grafitti, the search for Noah's Ark, damage to the Turin Shroud, otters comeback, and a bun in the shape of Mother Teresa. It doesn't get much better than this. Good stuff.
HERE

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

On this day in 1990 Nelson Mandela was released from prison in South Africa. Apart from his release and finally putting an end to apartheid in South Africa and being played in a film about rugby by Morgan Freeman, another undoubted highlight of Nelson Mandela's life was meeting me once. There is nothing Fortean about Mandela as far as I am aware but I have met a few political leaders in my life before I moved to CFZ Hq and Nelson Mandela is unique as a man of principles, courage and conviction.

And now the news, brought to us by our news blog editor Gavin Wilson:

Birdwatcher only takes a year to track down world'...
Nearly 38 species of birds spotted at Vaduvur Bird...
Race is on to repopulate species of bustards
Rare gorilla twins born in wild
On their own 2 feet: 3.2 million-year-old fossil f...
Kenya's fisheries management promotes species that...
Another big cat sighting in the Campsies
Scientists Find Singing Apes Feature Different Acc...
Experts Discuss Techniques For Observation Of Enda...
Pacific Walrus Only a Candidate for Endangered Spe...

Sometimes it's quite easy to choose a vaguely related video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnpil_pRUiw