LINDSAY SELBY: Freshwater Octopi

In Oklahoma, Lake Thunderbird, Lake Tenkiller and Lake Oolagah (sometimes spelt Oologah) have become the subject of media attention due to stories that a freshwater octopus living in them pulls down swimmers to their deaths. The creature that supposedly resides there is described as reddish-brown, leathery skin and approximately the size of a horse. Some say it looks like an octopus , others like a shark with tentacles.
All the lakes are man made. Lake Thunderbird is a reservoir constructed between 1962 and 1965 for the purpose of providing municipal water to nearby towns along the Little River. (The lake is named after the Native American legend of the Thunderbird, a supernatural bird of power and strength.) Lake Tenkiller was created by damming the Illinois River. The earth-fill dam was constructed between 1947 and 1952 for purposes of flood control and hydroelectric power generation. Lake Oolagah was finished in 1974. The recent nature of the lakes makes it unlikely that any ancient creature resides there.


There are Native American stories about the octopus, going back nearly two hundred years. Most of the tribes in Oklahoma were transplanted there in the 1830s. The tribes settled around the water ways, which then became the lakes. The local legends talk of creatures that lived in the spring-fed ponds that dotted the area before the lakes were there. The stories go on to say that the ponds were linked underground so the tentacle creature would lurk just beneath the surface waiting for prey to come for a drink. It would then drag them to their deaths. When the lakes were made the creatures moved in but still lurked in the old springs that lead to the lake bottom.


Tyler Shuman, Ruthie Simple, and Bruce DelRoy were three teenagers reported to have drownED, pulled down by the creature and the newspaper reports also apparently said the two other teenagers with them had blister like wounds and scabs , like the marks caused by Octopus suckers. However I have been unable to confirm this.
In January 2009 A group of teenagers apparently filed another sighting of the Octopus .(again I have been unable to find official confirmation of this)


Many say a freshwater octopus is not a possibility, however there may be another explanation . Divers in the lakes have seen giant catfish and it is now known that large cat fish will drag a swimmer down and they are carnivorous. It is possible the long whiskers of such a huge fish(Some say as big as a car) could be mistaken for tentacles waving about. There have also been reports of juvenile alligators being seen .I would think the catfish is the most likely culprit. It may not be as exciting as an octopus, but just as deadly and just as interesting.

RICHARD FREEMAN: STRANGE TALES OF JAPANESE OCTOPI

Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai painted the picture Dream of a Fisherman’s Wife in 1820. The picture depicts a beautiful Japanese woman being sexually ravaged by a giant octopus. It may seem strange to westerners, but it is not an unusual image for Japanese culture, because somehow octopi have a hold on the Japanese imagination.

Several monster octopi turn up in their legends

Akkorokamui

In the legends of the Ainu people, the original inhabitants of Japan, this was a monster resembling a giant octopus or fish. It lurked in Funka Bay and adjacent waters off southwestern Hokkaido.

The 19th century Englishman and missionary John Batchelor, who lived among the Ainu , wrote firsthand a journal entry of an alleged actual incident concerning an apparent Akkorokamui in his book The Ainu and their Folklore.

In the morning, we found the whole village under a cloud. Three men, it was said, were out trying to catch swordfish, when all at once a great sea monster, with large staring eyes, appeared in front of them and proceeded to attack the boat. A desperate fight ensued. The monster was round in shape, and emitted a dark fluid and noxious odor. The three men fled in dismay, not so much indeed for fear, they say, but on account of the dreadful smell. However that may have been, they were so scared that the next morning all three refused to get up and eat; they were lying in their beds pale and trembling.

Another old 19th century account was made by a Japanese fisherman and was translated by cryptozoologist Brent Swancer.

And I saw ahead something huge and red undulating under the waves. I at first thought my eyes deceived me and that I was merely seeing the reflection of sun upon the water, but as I approached, I could see that in fact it was an enormous monster, 80 meters in length at least, with large, thick tentacles as big around as a man’s torso. The thing fixed me with a huge, staring eye before sinking out of sight into the depths.

Thomas Beal, a surgeon on a British Whaling ship, described being attacked by a huge octopus whilst on the Bonin Islands off southern Japan in 1835. He was rescued by his shipmates.

Another Englishman, Arthur Grimbal was also attacked but saved by his colleagues.

The Pacific octopus may reach 7 meters across the tentacle span but it does not seem large or aggressive enough to account for these sightings. Could we be dealing with a huge, unknown species?

Nurarihyon

In early legends from Okayama prefecture, Nurarihyon (whose name means slippery and strange) was an aquatic yokai from the Seto Inland Sea. He was said to look like a giant octopus or jellyfish and dived beneath the surface if humans came too close.

By the Edo period Nurarihyon had radically changed. He was then supposed to be the supreme commander of the yokai. For all this he is an unassuming, harmless and rather pleasant fellow. He resembled a green skinned man with an enlarged head shaped somewhat like a cabbage. In the evenings he entered people’s housed and drank their tea and smoked their tobacco. His manner is so confident he was never questioned.

Tako no nana ashi

An octopus with seven legs. These odd tentacled cephelopods haunted the seashore of Chubu District in the Edo period. They crawled up onto land to dig into graves and feast on rotting flesh.

Tako-ningyou

A human headed octopus captured by fishermen during the Meiji period. Make you wonder whether H P Lovecraft read old Japanese texts.