Mythical (?) creatures - part A
Hairy, high and hard to find: America’s Bigfoot
In the mid-1800s, a clergyman living in the north Ameri-
can state of Washington wrote down and published
some of the beliefs of the local Indians.
One of the Native American stories was of a giant, man-
like creature, covered with hair and with a strong smell.
The creature lived in the cold, misty forests of the Pa-
cific Northwest and seemed fairly harmless, except that
it now and then stole food from the Indians.
The clergyman's notes were the first recorded mention
of what we know today as Sasquatch, or Bigfoot.
Since then, there have been hundreds of claimed sight-
ings, many expeditions - both scientific and merely sen-
sational - and scores of hoaxes. Bigfoot has spawned
books, films and, in Harry and the Hendersons, a televi-
sion comedy series.
Lively as the debate around Bigfoot's existence is, there
is one telling circumstance supporting the sceptics. In
over a hundred and fifty years of searching, no one has
ever found even a part of a Bigfoot body.
So, the legend's detractors say, either Bigfoot's relatives
eat the departed, bones and all, or Sasquatch is immor-
tal.
Bigfoot believers dismiss this theory, saying that no one
has looked hard enough. Instead, they point to the pho-
tographs and amateur movies clearly showing
Sasquatches in their native habitat. Well ... perhaps not
exactly clearly, but still recognisable as Bigfeet (or Big-
foots?).
The most famous of these films was shot in 1967 by
Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin in a remote forest in Pictured: a frame from the famous Patterson-Gimlin film,
northern California. Using a rented cine-camera, Patter- allegedly of a Bigfoot in a California forest. Inset: hairy but
son and Gimlin were actually looking for Bigfoot to film harmless: Harry the Sasquatch in the TV comedy, Harry and
the creature for a documentary. the Hendersons
The two men said later that they were riding and leading
packhorses around a large, fallen tree when they saw a he pounded up slopes in pursuit of his subject.
Sasquatch about twenty-five feet (about 7.5 metres) But Freeman had a track record of Bigfoot hoaxes. He
away. Patterson's horse reared and threw him, where- had already admitted faking Sasquatch footprints and
upon he picked himself up, grabbed the camera and ran his credibility was so low that most scientists dismissed
after the Bigfoot as the creature walked quickly away. his latest effort as an obvious fraud. And yet the film was
Gimlin, in the meantime, followed a short way behind, still compelling to Bigfoot enthusiasts. And there were
carrying a rifle as protection in case of an attack by the some well-known anthropologists who allowed that the
creature, or by another Bigfoot. film just might be genuine.
The resulting 50 seconds of film was marred by the So, does Bigfoot inhabit North America's temperate for-
shaking of the camera as Patterson ran in pursuit of the ests, or does he exist only in the fevered imaginations of
Bigfoot. Only in the middle section was the creature Sasquatch hunters?
relatively clearly shown. Jane Goodall, the famed primate researcher and world
However, Patterson and Gimlin incorporated the foot- authority on chimpanzees, probably summed up the Big-
age into a documentary film, as had been planned, and foot debate in a radio interview, when she said she was
the venture made a little money, but certainly not a for- not prepared to dismiss the existence of Bigfoot out of
tune. Moreover, although the film had its supporters, it hand.
had many more "experts" lining up to debunk the Big- "I've talked to so many Native Americans who all de-
foot footage as a hoax. scribe the same sounds, two who have seen them," Ms
The same treatment was given to a film shot in Wash- Goodall said. Of course, she added, the fact that no one
ington State in 1982 by a US Forest Service patroller had ever found a Bigfoot body raised questions that she,
named Paul Freeman. The film was arguably of better for one, could not answer.
quality than the Patterson-Gimlin effort. It also had a "Maybe they don't exist," Jane Goodall told the inter-
soundtrack and viewers could hear Freeman panting as viewer, "but I want them to."
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Mythical (?) creatures - part B
Above: a 1934 artist’s impression of a bunyip. Bottom right: Paul Cropper and Tony Healy, authors and yowie hunters
If you go down in the bush today ...
Australia's platypus is such an odd-looking creature that the Murrumbidgee River in 1846, it was identified as
early samples preserved and sent back to Europe were that of a genuine bunyip. The following year, the skull
promptly declared to be fakes - made up of bits of other was put on show in a Sydney museum. It created a sen-
animals cunningly sewn together. sation.
With many other animals such as kangaroos with which Eventually, however, scientists came to the conclusion
to startle the rest of the world, it would seem unneces- that the skull was from a deformed known animal rather
sary to dream up even stranger ones. However, with than from an unknown species. Everyone lost interest
yowies, bunyips and drop bears, Australians have ap- and the museum quietly withdrew the "bunyip skull"
parently done just that - unless, of course, the creatures from public view.
actually exist. The yowie, however, is very much alive, according to
According to some, drop bears may have been invented many Australians. Paul Cropper and Tony Healy, for
to deter small children from walking under large euca- example, have written books on the subject. The Yowie:
lypts, trees with a disconcerting habit of shedding in search of Australia's Bigfoot, describes yowies as
branches on the heads of those passing underneath giant, man-like beasts with reddish body hair and a foul
them. ("Don't walk under the trees, children, or the drop smell.
bears'll get you") In fact, this could also describe the North American
Bunyips are a different matter. These fearsome crea- Sasquatch, or Bigfoot. It has been seriously suggested
tures apparently existed long before European settlers by some yowie hunters that the two species are related.
came to the Great South Land. Aboriginal legend has Sceptics point out that, as most Australian wildlife
bunyips inhabiting swamps, billabongs and rivers. In evolved in isolation over many millennia, any yowie ex-
fact, most bunyip stories involved a body of water. This isting would howl, roar or shriek with no trace of an
circumstance has prompted some cryptozoologists to American accent.
theorize that the bunyip was inspired by race memories
of some sort of ancient amphibious creature, like a
diprodoton.
In any event, the bunyip was a creature to be reckoned
with. It has been described as having flippers and a wal-
rus-like tail, as well as tusks to help it kill and devour
any unfortunate animal or human who happened upon
it.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there
were serious attempts to locate and identify the bunyip.
When an odd-looking skull was found on the banks of
See more information at www.echoed.com.au/connections