Native American myths/traditions support Bigfoot? A critical look.

[Drewbot]

Willie Seaweed, the carver of those masks, was an extremely accomplished Kwakwaka'wakw artist.

Only the white mask is by W. Seaweed. The other mask was carved before Seaweed was born.

 

[JcR]

I think every civilization has had their Mythological boogie's in the woods.
This art represents the spiritual world. If someone wants to believe and accept these masks represent Bigfoot so be it...Still no Bigfoot skeleton in a museum.
Even a garden has bones.

 

[kitakaze]

Only the white mask is by W. Seaweed. The other mask was carved before Seaweed was born.

You're right, Drew. Thanks for clearing that up. I missed that.

 

[William Parcher]

There was a call-in radio show about Bigfoot and Native Americans recently.

I am an associate producer at "Native America Calling," a nationally syndicated public radio program. I'm contacting you to let you know that on February 11, 2010, we will be producing a show about Sasquatch and the prevalence of Sasquatch-like creatures in traditional and local legends across the globe.

Then the show was reviewed by Kathy Strain.

He implored listeners to call in and tell the rest of the audience what their tribes and elders believed about this creature. I was totally jazzed – how cool would it be to listen to native people talk to each other about my favorite subject? Unfortunately, maybe due to the length of the show, the questions weren’t really explored. There were tidbits here and there that hinted about traditional tribal beliefs, but it was as elusive as the beast himself.

...apparently a family of Sasquatch had been seen right after the Battle of the Little Bighorn looking at the fallen soldiers. If anyone has heard this story before and knows the source, please contact me.

I was surprised when the host stated that he thought the Patterson-Gimlin film had been proven to be a hoax. All the native people I know feel the film shows a real Sasquatch.

Wow to the bolded quotes. Wow. It must have been amazing to see those Bigfoots standing out there in the vast Montana grasslands...

 

[Pup]

...apparently a family of Sasquatch had been seen right after the Battle of the Little Bighorn looking at the fallen soldiers.

Wow to the bolded quotes. Wow. It must have been amazing to see those Bigfoots standing out there in the vast Montana grasslands...

There's some controversy about whether Bigfoot was actually present at the Battle of Little Bighorn, but there was a confirmed sighting at the massacre at Wounded Knee.

Seriously, I'm curious about the source of the bolded quote myself.

 

[EHocking]

There was a call-in radio show about Bigfoot and Native Americans recently.

Then the show was reviewed by Kathy Strain.

Originally Posted by Kathy Strain
He implored listeners to call in and tell the rest of the audience what their tribes and elders believed about this creature. I was totally jazzed – how cool would it be to listen to native people talk to each other about my favorite subject? Unfortunately, maybe due to the length of the show, the questions weren’t really explored. There were tidbits here and there that hinted about traditional tribal beliefs, but it was as elusive as the beast himself.

Well there's 45 minutes of my life that I won't get back.

A bunch of callers relating "sighting" stories and not a single statement from an elder on a myth or legend that is directly related to bf.

The only such allusion was from the vp of Searching for Bigfoot (inc), who claimed that native Americans had such legends. It's the same sad list that has been thoroughly debunked earlier in this thread.

 

[William Parcher]

A bunch of callers relating "sighting" stories and not a single statement from an elder on a myth or legend that is directly related to bf.

A number of the callers gave paranormal attributes to the Bigfoots they encountered. One NA caller sounded old (elder) and he said he sees Bigfoot and thinks they came here by way of UFOs.

The only such allusion was from the vp of Searching for Bigfoot (inc), who claimed that native Americans had such legends.

That was Java Bob who is Tom Biscardi's business partner. He gave a big plug for their website and spelled out the address. Also said that all NA tribes have Bigfoot stories. He thinks that Bigfoot instinctually (or intentionally) avoids white people but not NAs and this is the reason why the modern NAs encounter Bigfoot far more easily (often) than do white folks.

I was amazed at the views and position of the Washington State History Museum Co-Curator Gwen Perkins. She doesn't seem to be skeptical of Bigfoot. When asked of her personal feelings about Bigfoot being discovered - she says she doesn't want that to happen because it would be bad for Bigfoot and it would just end up being put in zoos. Then she brought up the PGF. She said a person claimed to have created the suit but no receipts for that have been produced. She never even mentioned that a guy confessed to wearing the suit. She went on to describe Bob Gimlin as being "reliable and convincing".

 

[Correa Neto]

OK. Cool. When can I expect to see the start of her serious and scientific bigfoot research project at the Washington State History Museum? Or she already has something like this, piggybacked at some other project?

Or its just another empty declaration?

 

[William Parcher]

There is a featured exhibit going on right now at her museum. This will be the second time Bob Gimlin has been the celebrity guest speaker.


WSHM Featured Exhibit - Giants in the Mountains: The Search for Sasquatch

They Might Be Giants has mini interview with Gwen Perkins.

"Giants in the Mountains" is the same exhibit that was at the State Capital Museum. However, we have added new artifacts for the show, due to the increased space in Tacoma. Among some of the new things visitors will see will be more casts from Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, a "tree twist-off" and native masks from the collections of the Washington State Historical Society and the Burke Museum. We were also fortunate to be able to include illustrations by artist Rick Spears, illustrator for "Tales of the Cryptids."

The idea of doing a Sasquatch exhibit was birthed after I had done a significant amount of research for one of our school programs here, in which a professional actor portrayed Dr. Grover Krantz and allowed students to ask him questions. Not long after that, the State Capital Museum in Olympia was trying to decide on a major exhibit for their museum. Sasquatch was suggested, due to the popularity of that presentation and staff members' interest in the subject.

We're all excited to see it back, particularly those of us who were involved in the original exhibit curation and programming. The Sasquatch community is a great group of people: One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about this subject is the opportunity to connect with visitors from across the nation.

The exhibit does not take one point of view or another. We present the story of this being and leave it up to the visitor to draw their own conclusions.

She goes on to plug a number of different Bigfooter organizations.

 

[Correa Neto]

Uhm... OK.

But no actual research program?
I mean, science looking in to it, instead the same old repetition of old crappy data...

ETA- that mask on the left... Is that supposed to be a bigfoot? Looks more like some japanese Kabuki mask or something similar. OK, bigfeet are in the eyes of the beholder...

 

[William Parcher]

Well, the caption for it says this...

"d'Sonoqua-Her Lighter Side", by Pete Peterson, Sr. Learn some of the tribal legends about Sasquatch in this exhibit. (Washington State Historical Society)

ETA: It's from 2006. You can see a bit more about the artist (Skokomish Tribe) here on page 80.

More...

Pete Peterson Sr. is a Skokomish tribal member and a master Salish carver. Peterson’s carving uses indigenous woods to create bentwood boxes, masks, totem sculptures and other Native forms.

 

[GT/CS]

Why do all the masks look like they're being goosed?

 

[Drewbot]

Describing Bigfoot? Flaming Mouth? Screeching Eagle Cans? Serpent Scales for hair?
http://www.ecclectica.ca/issues/2009/1/creative-writing/emily/

D'SONOQUA: WILD WOMAN OF THE KWAKWAKA'WAKW FOREST:

Download D'Sonoqua

She rides the wind high
She dances with lightning
Her hair glitters with molten serpent scales
Her breasts are the black beaks
of screeching eagles
From her flaming mouth roars
the voice of the shuddering mountain
Kwakwaka'wakw Halkomelem Lillooet Tsimshian
She grasps in her great black wooden hands
the skulls of vanquished men
the feathery spines of dead children
D'Sonoqua D'Sonoqua
Wild Wild Wild Woman
of the forest, of the mountain,
of the great red cedar,
She holds up the turbulent indigo sky
Wild Woman Wild Woman
of the writhing slithering
roiling chlorophyll sea.....

 

[kitakaze]

From the Bigfoot roadkill thread...

Cannibalistic Bigfoots, baskets and pine pitch.
Kathy Strain

I've addressed many of the things Kathy has written and said over the years, particularly in this thread. I think Kathy is a pleasant and intelligent lady, but when it comes to Bigfoot in native myths and traditions, we have complete opposite views. I will transcribe and address some of her statements in the interview with George Noory in a post following this one.

First I would like to start with the Hairy Man thing that is central in Kathy Strain's Bigfoot/native myth universe. Kathy has told many people in many interviews that she saw Legend of Boggy Creek as a child and was impacted so much by the film that she went to her teacher and asked how she could study Bigfoot as a living. The teacher told her to pursue anthropology. Kathy received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology in 1990 and a Master of Arts in Behavioral Science (emphasis in Anthropology) in 1994. Her main field of study involved prehistoric human ecology. Kathy Strain is the Forest Program Manager for Heritage Resource and Tribal Relations for the Stanislaus National Forest in Sonora, California.

Kathy has long argued that the petroglyphs of Painted Rock represent a family of Bigfoots. Painted Rock is located on the Tule River Indian Reservation, above Porterville, in the Sierra Nevada foothills of central California. I don't think they show Bigfoots. I think they show lots of things; many animals including bears, spiritual figures, centipedes, and various shapes and figures seen in a vision trance (read flying high). I think the images are a part of a shamanistic tradition and show a number of things that are not real and come from hallucination states. So let's have a really good look at Painted Rock. This link is easily the best look I can provide people on the internet...

Painted Rock, Tule Indian Reservation

That's almost as good as being there. You can look left/right in full 360° as well as up/down and zoom in and out in high definition. So what do we have here? Are we actually looking at native art of Bigfoot? The first challenge in critically investigating this question is going to be overcoming the mountain of Bigfoot schlock we get when trying to research the question. Invariably you are going to be looking at page after page of Bigfoot site relating to Kathy's writing on the subject. It is very hard to wade through it all and find something that hasn't been touched by the hand of footer. It goes without saying that we should take a good hard look at what Kathy has written about the subject. The best start will be...

Mayak datat: An Archaeological Viewpoint of the Hairy Man Pictographs


An excerpt...

This rock art site is unique; not only because it contains a Bigfoot pictograph, but also because of the traditional Native American stories that accompany it. There are no other known creation stories involving a Bigfoot-like creature in California. As far as can be determined, there are no Bigfoot creation stories anywhere else in the west. There is also no evidence of any other Bigfoot pictographs. Most states, including California, keep a database of all recorded sites located on federal, state, county, city, or private land. Based on that information, there is no other known Bigfoot pictographs or petroglyphs anywhere in California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, or Idaho.

One of my first problems with labeling the figures depicted at Painted Rock as Bigfoot is their ambiguity. The main image I think could be interpretted as a number of things anywhere from bear to ghost. But wait a minute, not at any single other place anywhere in Bigfoot land are their pictographs of Bigfoot? This is rather unexpected considering the impact you'd think a race of gargantuan upright apes across across the continent would have on native peoples of North America. You would think you'd see a lot more pictographs. In fact, I would think that native tribes from Alaska to Florida would have all sorts of artifacts related to Bigfoot, not the least of which would be some bones, skin, or teeth.

I always get this foo foo from Bigfoot enthusiasts about how that expectation is unreasonable and uninformed because natives would have seen them as fellow humans, as brothers. You know, like bears. Natives of North America would never harm a bear, right? They would never hurt their human brothers, would they? So right across the continent every single tribe and culture that encounters screaming, rock throwing, baby stealing, forest leveling Bigfoots would uniformally respond with "That is the Boss of The Woods. He is our brother," and turn away as another rock bounces of their head? Somehow I think that at least at some point in the entire history of contact between Europeans and natives of North America, a significant part of a Bigfoot body would turn up.

Getting back to Hairy Man, Painted Rock is attributed to Yokuts. The Yokuts are an ethnic group of Native Americans native to inland central California. You can learn more about the Yokuts here. Painted Rock on the Tule River Indian Reservation is not to be confused with the site Painted Rock in San Luis Obispo County, California. BTW, I think that Painted Rock clearly shows California natives coexisted with mighty minotaurs. Today the area is inhabited by the Tule River Indian Tribe of the Tule River Reservation. The tribe is made of up Yokut, Western Mono, and Tubatulabal people. There can be no denying that the Tule River tribe of today have associated Painted Rock with Bigfoot. It's right smack there on their website. From the link...

Big Foot, The Hairy Man

Big Foot was a creature that was like a great big giant with
long, shaggy hair. His long shaggy hair made him look like a
big animal. He was good in a way, because he ate the
animals that might harm people. He kept the Grizzly Bear,
Mountain Lion, Wolf, and other larger animals away. During
hot summer nights all the animals would come out together
down from the hills to drink out of the Tule River. Big Foot
liked to catch animals down by the river. He would eat them
up bones and all.

Now check this out from the tribe's website section on Painted Rock...

Painted Rock

Painted Rock is located on the Tule River Indian Reservation, above Porterville, in the Sierra Nevada foothills of central California . This site, also known as CA-TUL-19, is a rockshelter associated with a Native American Yokuts village. The site, located immediately adjacent to the Tule River, includes bedrock mortars, pitted boulders, midden and pictographs. The pictographs are located within the rockshelter, and are painted on the ceiling and walls of the shelter The pictographs include paintings of a male, female, and child Bigfoot (known as the family), coyote, beaver, bear, frog, caterpillar, centipede, humans, eagle, condor, lizard and various lines, circles, and other geometric designs. The paintings are in red, black, white, and yellow. This rock art site is unique; not only because it contains a Bigfoot pictograph, but also because of the traditional Native American stories that accompany it. There are no other known creation stories involving a Bigfoot-like creature in California. As far as can be determined, there are no Bigfoot creation stories anywhere else in the west. There is also no evidence of any other Bigfoot pictographs. Most states, including California, keep a database of all recorded sites located on federal, state, county, city, or private land. Based on that information, there is no other known Bigfoot pictographs or petroglyphs anywhere in California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, or Idaho.

You know, it's weird when I read the Tule River tribe's description of Painted Rock because I get the distinct feeling that... hey! WTF? The Tule River tribe's website description of Painted Rock was fricking written by Kathy Strain and is taken verbatim from the link and excerpt of hers I provided above! So wait a minute, Kathy Strain is dictating to the public what the tribe is supposed to be saying about Painted Rock. You know, I find that pretty queer. It's almost like you have a Bigfoot enthusiast sitting down with modern day natives and deciding to call something Bigfoot. It seems to me what is really important is to find out what the person/s who made the petroglyphs think they were painting. We need to find out about these Hairy Man myths and what the Yokuts were saying before anybody talking about Bigfoot was around. Remember, the Yokuts having a Hairy Man figure in no way automatically equates Bigfoot any more than woodwoses or other wild men figures across human cultures of the world do. The first problem I mentioned earlier is that just by googling "Yokuts Hairy Man myth", you get a great big dump of Kathy Strain and Bigfoot sites. I really had dig hard to come up with anything that wasn't footer. One thing that was footer I did find interesting was this excerpt from a January 2004 Paranormal News newsletter on the subject of Painted Rock written by Chris Maier...

Support for the idea that the pictographs at this site do represent Bigfoot comes from a Forest Archeologist for the US Forest Service named Kathy Moskowitz. Last year in Willow Creek, California, Moskowitz gave a talk on the Tule River pictograph site and the traditions that the local Yokuts tribe have of a creature fitting the description of Bigfoot that they call "Mayak datat" or “Hairy Man.” I was able to get in contact with Kathy Moskowitz and she generously forwarded me a copy of her paper.

Moskowitz was raised close to the Reservation and grew up with many of its members. While working on a project for the US Forest Service, she got to know many of the Yokuts tribal elders. The elders explained to her that the images at Tule River are not representations of a grizzly, but rather of the “Mayak datat” or “Hairy Man.”

This identification is supported by the first outsider to write about the site, Garrik Mallery. In 1889, when writing about the site, he stated that the locals identified the large pictograph as representing “Hairy Man.” 2 In 1929, Julian H. Steward noted that a tribal elder also identified this image as “Hairy Man.” 3 In a difficult to find book entitled, Bigfoot and Other Stories, Elizabeth Bayless Johnstone notes that the Yokuts describe “Hairy Man” as “a creature that was like a great big giant with long, shaggy hair.” 4 Moskowitz believes that the evidence that “Hairy Man” and Bigfoot are the same creature is very strong.

In her paper, Moskowitz shares several traditional Yokuts stories that refer to “Hairy Man.” In one entitled “How People Were Made,” “Hairy Man” is described as crying because humans are afraid of him and run away. This story, says Moskowitz, explains the dark streaks found under the eyes of the largest pictograph at Tule River. Ironically, it was these same streaks that Whitley cited as evidence for the creature being a grizzly.

http://www.paranormalnews.com/article.asp?ArticleID=902

There are two points of interest I take from that. First is that it would seem we have some pre-Bigfoot era references to Tule River tribe people referring to the pictographs as showing Hairy Man. Second is the fact that Kathy grew up close to the Tule River reservation with many of its members and got to know the elders. Remember Kathy telling about Legend of Boggy Creek and how she got into her profession because of the huge impact Bigfoot had on her? That makes quite a long time for Kathy to be going around fishing for Bigfoot stories. When I looked for the sources for the Hairy Man tales in Kathy's piece on Painted Rock, she was the source except for one tale sourced to a "Johnstone, Elizabeth Bayless, Bigfoot and Other Stories. Tulare: Tulare Board of Education."...

Bigfoot, The Hairy Man

Big Foot was a creature that was like a great big giant with long, shaggy hair. His long shaggy hair made him look like a big animal. He was good in a way, because he ate the animals that might harm people. He kept the Grizzly Bear, Mountain Lion, Wolf, and other larger animals away. During hot summer nights all the animals would come out together down from the hills to drink out of the Tule River. Big Foot liked to catch animals down by the river. He would eat them up bones and all.

It was pleasant and cool down by the river on hot summer nights. That is when grown ups liked to take a swim. Even though people feared that Big Foot, the hairy man, might come to the river, people still liked to take a swim at night.

Parents always warned their children, "Don't go near the river at night. You may run into Big Foot."

Now Big Foot usually eats animals, but parents said, "If he can't find any animals and he is very hungry, he will eat you. Big Foot, the hairy man, doesn't leave a speck or trace. He eats you up bones and all. We won't know where you have gone or what has happened to you."

Some people say Big Foot, the hairy man, still roams around the hills near Tule River. He comes along the trail at night and scares a lot of people. When you hear him you know it is something very big because he makes a big sound, not a little sound.

Children are cautioned not to make fun of his picture on the painted rock or play around that place because he would hear you and come after you.

Parents warned their children, "You are going to meet him on the road if you stay out too late at night." The children have learned always to come home early.

That is a boogeyman tale if I've ever seen one, but that is also the same tale I quoted form the earlier Tule River Indian Tribe website. Where did that come from? I was able to track it to a piece written by a BFRO curator/investigator, Robert Leiterman...

http://www.bfro.net/leiterman/Bigfoot-rock.htm

Leiterman prefaced the tale with the following note...

Note: The following is one of a collection of stories that were collected, in 1973 through 1975, from grandparents, great grand parents, and other Native Americans, who remembered hearing them, around winters campfires as children. The storytellers, who provided the stories, had translated them into English from their Wukchumne and Yowlumne Dialects of the San Joaquin Valley Yokuts.

BIGFOOT AND OTHER STORIES

By: as told by Rudy Bays and Jennie Franco

Native American Cultural Education Project

Copyright Tulare County Board of Education 1975

Tulare County Department of Education

Office of the Superintendent

202 County Civic Center

Visalia, California 93277

http://www.bfro.net/leiterman/Bigfoot-rock.htm

So the Bigfoot boogeyman tale is sourced to a Ruby/Rudy Bays and Jennie Franco. That is as far as that will take us so now we're going to have to look into Yokuts Hairy Man tales for ourselves. One thing that will aid researching Yokuts mythology is the following...

Yokuts traditional narratives include myths, legends, tales, and oral histories preserved by the Yokuts people of the San Joaquin ValleySan Joaquin ValleyThe San Joaquin Valley refers to the area of the Central Valley of California that lies south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in Stockton...
and southern Sierra Nevada foothills of central California.

Yokuts narratives constitute one of the most abundantly documented oral literatures in the state. They clearly belong to the central California tradition. (See also Traditional narratives (Native California)Traditional narratives (Native California)The Traditional Narratives of Native California are the myths, legends, tales, and oral histories that survive as fragments of what was undoubtedly once a vast unwritten literature.-History of Studies:...
.)

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Yokuts_traditional_narratives

One book referenced in that link should be of some help to us. That would be Indian Myths of South Central California by A. L. Kroeber. (1907 - University of California Publications)...

http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/ca/scc/

In Kathy's paper on Painted Rock we were told tha the Yokuts had the only creation myth of Native Americans that featured Bigfoot. She is the only source for that tale of How People Were Made and When People Took Over that featured Hairy Man. I do not mean to imply she invented the tales, only that I can not find those stories anywhere else. Not a single tale of Hairy Man could be found in any of the texts I reviewed. Many variants of Yokut creation myths were collected from different Yokut tribes and none of them featured Hairy man, either.

At this point I think it would be prudent to examine an opposing viewpoint to the idea that Painted Rock depicts a family of Bigfoots. For this we can look to David S. Whitely, author of A Guide To Rock Art Sites: Southern California And Southern Nevada (1996) and The Art of the Shaman: Rock Art of California (2000). Whitely refutes the notion that Bigfoot is shown and states rather that the anthropomorph figure shows a grizzly bear. Here is an excerpt from CALUMET - Newsletter of the Indian Peaks Chapter of the Colorado Archaeological Society - July, 2006 regarding the Painted Rock site...

Another view of the panel is presented by David S. Whitley in his book, A Guide To Rock Art Sites, Southern California and Southern Nevada.
Guardian of the Supernatural - Tulare Painted Rock is located in Yokuts territory, which stretched from the southern end of the San Joaquin
Valley to the Sacramento Delta, and included both the valley floor and the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. This was a particularly bountiful region,
covered by sloughs and swamps in the valley bottom, which were filled with fish, waterfowl, and game. Rolling hills dotted with oak forests
graced the higher elevations. This site is one of the most spectacular of the Yokuts sites, if not California sites generally.

Rendered in red, white, yellow, and black, it exhibits a complex of images that serve as a textbook example of how south-central California beliefs about the supernatural world were portrayed by the shaman. A lizard, for example, has been painted at the entrance to this large boulder cave. Lizards move in and out of cracks in the rocks that, as noted previously, were believed to be entrances into the supernatural. Lizards were thus considered messengers between the sacred and mundane worlds, with their common depiction at rock art sites signaling that such served as doorways to the supernatural.

A zigzag-rattlesnake motif is located immediately inside the drip line of the cave, just beyond the lizard. In south-central California, rattlesnakes,
paired with the grizzly, were believed to guard the supernatural. As you enter the cave, your eyes will be drawn to the back wall where a series of
large grizzlies are painted. The painting on the extreme right of the back panel, closest to the rattlesnake, is particularly notable. Although faded,
this large figure is portrayed with the characteristic facial exudations of the grizzly, resulting in dark streaks down their cheeks. This characteristic
sometimes resulted in references to grizzlies as "old pitch on the face," and was believed to connect the grizzly with the shaman who sometimes
bled from the nose or mouth during his trances.

The shaman-artist, then, chose to illustrate the two guardians of the spirit world, the rattlesnake and grizzly, which he passed when he entered the sacred realm. There are a number of grizzly and other paintings on the back wall, including a series of three human figures with stretched and elongated heads, depicting one of the bodily hallucinations common to shamans in the trance state. A small panel of yellow motifs, farther within the cave along the back wall, illustrates human figures with bifurcated "exploding" heads, another rendering of this same bodily hallucination. But the most spectacular panel is the ceiling of the cave itself. This includes a series of large human figures, a centipede, a beaver, a frog, and a large yellow animal identified as soksouh, a "dangerous" supernatural spirit.

Numerous entoptic patterns are also present, adjacent to and some times superimposed over these other images. Although not in fact poisonous, centipedes were considered to be malevolent in south-central California and were therefore particularly powerful spirit helpers. Similarly, the beaver was specialized spirit helper for the Ohowish Shaman, a shaman whose powers were connected with water and finding lost objects. The beaver and the frog motifs also allude to the metaphor of going underwater for the shaman's trance, in this case particularly apt supernatural metaphor given the pool of water that is immediately adjacent to the site. This site was called Uchiyingetau, or "markings." It appears to have been painted by a known historical shaman, and thus was created between 100 and 150 years ago. It is a wellknown site and has been described in the professional and popular literature a number of times since 1902. Like many such well-known sites,
popular discussions of it have contributed unfortunate and fanciful myth. One of these is that the large grizzly on the back panel is Bigfoot; another
is that the soksouh figure is "coyote eating the sun”. Neither of these interpretations is supported by the ethnograpy specific to the site, nor that of
Yokuts people in general”.

http://www.indianpeaksarchaeology.org/Calumet/Calumet2006-07.pdf

Whitely's appraisal of the paintings at Painted Rock being 100 -150 years old by a historically known shaman directly contradicts Kathy Strain putting the site between 700 - 2000 years old. Something I find quite noteworthy was written in James K. Agee's Steward's Fork: A Sustainable Future for the Klamath Mountains. Agee notes in the chapter Modern Myths and Monsters that...

Although many local Native Americans claim to have seen Bigfoot, the creature is remarkably absent from Indian myth in northwest California.

(snip)

The Yokuts of San Joaquin Valley represented a "hairy man," or Mayak datat, in pictographs depicted on Painted Rock, but this location is far from northwestern California. Although the Yokuts were of Penutian-language stock, like the Wintus of Northern California, no hairy men appear in northwestern California tribal myth.

Why is this? If Bigfoot was a real species of very human-like animal, why is it so absent from native traditions in Northern California? It's as absent from native myth there as it is absent from the game cameras all over Northern California that keep finding no Bigfoots. Surely these peoples were not missing the creatures if they were there, and surely such animals would have been highly significant to them. Really, the best we can do is a completely ambiguous anthropomorph image on a rock by the Tule River? What I suggest is this - look carefully at Painted Rock. There are all sorts of images of anthropomorph figures on Painted Rock. There are figures with elongated heads, elongated necks, horns, all types of fanciful things that have no basis in reality. What we do see are stylistic depictions of real animals as well as artistic expression of visions seen while being completely blitzed on shaman drugs. The main contentious figure could be Hairy Man, it could be a grizzly bear, or it could be something completely unreal seen while being as high as a kite.

I think it is completely absurd and unrealistic to take a few ambiguous images such as these and declare to the world that we are looking at a family of Bigfoots. So what if there are real animals in there with fanciful creatures? And so what if the Yokuts have a Hairy Man figure in their oral history? Do they? It is conspicuously absent when you review ethnographic collections of their traditions from the last 150 years. Really, so what if Kathy Strain hellbent on finding Bigfoot since childhood talks to some modern Yokuts who relate Hairy Man to Bigfoot. Why not? I can relate British woodwoses to Bigfoot, but that does not mean the United Kingdom was home to sasquatches.

In the end what we have here is an ambiguous anthropomorpic image on a rock of undetermined age almost certainly made by a tribal shaman that lifelong Bigfoot enthusiasts such as Kathy Strain will insist is Bigfoot. The relation may be made by some modern Yokut people, but that in no way confirms that image was made of a real animal encountered by those people. It can not possibly have any real significance when weighed against the fact that no reliable evidence has ever been submitted for Bigfoot and that the creature is nowhere to be found in myth and reality right where we're told it is supposed to be.

In my next post I will get into the things Kathy spoke about in her interview with George Noory.

 

[Correa Neto]

Nice link over there, K. I wonder if my speleofriends are aware of it... Might open interesting possibilities.

Speaking about possibilities, I bet one could find the cryptos below among the figures from Painted Rock (as well as other examples). They are suposed to be real monsters, after all.

Sometimes, if you look too hard, you may believe you found it, even if its not really there. Heavy bias, preconceived ideas, etc. You know the drill. A mask displaying the face of a rotten corpse may be "interpreted" as a bigfoot or a gray alien and the band goes playing la la la la...

 

[William Parcher]

Where is the peer review? Are there no anthropologists who will criticize Strain?

 

[William Parcher]

Maybe there is no peer review because the subject isn't anthropology, nor even archaeology. Amazon sells her book but does not tag or reference it as anthropology. You see it show up in "Religion & Spirituality". It ranks #53 in both Witchcraft and Wicca categories.

 

[William Parcher]

Sierra Sasquatch - MonsterQuest

Premieres on the History Channel, March 17, 2010

Ancient petroglyphs in the Sierra Nevada Mountains depict footprints left by frightening packs of hairy man-like beasts. Now, MonsterQuest heads to the heart of California where witnesses are encountering aggressively territorial packs of Sasquatch. The team will investigate groups of large footprints found here and analyze compelling new video which could be that of the beast.

 

[RayG]

The main contentious figure could be Hairy Man, it could be a grizzly bear, or it could be something completely unreal seen while being as high as a kite.

I think it is completely absurd and unrealistic to take a few ambiguous images such as these and declare to the world that we are looking at a family of Bigfoots.

Good stuff there Kit, skeptics have been unconvinced by bigfoot pictograph claims for a very long time.



Is it a walrus with a mustache, a giant otter, a bear with a sinus infection, a sasquatch with two monocles, a hairy ghost with bleeding eyes, or none of the above?

Where is the peer review? Are there no anthropologists who will criticize Strain?

Yeah, have the majority of other archaeologists reached the same conclusion as Kathy Moskowitz Strain, that the Hairy Man Pictograph = Bigfoot? <crickets>

And I still think the smaller figure depicts an otter, given the Yokuts not only ate otter meat, and used otter skins/fur for clothing, and in ceremonial headdresses, but the pictograph has a cute little button nose, short legs and arms, and darker fur on the top of the head.




RayG

 

[HarryHenderson]

It's almost absurdly funny that the only identifiable resemblance those figures have to 'Bigfoot' is four limbs. And not even the proper limbs at that. Why aren't the legs longer so as to depict a more hominid type anatomy? Yet a bear up on its hind legs would look so much like that first figure. Wow. And I'm with Ray, that second figure is an otter, or a penguin. Both animals are regularly confused for Bigfoot. No they're not?

Appears Kathy Strain is in the same place as Meldrum, and it's not denial. Either, they still haven't seen the light and they in fact believe everything they say - or they have seen it (the light) and realize there's no way anyone is ever going to prove there isn't a Bigfoot and thus the continued promotion of their own 'cosmic insanity' helps them now (career wise mostly) more than it doesn't and/or more than genuine honesty would. I just can't see Meldrum, for instance, coming out and confessing he was wrong about Bigfoot. There's just no need to really. Kinda like criminals that won't cop to their crimes if it won't somehow 'help' them.