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

[kitakaze]

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

Maybe there is no peer review because the subject isn't anthropology, nor even archaeology.

I would agree. There simply is no one really interested in Kathy's hobby Woods & Wildmen play. It's like if she was a psychiatrist and relationship counsellor who released an S&M dissertation on whipping flagellation techniques? What's all that about? Who cares. The thing that I have trouble with is that in the vacuum of disinterest, Kathy has been free to set up a kind of Bigfoot/native mythology monopoly where so much of her pure speculation has gone unchecked. The rampant proliferation site hosting her stuff across the internet really makes it annoying to try and do any good digging.

In a bit of good news though...

Native American myths/traditions support Bigfoot? A critical look comes in third from the top of a google search of "Native American Bigfoot". Yes! First is wikipedia and second is a Henry Franzoni page (damn you, Franzoni! In my way again!).

 

[kitakaze]

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

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/23249641c2372b58.jpg[/qimg]

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?

This for me has the evidentiary quality for support of Bigfoot as an actual zoological species as Hunster S. Thompson's personal accounts of pterodactyls...

 

[William Parcher]

Two new articles from The Daily World (Washington State)...

Sasquatch creature known by many names in Indian legends

The following is a partial list of Native American words various tribes use to describe Bigfoot, along with some beliefs...

Haida (Queen Charlotte Islands, B.C.): Gagiit; Meaning "man on all fours."

Tsimshean (Central coast of British Columbia): buk 'wus; meaning ape, monkey, or anything that imitates man...

Bigfoot believers

"The stories are the same. There's got to be something out there if people keep seeing them."

STORIES ARE ENOUGH PROOF

Whether or not Bigfoot's existence can be proven by science doesn't matter to (Phillip) Martin. He's heard stories from Natives in Taholah, Elwha Valley and the Lummi reservation, north of Bellingham, who say they've heard it running on rooftops and banging on doors.

 

[Correa Neto]

I may be mistaken, but it seems we are seeing bigfootery -and pseudoscience- at work.

Bigfoot lore incorporated recently bigfoot in 4x4 locomotion mode. Some time later, refferences to it are found after some interpretation (with a huge load of selection bias, so it seems) of Native American lore. Selective system feedback while the lore changes. Interesting!

 

[Cainkane1]

So where are these big hairy men? Why isn't it an everyday occurance that someone sees them, photographs them, heck for that matter why don't we seee tourists feeding them like some idiots feed the bears sometimes? I mean wouldn't Sasquatch enjoy an apple every once in awhile?

 

[Correa Neto]

Oh, but they do love apples.

The problem is that to get them, they roll in the mud leaving a mark which looks exactly like an elk lay.

I suggest methane detectors would be usefull, since they are fond of bean cans too...

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Quote:

The following is a partial list of Native American words various tribes use to describe Bigfoot, along with some beliefs...

Haida (Queen Charlotte Islands, B.C.): Gagiit; Meaning "man on all fours."

Tsimshean (Central coast of British Columbia): buk 'wus; meaning ape, monkey, or anything that imitates man...

Man on all fours ? Oh yeah ! That fits with 99% of Bigfoot reports..

Why would the traditional language of native British Columbians have a word for monkey or ape ?

It's hilarious how they just pull this stuff out of their shorts...

 

[Correa Neto]

Hehehehehe, things can be easily explained in footerland.

Example- "Maybe hey were in contact with tribes from Mexico who knew about howler monkeys. Or European colonists who told them about apes. The identification with bigfoot, the wild hairy beasts which shared the woods with them, was a natural consequence." <- that was a fake quote produced by the footerbot^TM
Of course, assuming they actually had a word for apes & monkeys and also assuming it was brought through cultural contact, one could also propose the bigfoot myth was created or brought by cultural contact, not being related to a real unknown bipedal primate... But would a believer actually want to consider this?

 

[Drewbot]

"Of course they knew about Penguins, over the generations, traders would speak of a place called the Falkland Islands, where there were birds which did not fly."

Or, they were big Monty Python fans

 

[Correa Neto]

I always thoought that thing looked like nothing but an otter... Now, under your influence, it looks like a penguin with an afro hairdo.

Another example how its easy to make a huge mess when interpreting ancient art wearing modern biased googles...

Meh. It does not need to be ancient art. It can also be art from a different culture or subculture.

 

[LTC8K6]

I think that penguin is from Hoboken...

 

[tsig]

I may be mistaken, but it seems we are seeing bigfootery -and pseudoscience- at work.

Bigfoot lore incorporated recently bigfoot in 4x4 locomotion mode. Some time later, refferences to it are found after some interpretation (with a huge load of selection bias, so it seems) of Native American lore. Selective system feedback while the lore changes. Interesting!

Are we witnessing BF evolution in action?

 

[AtomicMysteryMonster]

I may be mistaken, but it seems we are seeing bigfootery -and pseudoscience- at work.

Bigfoot lore incorporated recently bigfoot in 4x4 locomotion mode. Some time later, refferences to it are found after some interpretation (with a huge load of selection bias, so it seems) of Native American lore. Selective system feedback while the lore changes. Interesting!

I love that proponents always seem to avoid the issue of a known animal capable of doing that...BEARS!

 

[Correa Neto]

Stop making sense.

You know, wily bigfeet (bigfoots, whatever) walking on all fours because they are harder to spot in this way is a much cooler and faith-reinforcing idea. They could be watching us from just behind those low bushes over there, you know? They could be everywhere! Have you heard that noise?

 

[DennyT]

I have heard Ms. Strain talk on the subject and I was disappointed in her presentation. This was at the Bigfoot Discovery symposium in N. California. She claimed to have images of Native Americans indigenous to that area (near Santa Cruz), who had bigfoot stories. One of the slides she showed, I recognized FROM HER OWN BOOK, a few minutes later, as being a member of a tribe from a totally different area of the US. Or at least so she claimed in her book. Zero cred from me.

 

[kitakaze]

There are crazy errors all throughout Kathy's book and in her statements publicly about Bigfoot and native myths and traditions. On this very page up at the top, you can see where her central Hairy Man thing is debunked. I think it is exceptionally wow that a person with archaeological and anthropological training would think those petroglyphs show a family of Bigfoots. I wish Kathy would come and discuss it, but I think she's nonplus about trying to defend the ideas promoted in her books outside of a subculture of committed believers.

 

[GT/CS]

There are crazy errors all throughout Kathy's book and in her statements publicly about Bigfoot and native myths and traditions. On this very page up at the top, you can see where her central Hairy Man thing is debunked. I think it is exceptionally wow that a person with archaeological and anthropological training would think those petroglyphs show a family of Bigfoots. I wish Kathy would come and discuss it, but I think she's nonplus about trying to defend the ideas promoted in her books outside of a subculture of committed believers.

Perfect description of what LTer dubbed, "Bigfoot Science".

 

[DennyT]

yeah, I'm sure the museum exhibit and docents are like Fox News; fair and equal. Filling the heads of school kids with this nonsense.

 

[rockinkt]

Bump for the curious new BFF lurkers.

 

[DennyT]

Many North American tribes had little facial or body hair. Early encounters with hairy individuals or tribes, or Europeans, would have been a notable event. It is not surprising that oral traditions or pictographic records would include descriptions which would make mention of hairiness. Similarly, a 6 foot man might have been a "giant" to a tribe of 5ft 2 inchers. Lastly, the translations of these oral traditions is by no means just "word x = English word y." It is so so very difficult in terms of exact meanings.