OLDEN TIMES:
Another one of our mysteries which is set in stone in the ancient mind — either those old folks had no clue whatever, or we don’t.
Ivan had several classic illustrations of hairy wild men which formed part of his ideas on the “Wudewasa” of Europe’s past, and I’ll just post a few here. The above is, I believe, a fragment of a painting study by Hans Durer {I’ve never heard of Hans Durer; Albrecht Durer yes.} .
All of these are interesting, but the very bottom drawings intrigue. I notice that the picturing of the Ourang-outan is quite like the drawing of the wildman by Bontius, and that slides right into the drawing by Gesner of Breydenbach’s apeman. This in turn reflects upon the next picture.
These are illustrations for Breydenbach’s Travels in the Holy Land. Our wildman is at the bottom right, and it, if just an orangutan is pictured with a tool and leading a camel. Well, that is at least odd. Other than the “orangutan/wildman”, the camel, giraffe, crocodile and long-eared sheep seem uncontroversial. But what about the giant salamander and the unicorn? The unicorn has as “Narwhal-looking” a horn on it as any I’ve seen. Is Breydenbach just a wholesale liar?? He states unmistakenly: ” These animals are truly depicted just as we saw them in the Holy Land.” What’s going on? The only way that I can think to rescue his reputation would be to say that he visited some notorious stuffed animal museum which contained real and whizzed up animals.
…….. or he could have really seen a unicorn and a giant salamander.
But we don’t want to think about that, I guess. Too Out Proctor with too little data.
Alright. Pushing onward into the Bush: GIANTS.
Ummm…. ugly. Can The True and The Ugly be one? Though Plato didn’t think so, {he of “the good, the true, the beautiful” idealism}, he must have not taken himself literally in the popular definition sense of beauty, since, despite what the guy in The Princess Bride said, he was not a moron. Our Native Americans believed in a true race of giants and one of their artists is telling us that we are now looking at one. … Sasquatch with a shave and a haircut??
Ivan published at least three articles in PURSUIT on the subject of Giants. The first claimed that Lundy Island [a small piece of land in the general gap between Wales and Cornwall] had two ancient coffins containing two eight-foot skeletons plus “sacrificed slaves”. Upon trying to track this claim down, SITU got nowhere except to hear that the original writer of the newsclipping got his “data” from an “older clipping” and “reference books”, all unnamed and unfound.
A second article listed several dispersed claims. a]. 100 miles south of Tug Hill, PA remains of a people of giant size; b]. Sayopa, Sonora Mexico old cemetery of burials of men averaging eight feet; c]. El Boquin, Chontates District, Nicaragua gigantic man with head missing. {Ivan noted that Chontates is an indian word meaning “wildman”}; d]. Island off southern Florida eight foot tall human skeletons embedded in the sand; e]. Tioga Point, Bradford county PA 68 men buried in a mound, averaging seven feet tall; this last group was said to have evidence of horns on their heads. … I think that I’ll pass on these … for more than one reason.
The third article was an examination of a claim repeated by Ivan himself in his classic Abominable Snowman: a Legend Come to Life. In that he spoke of a giant skull found during WWII on the very western tip of the Aleutian Island chain. The catalyst for this PURSUIT article was the appearance of an old Sanderson acquaintance who was on site when the thing was uncovered. This man had scolded Ivan for not asking him about the claim before publishing it in his book. Ivan retorted: “I didn’t know you were there!!” The man [kept anonymous by Sanderson] went on to describe uncovering the damaged and degenerating skull of what he called an Icthyosaur [Ivan disagreed with that identification while buying that this thing was not human], which had lost part of its beak, and was in the process of losing the rest. The seamen were referring to it as The Giant, while not knowing what they were talking about. Ivan then rejected the spectacular claim, and with the new data decided that something like a bottle-nosed dolphin was a better guess.
There were also two articles from something called Forgotten Ages. These things were entitled “The Sons of Goliath, parts one and two”.These articles were loaded with giant claims and far too dense for me to detail here. I’ll give a too-brief thumbnail. Part one was more worldwide while part two was almost entirely US focussed. Part one listed claims of the following sort: a]. 1928 Ecuadoran Central Railroad blasting crew— eight foot and nine foot giants. b]. about same year, Gargayan, Philippines — seventeen foot tall skeleton; c]. also same period, Ceylon — thirteen foot skeletons; d]. 1960 Tura, Assam, India — eleven foot skeleton — “authorities” dismiss it as “only” the bones of an ape … uhhh, just an eleven foot ape? Sure, no news there; e]. 1969 Terracina Italy — fifty tiled coffins each containing a skeleton between 6 1/2 and 8 feet tall; f]. 1891 Crittendon, Arizona — sarcophagus with skeleton 12 feet tall; g]. 1911 and 1931 and 1939 Lovelock, Nevada — several skeletons and mummies between 6 1/2 and 9 feet tall, between 8 and 10 feet tall, and one seven feet seven inches; h]. 1879 Brewersville, Indiana — number of skeletons one of which was 9 feet 8 inches tall; i]. 1925 Walkerton Indiana — eight skeletons 8 to 9 feet tall; and eight more instances, most of which were from Minnesota. In one of those “mound stories” it was insisted that among the remains were the bones of HORSES despite them not being native to the continent.
Part two of this hard-working review piece, concentrated on the idea that not only was the North American continent littered with the remains of giants, but that the Native Americans knew this all along. These giants went by the names of the “Sitecah” or the “Allegewi” or the “Telligewi” [among doubtless others]. They were considered to be the legendary opponents of the current tribes, of great size, fair skin, outstanding understanding of technology, and the builders of the mound culture. The academic archaeologists and anthropologists cringe horribly at even the thought of this, as it is academic cant that the Native American peoples built all of that themselves — I by the way am happy with the thought that the direct ancestors of the current peoples were the Mound Builders, but in the spirit of Charles Fort severely disapprove of having such conclusions as basic “untouchables” built right into the psyches of a whole tribe of academics by training [programming]. It should at least give a little pause when native elders and shamans tell you a different story.
The part two goes on to fire even more shots across the academic bows, bringing up the much argued “Chinese exploration of the Americas” as claimed documented in the Shan Nai King. Herein it is claimed that America was well explored in the 2000BC era, and two areas of Giant inhabitation were found [The East Coast and the Western Deserts, if you’re interested]. The Chinese called the latter “The Great Men’s Country”. There was also a somewhat lengthy description of something that has totally eluded me over my 75 years — the lost work of a student of Plato, Theopompus of Chios, who allegedly wrote something called the Meropidae. {I’ve got to look this up and see if it’s even real}. This thing, a dialogue between King Midas and the Satyr Silenos [THAT would have been one great conversation to sit in on — hah!], purported to describe the inhabitants of the land across the ocean. Guess what? They were giants. … and two types of giants. Supposedly, they came across the ocean once, landing in Hyperborea [Great Britain], whereupon they were confronted by a happy and strong people [The Druids no doubt].
Well, much fun. I haven’t a clue as to whether any thing of this is real, except one thing: Native American legends are rife with images of physically real large humanoid somethings-or-other having intelligence. How does that relate to Sasquatch? That’s your job now.
Interesting to me to read of an interview with Eric Shipton, being as his famous Yeti print is such a big deal in this ABSM data bank.
The rest of this small article continues below — I couldn’t get the scale correctly matched, but it’s the same article….
