T. Peter Park
Fri, 12 Sep 2008 21:54:59 -0700
Bigfoot in the Sixties?the 1860s http://www.fatemag.com/issues/2000s/2008-0910article3.html <http://www.fatemag.com/issues/2000s/2008-0910article3.html>
Bigfoot in the Sixties?the 1860s
by W. Ritchie Benedict
FATE :: September-October 2008
It is a common fallacy to believe Bigfoot sightings had a beginning
and an ending in some presumedly hoaxed footprints in California in
1958.
The press had a field day a few years ago, when the man suspected of
making the prints died. One would have thought that was all there was
to it. Nothing could be further from the truth. In my home province of
Alberta, for example, sightings go back to at least 1938 in modern
times, and to 1811 when explorer David Thompson spotted some prints
near present-day Jasper on the Athabaska River.
One notable encounter involved a ten-year-old girl who was a member of
the Stony tribe back in 1944. Together with her aunt, uncle, and
various cousins, she was traveling west of Rocky Mountain House in a
horse-drawn wagon on a dirt road, now the David Thompson Highway
between Red Deer and the Columbia icefields. When the wagon came to
an abrupt halt, all the children in the back stood up and observed a
seven- or eight-foot-tall manlike creature covered with hair standing
in the road about 100 yards in front of them. The girl's aunt told
the children to lie down in the back of the wagon while she threw a
blanket over them, while her uncle exclaimed "Msnapeo!" and turned
the wagon around for home.
The United States had a wave of sightings of Bigfoot-like creatures in
the late 1860s. There may have been some in Canada as well during this
period, although the only direct reference I could uncover was
somewhat ambiguous. It appeared in the Victoria, British Columbia,
Daily Colonist on October 6, 1860.
The piece, titled "An Indian Tradition," tells of the Sim-moqui. It is
unclear whether the reference is to a forgotten race of hairy humans
or to a Sasquatch gathering. The creatures were described as having
heavy black whiskers and matted hair, but without knee or elbow
joints. It was said that they never traveled in the daytime, as the
sunlight rendered them as blind as bats. They were said to have red
eyes (this is a common Bigfoot feature when one is caught in car
headlights).
The legend says that a group of Sim-moqui seized some Indian women and
were eventually hunted down by the Planimooches tribe. Over a dozen
were brought down by rifle fire, and the women were rescued. When
asked, the narrator of the tale stated they continued to exist in the
1860s, saying that lots of them were still around: "They live by the
side of a lake on a big mountain, and the shores of the lake are
covered with gold."
Were the Sim-moqui merely members of a rival tribe, or something else?
You be the judge. Meanwhile, far to the south and east, Bigfoot
sightings in the U.S. were kicked off in 1855 by what may have been a
baby specimen in Waldorboro, Maine. A man chopping wood encountered
an object standing between two trees. He chased it and succeeded in
capturing it. The creature was male, about 18 inches in height and
readily consumed water and beechnuts. With the exception of his face,
hands, and feet, he was covered with jet-black hair. The man chopping
wood, J. W. McHenri, offered in his letter to the editor to show the
creature to anyone who was interested.
The Milwaukee Sentinel presented a story which was later picked up by
the Halifax Morning Chronicle on September 9, 1867. Titled "A
Milwaukee Mystery: A 'What-Is-It, '" at first blush it seems to be
yet another tale of a feral human being. Nevertheless, there are
elements, such as a piercing shriek, that appear to place it squarely
in the Bigfoot camp.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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