Have you seen Him? Creatures in Various Tribes Of all legendary Native American beings, none has captured the imagination of non-Native people as much as Sasquatch and other big foot creatures. So intense is this fascination that some Bigfoot enthusiasts seem to have labeled just about every mythological creature ever known in the western hemisphere as another name for Sasquatch. The Bigfoot being is common to the folklore of most Northwest Native American tribes. Native American Bigfoot legends usually describe the creatures as around 6-9 feet tall, very strong, hairy, uncivilized, and often foul-smelling, usually living in the woods and often hunts at night. Native American Bigfoot tribes are almost always said to be unable to speak human languages, using whistles, grunts, and gestures to communicate with each other. In some Native stories, Bigfoot may have minor supernatural powers-- the ability to turn invisible, for example-- but they are always considered physical creatures of the forest, not spirits or ghosts. That is where most the intertribal Bigfoot similarities end, however. In the Bigfoot myths of some tribes, Sasquatch and his relatives are generally shy and benign beings-- they may take things that do not belong to them , but do not harm people and may even come to their aid. Sometimes Bigfoot is considered a guardian of nature in these tribes. The Himalayas of Asia has its Yeti, the Pacific Northwest of America has its Bigfoot: A hairy, ape-like, biped that stands seven to nine feet tall and weighs between 600 and 900 pounds. Bigfoot, or as its often called in Canada, the Sasquatch, is mentioned in stories among most native American Tribes. In fact, the term Sasquatch is a native american word meaning , hairy giant. The first sighting of a Sasquatch , white man apparently came in 1811 near what now is the town of Jasper, Alberta Canada. A trader named David Thompson found some strange footprints, fourteen inches long and eight inches wide, with four toes, in the snow. For hundreds of years, native American has told the stories of a silent but ancient tribe of beings . A mystic race, of flesh and spirit. A giant revered and respected by the native tribes and forest creatures as brother; O’mah, Kushtaka, D’sonoqua, Genowska, Bukwas and later among the descendents of the settlers as the booger, skunk ape and bigfoot. This story is something I’ve wanted to do for years. . Based on witness reports, native American people and of course my own particular thoughts and words . I’ve always disliked the murderous monster depiction of sasquatch. The majority of reports and alleged witness sightings have been of a shy retiring ,man like creature, so the sculpt reflects that, particularly in the face. The body type and fur color( and there will most likely be a few paint version of this, again based on common sighting research and data) Theory says a creature such as this could have traveled across the Bering land bridge as our ancestors did; an ape of asian extraction such as the orangutan, or perhaps Gigantopithecus. The largest primate ever known to have lived, described in the fossil record of mainland China by only teeth and jaw bones; an ape of significant similarity in size and proportion to the legendary sasquatch. Hence the reddish coloring, blackish skin and legs larger proportionately than a human, while featuring a characteristic prevalent in only one species of modern primate; humans. Here in the Northwest, and west of the Rockies generally, the native american people regard Bigfoot with great respect. He is seen as a special kind of being, because of his obvious close relationship with humans. Some elders regard him as standing on the border between animal and human-consciousness, which gives him a special kind of power. (It is not that Bigfoots relationship to us make him superior over other animals; in Indian culture, unlike western culture, animals are not regarded as inferior to humans but rather as elder brothers and teachers of humans. But tribal cultures everywhere are based on relationship and kinship; the closer the kinship, the stronger the bond. Medicined Men and Medicine Women elders in the Northwest tribes , refuse to eat bear meat because of the bear is physically similarity to humans, and Bigfoot is obviously much more similar to humans than bears. As beings who blend the natural knowledge of animals with something of the distinctive type of consciousness called intelligence that humans have, Bigfoot is regarded as a special type of being. But, special being as he is, I have never heard anyone from a Northwestern tribe suggest that Bigfoot is anything other than a physical being, living in the same physical dimensions as humans and other animals. He eats, he sleeps, he poops, he cares for his family . However, among many Indians Tribes in North America... as widely separated at the Hopi, the Sioux, the Iroquois, and the Northern Athabascan -- Bigfoot is seen more as a sort of supernatural or spirit being, whose appearance to humans is always meant to convey some kind of message. TO :The Lakota, or western Sioux, call Bigfoot Chiye-tanka (Chiha-tanka in Dakota or eastern Sioux); chiye means elder brother and tanka means great or big. In English, though, the Sioux usually call him the big man. In the book called The spirit of Crazy Horse, (printed in the 1980s), a non-fiction account( Based on True Events) events dramatized by the excellent recent movie Thunderheart, author Peter Mathiessen recorded some comments about Bigfoot made by traditional Sioux people and some members of other Indian nations. Joe Flying By, a Hunkpapa Lakota, told Mathiessen, I think the Big Man is a kind of husband of Unk-ksa, the earth, who is wise in the way of anything with its own natural wisdom. Sometimes we say that this One is a kind of being from the ancient times who can take a big hairy form; I also think he can change into a coyote. Some of the people who saw him did not respect what they were seeing, and they are already gone. Lakota Medicine, Man Pete Catches told Mathiessen. He is both spirit and real being, but he can also glide through the forest, like a moose with big antlers, as though the trees werent there... We know him as our brother... We want him to touch us, just a touch, a blessing, something we could bring home to our family and grandchildren, that we was there, saying we approached him, and he touched us. They exist in another dimension from us, but can appear in this dimension whenever they have a reason to seek us . See, its like there are many levels, many dimensions. When our time in this one is finished, we move on to the next, but the Big Man can go between. The Big Man comes from the Great Spirit . Hes our big brother, kind of looks out for us. Many years ago, we were going downhill, really self-destructive. We needed a sign to put us back on track, and thats why the Big Man was sent . Ralph Gray Wolf, a visiting Athapaskan Indian from Alaska, told reporters, In our way of beliefs, they make appearances only in troubled times, to help troubled Native American communities get more in tune with Mother Earth. Big Brother beings , brings us signs or messages that there is needed by us to help or change, a need to cleanse, The Giant Footprint Signals us the Time to Seek Change, . Turtle Mountain Ojibway in North Dakota, that Bigfoot --- whom they call Rugaru -- appears in symptoms of danger or psychic disruption to the community. When I read this, I wondered if it contradicted my hypothesis that the Ojibways had identified Bigfoot with Windago, the sinister cannibal-giant of their legends . I had surmised that because I had never heard of any other names for, or references to Bigfoot in Ojibway culture, even though there must have been sightings in woodlands around the Great lakes, and indeed sightings in that region have been reported by non-Indians. But the Turtle Mountain band is one of the few Ojibway bands to have moved much farther west than most of their nation; and Rugaru is not a native or Ojibway word. Nor does it come from the languages of neighboring Indian peoples. I have found . However, it has a striking sound similarity to the French word for werewolf, loup- garou, and there is quite a bit of French influence among the Turtle Mountain Ojibway. (French-Canadian trappers and missionaries were the first whites that they dealt with extensively, and many tribal members today bear French surnames), so it doesnt seem far-fetched that the Turtle Mountain Ojibway picked up the French word , for the hairy human- like being, while at the same time taking on their neighbors positive, reverent, attitude toward Bigfoot. After all, the Plains Cree -- even though they retain a memory of their eastern cousins tradition of the Wetiko (as the Windigo is called in Cree) -- have seemed similarly to take on the western tribes view of Bigfoot as they moved west. The Hopi elders say that the increasing appearances of Bigfoot are not only leave a message or warning to the individuals or communities to whom he appears, but to humankind .. As Mathiessen puts it, they see Bigfoot as a messenger who appears in evil times as a warning from the Creator that mans disrespect for His sacred instructions has upset the harmony and balance of existence. To the Hopi, the big hairy man is just one form that the messenger can take . The existence of Bigfoot is taken for granted throughout Native North America, and so are his powerful psychic abilities. I cant count the number of times that I have heard an elder, say that Big Brother knows when humans are searching for him and that he chooses when and to whom to make an appearance too, and that his psychic powers account for his ability to elude the white mans best efforts to capture him or hunt him down. In most Native American cultures, the entire natural world -- the animals, the plants, the rivers, the stars -- is seen as a family. And So, Bigfoot is seen as one of our close Tribal relatives, our great elder brother . CeTan
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 12:11:34 +0000
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