Bauman Story

[Guest]

Here is a photo of a Elephant skeleton foot:

 

**Quoted Image Removed **

 

Is it logical for us to assume that upon finding fossilized Mammoth bones (based upon your conjecture) for native Americans to confuse known extant Bear tracks with a track that the foot above would make.

not sure about that

a skeletal bear foot looks very different

Edited October 6, 2013 by Ginger
To Remove Quoted Image

[norseman]

The conjecture that I've pointed out of yours is that you seem rather certain that native Americans were excavating fossils and identifying them as a mammoth. I will agree with you that tusk ivory was often found, but would certainly like to see you flesh out further the concept that native Americans had a working knowledge of WHAT a mammoth looked like.............and of course make the illogical move of misidentifying a Bear track as something else.

 

If as a Indian I witnessed all three of your pictures, 200 years ago? How do I know that I'm not looking at a giant Ape skeleton.........or a giant Bear skeleton, why would I assume that I knew what sort of foot print the creature would leave behind?

 

Boiled down to brass tacks I'm having a hard time (leaving Bigfoot completely out of the equation) why Indian trackers who make their living as guides for white explorers misidentifying a "known" animal track with something they didn't really have a anatomical working knowledge of..........hence a mammoth.

Edited October 1, 2013 by norseman

[Guest]

Flashman2.0,

You write: "IMO prior to crystallising into the term almost solely used for a particular species of prehistoric pachyderm, the term "mammoth" was applied to anything big. It wasn't originally applied just to mammoths but also mastadons."

But your sources betray you. You seem to have it backwards. The origin from the Russian "mammot'" is derived from the Finnish word for "earth" and was referring to ancient elephant bones (although not recognized as such till later.) The beginning use of "mammoth" to mean "large" or "giant" appears to be American, and started with references to a large bundle of cheese given to Jefferson. Calling the cheese "mammoth" was a bit of humor meant to reference Jefferson's keen interest in the issue of the mammoth/pachyderm. "Mammoth" designated the animal before it designated size.

[norseman]

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/mammoth

 

of gigantic size or importance

[from Russian mamot, from Tatar mamont, perhaps from mamma earth, because of a belief that the animal made burrows]

 

This searches always seem so vague, but this site claims it's origins are farther east with the Tartar tribes.

[Guest]

The conjecture that I've pointed out of yours is that you seem rather certain that native Americans were excavating fossils and identifying them as a mammoth. I will agree with you that tusk ivory was often found, but would certainly like to see you flesh out further the concept that native Americans had a working knowledge of WHAT a mammoth looked like.............and of course make the illogical move of misidentifying a Bear track as something else.

If as a Indian I witnessed all three of your pictures, 200 years ago? How do I know that I'm not looking at a giant Ape skeleton.........or a giant Bear skeleton, why would I assume that I knew what sort of foot print the creature would leave behind?

I wouldn't assume First Nations peoples would have excavated fossils. More likely they would have found a large bone, here or there, exposed in the ground or river bed. I never argued that Indians would have known what a mammoth looked like. I've stated as much before.

The likely scenario: They found giant bones, understood them as animal remains, assumed the animals were contemporaneous (since they did not know about fossilization), and compared these giant forms to animals they were familiar with. Some of the sources I consulted stated that some First Nations peoples held a lore explaining the mammoth bones as belonging to giant, ferocious buffaloes.

Contemporary Americans found and viewed mammoth (or mastodon) bones and did not know they were related to elephants (Cotton Mather thought the bones remnants of biblical giants, for instance). They were not understood as elephant bones (although mastodons are not considered elephants, but close relatives) until African slaves began to recognize them as such. Jefferson and others thought it possible that these elephants might still be found in the northwest (where Indian lore had their ferocious, giant beasts banished.)

We had Indian lore about giant buffalo and explorer notions of elephants/mammoths. You had the cultures mixing and swapping of ideas and stories. The "old chief's" account given to Thompson about an large animal that cannot lay down but must always stand, is explainable if the jointless legs of the creature reflect the finding of fossil leg bones so large they would seem to be the entire leg.

While this entire scenario is indeed conjecture of a sort, it is not from nothing. The evidence points this way. Where do you have Thompson or Thompson era Indians discussing giant hairy humans. Such beings do not figure in Thompson's narratives at all. But mammoths do.

Here is something for further consideration:

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/american-elephant-myths.html

Edited October 1, 2013 by jerrywayne

[norseman]

While this entire scenario is indeed conjecture of a sort, it is not from nothing. The evidence points this way. Where do you have Thompson or Thompson era Indians discussing giant hairy humans. Such beings do not figure in Thompson's narratives at all. But mammoths do.

 

Basically we are pitting one native American legend against another. I feel that I have completely demonstrated that many native American tribes believed in wild hairy giants long before the whites ever made land fall on this continent. They also believed in thunderbirds, little elven type creatures, water monsters and a host of other myths.

 

But I do not think that what the Indians where trying to describe to Thompson was anything that resembled an elephant or buffalo or other very large quadruped. Maybe that is what Thompson thought they were trying to interject into the debate over that track way. Or I have a much higher opinion of an Indian tracker during that time frame than I should.

 

So all we are left with is the account, and the description of the track way and it's measurements. A reoccurring theme in these stories and also something that is there, and it seems the evidence points this way, is that people often confuse Bear sign with Bigfoot sign and hypothetically vice versa. We see this in the Bauman story as well...........it's a Bear, but it's not. So it's not a huge leap of faith for modern Sasquatch proponents to look at the description of what is being described and connect the dots.

 

You choose to connect the dots in the opposite direction not because of the description of the track way, but basically because of Thompson's fascination with Mammoths. You also seem to lean on Indian legend to support your Mammoth hypothesis, but the evidence you provided is very very vague about what creature the Indians are describing..........while we don't have this problem with Indian legends of Bigfoot.

 

Again the Walker account from 1840:

 

http://www.bigfootencounters.com/classics/walker.htm

 

Also notice that they are compared to Bears...........again.

 

So which is the more plausible legend in the Thompson account that we are dealing with? And I'm being kind and letting your old chief account stand AS a description of a Mammoth like creature and not something else........because it's so vague.

[Guest]

Flashman2.0,

You write: "IMO prior to crystallising into the term almost solely used for a particular species of prehistoric pachyderm, the term "mammoth" was applied to anything big. It wasn't originally applied just to mammoths but also mastadons."

But your sources betray you. You seem to have it backwards. The origin from the Russian "mammot'" is derived from the Finnish word for "earth" and was referring to ancient elephant bones (although not recognized as such till later.) The beginning use of "mammoth" to mean "large" or "giant" appears to be American, and started with references to a large bundle of cheese given to Jefferson. Calling the cheese "mammoth" was a bit of humor meant to reference Jefferson's keen interest in the issue of the mammoth/pachyderm. "Mammoth" designated the animal before it designated size.

 

So the 19th C was not prior to the 20th and 21st Centuries??? Useage before that was somewhat irrelevant to the period under discussion.

[Guest]

While this entire scenario is indeed conjecture of a sort, it is not from nothing. The evidence points this way. Where do you have Thompson or Thompson era Indians discussing giant hairy humans. Such beings do not figure in Thompson's narratives at all. But mammoths do.

 

Basically we are pitting one native American legend against another. I feel that I have completely demonstrated that many native American tribes believed in wild hairy giants long before the whites ever made land fall on this continent. They also believed in thunderbirds, little elven type creatures, water monsters and a host of other myths.

 

But I do not think that what the Indians where trying to describe to Thompson was anything that resembled an elephant or buffalo or other very large quadruped. Maybe that is what Thompson thought they were trying to interject into the debate over that track way. Or I have a much higher opinion of an Indian tracker during that time frame than I should.

 

So all we are left with is the account, and the description of the track way and it's measurements. A reoccurring theme in these stories and also something that is there, and it seems the evidence points this way, is that people often confuse Bear sign with Bigfoot sign and hypothetically vice versa. We see this in the Bauman story as well...........it's a Bear, but it's not. So it's not a huge leap of faith for modern Sasquatch proponents to look at the description of what is being described and connect the dots.

 

You choose to connect the dots in the opposite direction not because of the description of the track way, but basically because of Thompson's fascination with Mammoths. You also seem to lean on Indian legend to support your Mammoth hypothesis, but the evidence you provided is very very vague about what creature the Indians are describing..........while we don't have this problem with Indian legends of Bigfoot.

 

Again the Walker account from 1840:

 

http://www.bigfootencounters.com/classics/walker.htm

 

Also notice that they are compared to Bears...........again.

 

So which is the more plausible legend in the Thompson account that we are dealing with? And I'm being kind and letting your old chief account stand AS a description of a Mammoth like creature and not something else........because it's so vague.

Your general argument concerning the Thompson affair boils down to this: nowhere in Thompson’s narrative does he define “mammoth. “ That seems to be loophole you are satisfied with.

You also argue that his men knew the tracks were not from a bear and you trust them. You argue too that Thompson was really confused about the tracks, and that the tracks were bear-like, which means sasquatch-like.

You say we have competing Indian legends, one clearly documented and pertaining to hairy, bipedal giants, while the other is more vague in interpreting giant elephants or buffaloes.

I think I have shown that Thompson was thinking “mammoth†as the word is applied to the ancient elephant (or its cousin the mastodon) through his use of the word in his journals/narratives and by employing secondary sources that support that conclusion.

We would not expect Thompson to define “mammoth†when he uses the term any more than we would expect him to define bear, or elk, or any other word that names an animal. Also, given that this affair was first written down in a journal and later a narrative, defining terms would be relegated to things obscure to the reader of the day.

We may have competing legends, but with an important difference. Bones. The mammoth/mastodon left hard evidence of its existence throughout the continent. Since we are not dealing with just Indian guides accompanying Thompson, but French Canadians as well, and they all had an idea about the mammoth via cultural assimilation and based on the fact of the hard evidence for its existence (or prior existence.) We have nothing like that in your sasquatch interpretation, and you even admit Indian tales of sasquatch are on par with belief in thunderbirds, elf like creatures, water monsters and other beings in the pantheon of Indian myth. Not a very strong foundation I would submit.

You say that just maybe mammoth bones were interpreted as bones of a sasquatch-like animal and that Thompson’s men may have used “mammoth†to designate this animal. If so, they were looking for Mighty Joe Young, not a bipedal gigantopithecus (while ever ignoring the known meaning of the word mammoth):

http://www.lakeneosho.org/images/MM3B.JPG

You may recall that Thompson and his men were having an ongoing argument about the very existence of the living mammoth. We see that the men were favoring a mammoth explanation for tree falls just a day or two before the track find. Thompson thought their ideas were nonsense and told them so. A short time later they find large bear tracks and “cry mammoth†again, as if to bait Thompson or to rebut him. He says the tracks are not mammoth tracks. If you believe the “mammoth†was the men’s reference to a sasquatch, then you have Thompson’s dismissal of that idea. In any event, the important fact is that Thompson identified the track maker as an old bear, and this fact should not be ignored.

What you don’t have, but should if your interpretation is correct, are discussions in Thompson narratives about giant hairy tribes of Indians roaming the hills and mountains of the pacific northwest. Do you have any explanation for that omission?

 

So the 19th C was not prior to the 20th and 21st Centuries??? Useage before that was somewhat irrelevant to the period under discussion.

Flashman2.0,

With mammoth talk and the Thompson narratives, we're talking about the late 1700s and early 1800s.

Edited October 2, 2013 by jerrywayne

[norseman]

What you don’t have, but should if your interpretation is correct, are discussions in Thompson narratives about giant hairy tribes of Indians roaming the hills and mountains of the pacific northwest. Do you have any explanation for that omission? 

 

I hold to my interpretation in the text that suggests Thompson was not 100 percent certain as to what made the tracks. But ultimately he concluded it must have been a Bear. Which is a good point, it's quite possible that Thompson did not know about the myth of Sasquatch. Why that is I don't know when we have other accounts of white missionaries, artists and explorers that did report that the Indians of the PacNW did in fact believe in a Sasquatch myth.

 

What I find extra curious is that Sasquatch stories generally have something about a Bear to them. As if the human mind is trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. Thompson, Bauman, Walker and other accounts all have elements of a Bear in them as a possible explanation. Even when Indians are telling them...........no, we know what Bears are, it's not a Bear.

Do we have similar accounts of track ways that instead of snapping over to a large hairy ape man as a possible explanation, they instead snap to a large extinct elephant species? If there are more I'd like to read about them.

[Guest]

With mammoth talk and the Thompson narratives, we're talking about the late 1700s and early 1800s.

Right, so prior to the cheese thing making it a populist term for big things, 1802 it meant something elephanty. Note that that cutoff should be when the account was written down, not when it occurred. Contemporary terms would be used to appeal to a contemporary audience.

 

For instance, someone today might write, "When I first learned to ride a bike without training wheels, I rode straight at an apple tree which totally pwned me." When the writer is about 25+ years old, one may suspect that the incident happened before the internet jargon "pwn" came into being.

[Guest Llawgoch]

^^^^^^

How can you prove that they have other things on their minds? If TV is beaming in across the country? Then we should be able to find some sort of aggregate of people with impressionable minds seeing things that are not there.

 

Here is a UFO map to make a contrast:

 

 

 

It is much much more uniform across the country. Why?

 

 

One reason could be because hoaxers are not likely to claim to have seen a Bigfoot in Chicago as they know they will not be believed, while impressionable people are not expecting to see a Bigfoot there and therefore unlikely to mentally convert any odd sounds or shapes they see there into Bigfoots.  UFOs of course could be anywhere so one would expect far more correlation with population centres simply because there are more people there to hoax or make mistakes.

 

Note that Bigfoot hoaxers don't even have to have been to the place where they claim to have seen one, so naturally if you want to hoax, you will say you were somewhere plausible.

[Guest]

Right, so prior to the cheese thing making it a populist term for big things, 1802 it meant something elephanty. Note that that cutoff should be when the account was written down, not when it occurred. Contemporary terms would be used to appeal to a contemporary audience.

 

For instance, someone today might write, "When I first learned to ride a bike without training wheels, I rode straight at an apple tree which totally pwned me." When the writer is about 25+ years old, one may suspect that the incident happened before the internet jargon "pwn" came into being.

Is it your argument that Thompson was using the term "mammoth" to mean something large or giant (and not a reference to the ancient elephant?) Then mammoth what? "Mammoth" would then be an adjective, not a noun. A mammoth bear? A mammoth hairy man?

But, notice, the "Men and Indians" thought the track maker was a "young mammoth."

http://link.library.utoronto.ca/champlain/DigObj.cfm?Idno=9_96867&Lang=eng&Page=0423&Size=3&query=mammoth&searchtype=Fulltext&startrow=1&Limit=All

How does this fit if they were using "mammoth" as an adjective?

From a source I quoted upstream:

"Although these journal entries have been cited in cryptozoology articles as early evidence of a sasquatch, David Thompson and his men were thinking only of elephants. When Thompson wrote his autobiographical Travels thirty years later, he fleshed out both the winter and fall incidents with his own conjectures. Familiar with recent Siberian findings of whole mammoth remains, he wondered if so grand an animal might really live in the Rockies. He emphasized that the men who had told him about the beast were trusted veterans of mountain crossings who believed what they were saying. He described large bones that had been found in the eastern United States, and connected the veneration of such bones with the Osage Indians, as if he was familiar with Lewis and Clark’s attempt to collect such artifacts from Kentucky."

Source:

http://lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=2860

[Guest]

What you don’t have, but should if your interpretation is correct, are discussions in Thompson narratives about giant hairy tribes of Indians roaming the hills and mountains of the pacific northwest. Do you have any explanation for that omission? 

 

I hold to my interpretation in the text that suggests Thompson was not 100 percent certain as to what made the tracks. But ultimately he concluded it must have been a Bear. Which is a good point, it's quite possible that Thompson did not know about the myth of Sasquatch. Why that is I don't know when we have other accounts of white missionaries, artists and explorers that did report that the Indians of the PacNW did in fact believe in a Sasquatch myth.

 

What I find extra curious is that Sasquatch stories generally have something about a Bear to them. As if the human mind is trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. Thompson, Bauman, Walker and other accounts all have elements of a Bear in them as a possible explanation. Even when Indians are telling them...........no, we know what Bears are, it's not a Bear.

Do we have similar accounts of track ways that instead of snapping over to a large hairy ape man as a possible explanation, they instead snap to a large extinct elephant species? If there are more I'd like to read about them.

I think your interpretation is fatally harmed by the fact Thompson never states the tracks were bipedal. That would have been a large oversight on his part. You would not have bipedal-looking snow tracks from a bear. Given that the men were thinking of a mammoth, the tracks would be from a quadruped.

I do not know off the top of my head any historical accounts of trackways from the 1700s or 1800s that cause us to think "large hairy ape man." As for other accounts of "mammoth tracks," I do not know. The idea that mammoths survive to this day is a belief still held by a few, btw.

Edited October 5, 2013 by jerrywayne

[Guest]

Certain elements of the historical accounts and stories are especially impressive to enthusiasts because they seem to show Bigfoot behavior patterns found in more contemporary accounts. For instance, the Ape Canyon apes threw rocks at the cabin of the miners. Bigfoot rock throwing shows up often in modern accounts.

Does the persistence of such behavior in old and new Bigfoot stories cross-verify the accounts? Are old reports verified by new reports, or vice versa, if the behavior of the presumptive Bigfoot is described similarly in the stories?

I’m assuming the enthusiast, and even the non-enthusiast, would be impressed by finding a Bigfoot story from, say 1900, which would include “tree peeking,†a behavior that is popping up nowadays in Bigfoot witness accounts.

On the other hand, can we be sure that old stories or accounts are not influencing what eyewitness claim to see today? Take the following two stores.

During Operation Persistence at Area X, NAWAC members experienced this set of events. Ms. Strain thought she saw movement in the bush near the group’s campfire location. Mr. Strain went to investigate and stuck his head into the bush area, a bushy around some tree falls. He saw nothing but fallen trees, dark in the bush. Some time later, the group had a sighting of an adult and young Bigfoot, and saw them scramble up the side of a foothill nearby. They believed the Bigfoot must have come from the bush area after all. The next day Mr. Strain looked again in the bush and found that one fallen tree was missing, and today this story is recounted as a sighting by Mr. Strain of a Bigfoot, hiding in plain sight, invisibly mixing in with its natural setting.

Compare that story to this old First Nations story:

“It is reported that a group of Indians followed Skanicum to a ravine through the bottom of which flowed a creek with the usual heavy growth of trees, brush, willows, etc. They sat down on the hillside where they could see the entire area including the hillsides. After a little while when Skanicum did not leave the ravine, some of the Indians went down into the ravine while others maintained vigilance from their vantage point. A complete and thorough search of the ravine yielded no sign of Skanicum, only trees, and they were certain that he could not have left the ravine without being seen. No Indian would dare to start chopping into the trees with an ax. Today, the Indians know all too well that Skanicum's color and natural camouflage enables him to stand motionless against a tree and be nearly imperceptible.â€

Source: http://www.network54.com/Forum/28799/message/1006450712/Choanito,+Sc%27wanay%27tex+and+Skanicum

[norseman]

I think your interpretation is fatally harmed by the fact Thompson never states the tracks were bipedal. That would have been a large oversight on his part. You would not have bipedal-looking snow tracks from a bear. Given that the men were thinking of a mammoth, the tracks would be from a quadruped.

I do not know off the top of my head any historical accounts of trackways from the 1700s or 1800s that cause us to think "large hairy ape man." As for other accounts of "mammoth tracks," I do not know. The idea that mammoths survive to this day is a belief still held by a few, btw.

It was a giant oversight for him, he measures one track, gives us the measurements, describes the non bear characteristics of the track and then leaves us with a feeble conclusion that it was a bear.

As I said earlier the account is vague and lacks any real value one way or another. but i reject your mammoth hypothesis as ludicrous though, it's ridiculous really......

Certain elements of the historical accounts and stories are especially impressive to enthusiasts because they seem to show Bigfoot behavior patterns found in more contemporary accounts. For instance, the Ape Canyon apes threw rocks at the cabin of the miners. Bigfoot rock throwing shows up often in modern accounts.

Does the persistence of such behavior in old and new Bigfoot stories cross-verify the accounts? Are old reports verified by new reports, or vice versa, if the behavior of the presumptive Bigfoot is described similarly in the stories?

I’m assuming the enthusiast, and even the non-enthusiast, would be impressed by finding a Bigfoot story from, say 1900, which would include “tree peeking,†a behavior that is popping up nowadays in Bigfoot witness accounts.

On the other hand, can we be sure that old stories or accounts are not influencing what eyewitness claim to see today? Take the following two stores.

During Operation Persistence at Area X, NAWAC members experienced this set of events. Ms. Strain thought she saw movement in the bush near the group’s campfire location. Mr. Strain went to investigate and stuck his head into the bush area, a bushy around some tree falls. He saw nothing but fallen trees, dark in the bush. Some time later, the group had a sighting of an adult and young Bigfoot, and saw them scramble up the side of a foothill nearby. They believed the Bigfoot must have come from the bush area after all. The next day Mr. Strain looked again in the bush and found that one fallen tree was missing, and today this story is recounted as a sighting by Mr. Strain of a Bigfoot, hiding in plain sight, invisibly mixing in with its natural setting.

Compare that story to this old First Nations story:

“It is reported that a group of Indians followed Skanicum to a ravine through the bottom of which flowed a creek with the usual heavy growth of trees, brush, willows, etc. They sat down on the hillside where they could see the entire area including the hillsides. After a little while when Skanicum did not leave the ravine, some of the Indians went down into the ravine while others maintained vigilance from their vantage point. A complete and thorough search of the ravine yielded no sign of Skanicum, only trees, and they were certain that he could not have left the ravine without being seen. No Indian would dare to start chopping into the trees with an ax. Today, the Indians know all too well that Skanicum's color and natural camouflage enables him to stand motionless against a tree and be nearly imperceptible.â€

Source: http://www.network54.com/Forum/28799/message/1006450712/Choanito,+Sc%27wanay%27tex+and+Skanicum

You cannot have it both ways.....either there is consistency in reports or there is not. You take exception to wood knocking as a modern phenom but then turn around and compare two age gapped accounts because of their similarities? Which is it?

One reason could be because hoaxers are not likely to claim to have seen a Bigfoot in Chicago as they know they will not be believed, while impressionable people are not expecting to see a Bigfoot there and therefore unlikely to mentally convert any odd sounds or shapes they see there into Bigfoots. UFOs of course could be anywhere so one would expect far more correlation with population centres simply because there are more people there to hoax or make mistakes.

Note that Bigfoot hoaxers don't even have to have been to the place where they claim to have seen one, so naturally if you want to hoax, you will say you were somewhere plausible.

Unfortunately the data doesn't hear this out. Urban centers in wooded or mountainous environment do hold reports where as dry places such as the mid west urban centers do not.

Same imaginations and tv programming.