Bauman Story

[Guest]

While perusing the recent book “Weird Science and Bizarre Beliefs,†by Gregory L. Reece, I found the following passage related to the Bluff Creek circumstances of the late 1950s:

“Once the footprints were encased in plaster, available for study and analysis, there was no going back. Bigfoot moved from the world of folklore and tall tales to the world of evidence and proof. The tracks are a metaphor for what happened to the stories themselves. It wasn’t just the tracks that were captured in plaster and subjected to the microscope, but the legends. Hairy giants became Sasquatch, Sasquatch became Bigfoot, Bigfoot became Gigantopithecus.â€

This in outline is another confirmation of my uncontroversial contention that the modern myth of Bigfoot dates primarily to the events of the 1950s in and around Bluff Creek California (and B.C.), with supporting cast of Roe, Ostman, Dahinden, Wallace, Crew, etc., given shape and impetus by Sanderson and especially Green.

This common enough scenario is thought “delusional†by Gunnerman.

[Guest]

I know the Tsimshian “monkey mask†and the stone “ape-head†discussed upstream and I’d like to add to it.

Here are two artifacts that are used by enthusiasts to bolster the idea that Native Cultures in NA knew of the existence of American apes. The first is a Niska Indian ritual mask collected around 1900 in northern British Columbia by a Lt. G.T. Emmons. Emmons intriguingly described the mask as representing †a mythical being found in the woods and called today a monkey.â€

The mask was donated to the Peabody Museum in 1914 by Emmons:

http://www.sasquatchcanada.com/uploads/9/4/5/1/945132/5682923_orig.jpg

Unlike other Indian artifacts purported to represent native apes, this one is unambiguously apelike or monkeylike. It has one humanlike characteristic though; its teeth are even in length and without prominent canines.

What are we to make of this? It has been suggested that this mask represents bukwus, which in turn is the localized term for Bigfoot in certain First Nation cultures. I have been unable to locate this pertinent article that might help: “The Monkey from Alaska: The Curious Case of an Enigmatic Mask from Bigfoot Country,†by Edwin L. Wade, in Harvard magazine, Nov.-Dec. 1978, pp. 48-51.

Instead, I’ve relied on a secondary source that mentions Wade’s article, "Bigfoot: A Personal Inquiry into a Phenomena", by Kenneth Wylie, pp. 81-82. Here is the relevant parts of Wylie’s comments, after he relates the fact of artifacts “that reveal puzzling apelike creatures in a world where no known apes are found:â€

"The most famous of these is the “monkey mask†(now in Harvard’s Peabody Museum) representing a creature called bukwus by the Tsimshian Indians. This has become notorious as an example of archaeological proof for the Sasquatch’s existence. The case has been examined by Edwin L. Wade, an ethnologist and archaeologist at Harvard who specializes in North American Indians. Wade notes that among the Tsimshians, bukwus is nocturnal, herbivorous, semi aquatic, and antisocial, but it is also small, no larger than a man….[Thebukwus] …looks rather like one of several varieties of monkey…."

"Wade does not shy away from the problem of explaining an apelike mask, such as bukwus,in an area where no apes or monkeys are supposed to exist. He points out the simple fact that all of the peoples of the Pacific Northwest coast had regular contact with Europeans and American seamen, especially after whaling and merchant ships began to visit the region in the late eighteenth century. By the 1840s several of the coastal tribes had a “booming tourist-art business,†carving all kinds of exotic beasts for ships’ captains, fur traders, and merchants. Many of these carvings, usually done in slate, portray peacocks, lions, elephants, and, of course, monkeys, none of which are indigenous to North America. Northwestern Indians may have hired on as crew members on whaling vessels, being expert whalers themselves (like Tashtego in Moby ****, though he came from the opposite side of the of the continent), and so traveled around the world. Northwest Coast artists were allowed great liberty in interpreting their subjects, since their carvings were not religious icons and thus fixed in purpose or meaning. It would be easy enough for a native carver to incorporate a new and captivating “monkey†style, borrowed from abroad. This interpretation, Wade suggests, is at least as good as the one that postulates that the bukwus mask is based on a Bigfoot creature that exists in nature."

I would think Wade’s possible solution is much more likely than the Bigfoot enthusiast’s. Even Christopher Murphy has to credit a variation on this idea in his "Know the Sasquatch/Bigfoot". On page 22 he portrays the “monkey mask†and offers this: "Other than a sasquatch, the only plausible explanation for the source of this image is a pet monkey brought to North America by an early European sailor."

The second artifact is without provenience but found in Washington state’s Maryhill Museum. I assume it is thought to be from the Columbia River area where other First Nation carved heads from stone were excavated. Here is a picture:

http://orhistory.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Carved-Stone-Heads.jpg

This stone carving is said by some to represent an ape’s head. I don’t see that. This looks more sheep like to me. The pronounce brow is probably the truncated curving horns of a mountain sheep, the elongated face and non-deep seated eyes certainly don’t look ape like. It looks more like a mountain sheep than an ape:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mharrsch/2374261134/in/set-72157607725827914/

[MIB]

And my grandma knitted me some mittens.   Does either have anything to do with Bauman's story?

 

You're talking about coastal BC.   Bauman's story comes from the ID/MT border area.   Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but so far as I know, the tribes local to that area would not have been part of the coastal tradition you're trying to drag into the discussion.

 

If there's relevance to what you're saying, please connect the dots because I don't see them.

 

MIB

Edited December 15, 2013 by MIB

[Guest]

While perusing the recent book “Weird Science and Bizarre Beliefs,†by Gregory L. Reece, I found the following passage related to the Bluff Creek circumstances of the late 1950s:

“Once the footprints were encased in plaster, available for study and analysis, there was no going back. Bigfoot moved from the world of folklore and tall tales to the world of evidence and proof. The tracks are a metaphor for what happened to the stories themselves. It wasn’t just the tracks that were captured in plaster and subjected to the microscope, but the legends. Hairy giants became Sasquatch, Sasquatch became Bigfoot, Bigfoot became Gigantopithecus.â€

This in outline is another confirmation of my uncontroversial contention that the modern myth of Bigfoot dates primarily to the events of the 1950s in and around Bluff Creek California (and B.C.), with supporting cast of Roe, Ostman, Dahinden, Wallace, Crew, etc., given shape and impetus by Sanderson and especially Green.

This common enough scenario is thought “delusional†by Gunnerman.

 

You just torpedoed your own argument, Jerry (common enough occurrence).

 

By your own quote, there were ample "myths"/"legends"/etc about similar critters PREdating Bluff Creek.

 

The only thing your quote does is note the moment where the investigation of the critter moved beyond gathering "soft" data and started gathering "hard" data.

Edited December 16, 2013 by Mulder

[TedSallis]

http://ericdockett.hubpages.com/hub/Teddy-Roosevelt-Bigfoot

 

Don't know if this has been discussed before but I haven't seen it here.

 

Enjoy if you haven't seen it.

[Bonehead74]

http://bigfootforums.com/index.php/topic/40331-bauman-story/?hl=+teddy%20+roosevelt

[TedSallis]

Argh!  I feel that the line from that old Who song, "every thought that's in my head, someone else has said".

 

Oh well, thanks Bonehead! 

[Guest]

I am sure this was mentioned already but I did not read every post in the thread.  It wouldn't be bear or bigfoot.  A bear does not break a person's neck and leave bite marks on the throat.  It is entirely possible a BF would break someone's neck (no evidence they do or do not) but teeth marks is not in their M.O.  If they wanted to kill or damage a person biting them is so left field it isn't worth consideration.

 

If this tale has any semblance of validity in the cryptid kingdom, the cause of death would have to be from a different creature.

[norseman]

Why is that? Do Gorillas and Chimps bite people? Absolutely.

And Rocky killed one of his trainers with a bite to the neck......

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/movie-star-grizzly-bear-kills-trainer-bite-neck-article-1.283397

I would say that there is nothing at all off with this story with either a Bear or a cryptid Ape.

[Guest]

If you really believe what you are saying Norseman then you have not done enough research or you are not grasping the realities of the species.

[BigTreeWalker]

If you really believe what you are saying Norseman then you have not done enough research or you are not grasping the realities of the species.

Where does your knowledge come from about BF and where did you get your ideas about bears?

[norseman]

If you really believe what you are saying Norseman then you have not done enough research or you are not grasping the realities of the species.

Option three of course is that you cannot back up your statement, nor refute mine and so you just resort to a personal attack.