Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology

Bigfoot

Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, is a hominid cryptid that some people believe inhabits forests, mainly in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Bigfoot is usually described as a large, hairy, bipedal humanoid. The term sasquatch is an anglicized derivative of the Halkomelem word sásq'ets.

Most scientists discount the existence of Bigfoot and consider it to be a combination of folklore, misidentification, and hoax, rather than a living animal, because of the lack of physical evidence and the large numbers of creatures that would be necessary to maintain a breeding population. Scientists Grover Krantz and Jeffrey Meldrum have focused research on the creature for the greater parts of their careers.

Bigfoot is described in reports as a large hairy ape-like creature, in a range of 6.6-9.8 ft tall, weighing in excess of 500 pounds, and covered in dark brown or dark reddish hair. Purported witnesses have described large eyes, a pronounced brow ridge, and a large, low-set forehead; the top of the head has been described as rounded and crested, similar to the sagittal crest of the male gorilla. Bigfoot is commonly reported to have a strong, unpleasant smell by those who claim to have encountered it. The enormous footprints for which it is named have been as large as 24 inches long and 8 inches wide. While most casts have five toes - like all known apes - some casts of alleged Bigfoot tracks have had numbers ranging from two to six. Some have also contained claw marks, making it likely that a portion came from known animals such as bears, which have five toes and claws. Proponents claim that Bigfoot is omnivorous and mainly nocturnal.

Wildmen stories are found among the indigenous population of the Pacific Northwest. The legends existed before a single name for the creature. They differed in their details both regionally and between families in the same community. Similar stories of wildmen are found on every continent except Antarctica. Ecologist Robert Michael Pyle argues that most cultures have human-like giants in their folk history: "We have this need for some larger-than-life creature."

Members of the Lummi tell tales about Ts'emekwes, the local version of Bigfoot. The stories are similar to each other in the general descriptions of Ts'emekwes, but details about the creature's diet and activities differed between family stories.

Some regional versions contained more nefarious creatures. The stiyaha or kwi-kwiyai were a nocturnal race that children were told not to say the names of lest the monsters hear and come to carry off a person-sometimes to be killed. In 1847, Paul Kane reported stories by the native people about skoocooms: a race of cannibalistic wildmen living on the peak of Mount St. Helens. The skoocooms appear to have been regarded as supernatural, rather than natural.

Less menacing versions such as the one recorded by Reverend Elkanah Walker exist. In 1840, Walker, a Protestant missionary, recorded stories of giants among the Native Americans living in Spokane, Washington. The Indians claimed that these giants lived on and around the peaks of nearby mountains and stole salmon from the fishermen's nets.

Local legends were compiled by Indian Agent J. W. Burns in a series of Canadian newspaper articles in the 1920s recounting stories told to him by the Sts'Ailes people of Chehalis and others. The Sts'Ailes maintain, as do other indigenous peoples of the region, that the Sasquatch are very real, not legendary, and take great umbrage when it is suggested that they are. According to Sts'Ailes eyewitness accounts, the Sasquatch prefer to avoid white men, and speak the "Douglas language", i.e. Ucwalmicwts, the language of the people at Port Douglas, British Columbia at the head of Harrison Lake.

Burns was who first borrowed the term Sasquatch from the Halkomelem sásq'ets and used it in his articles to describe a hypothetical single type of creature reflected in the stories. Burns's articles popularized the legend and its new name, making it well known in western Canada before it gained popularity in the United States. Each language had its own name for the local version. Many names meant something along the lines of "wild man" or "hairy man" although other names described common actions it was said to perform (e.g., eating clams).