Pre-Columbian and Early American Legends of Bigfoot-like Beings
Gulf
Algonkian
Keres
Penutian
Yukian
Chimakuan
Hokan-Coahiltecan
Tonkawa
Karankawa Kuteni
Iroquoian
Wakashan
Timucua
Tanoan
Aztec-Ianoan
Caddoan
Siouan-Yuchi
Salish Home Page
Introduction
(From : Traditional Attitudes Toward Bigfoot in Many North American Cultures, By Gayle Highpine)
Originally printed in the Western Bigfoot Society Newsletter "The Track Record". Excerpted from "Legends Beyond Psychology", by Henry James Franzoni III. Reprinted with permission from all parties.
"Here in the Northwest, and west of the Rockies generally, Indian 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-style consciousness and human-style consciousness, which gives him a special kind of power. (It is not that Bigfoot's relationship to make him "superior" to 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. Man Indian elders in the Northwest refuse to eat bear meat because of the bear's similarity to humans, and Bigfoot is obviously much more similar to humans than is the bear. 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 members. However, among many Indians elsewhere 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."
"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 his book "In the Spirit of Crazy Horse," (Viking, 1980), a non-fiction account of the 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 reptile 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."
"There is your Big man standing there, ever waiting, ever present, like the coming of a new day," Oglala Lakota Medicine Man Pete Catches km 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 weren't there... I know him as my brother... I want him to touch me, just a touch, a blessing, something I could bring home to my sons and grandchildren, that I was there, that I approached him, and he touched me."
Map of North American Indian Liguistic and Cultural Area
Click on a region to view that area's legends
[Gulf] [Algonkian] [Keres] [Penutian] [Yukian] [Chimakuan] [Hokan-Coahiltecan] [Tonkawa] [Karankawa] [Kuteni] [Iroquoian] [Wakashan] [Timucua] [Na-Dene] [Aztec-Ianoan] [Caddoan] [Siouan-Yuchi] [Salish]
Ray Owen, son of a Dakota spiritual leader from Prairie Island Reservation in Minnesota, told a reporter from (the) Red Wing (Minnesota) Republican Eagle, "They exist in another dimension from us, but can appear in this dimension whenever they have a reason to. See, it's 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 God. He's our big brother, kind of looks out for us. Two years ago, we were going downhill, really self-destructive. We needed a sign to put us back on track, and that's why the Big Man appeared".
Ralph Gray Wolf, a visiting Athapaskan Indian from Alaska, told the reporter, "In our way of beliefs, they make appearances at troubled times", to help troubled Indian communities "get more in tune with Mother Earth". Bigfoot brings "signs or messages that there is a need to change, a need to cleanse," (Minn. news article, "Giant Footprint Signals a Time to Seek Change," July 23,1988).
Mathiessen reported similar views among the 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 (see Track Record #14); 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 Ojibway word. Nor does it come from the languages of neighboring Indian peoples. 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 doesn't seem far-fetched that the Turtle Mountain Ojibway picked up the French name for 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 a message or warning to the individuals or communities to whom he appears, but to humankind at large. As Mathiessen puts it, they see Bigfoot as "a messenger who appears in evil times as a warning from the Creator that man's 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 Iroquois (Six Nations Confederacy) of the Northeast -- although they live in close proximity to the eastern Algonkian tribes with their Windigo legends -- view Bigfoot much in the same way the Hopi do, as a messenger from the Creator trying to warn humans to change their ways or face disaster. However, mentioned among Iroquois much more often than Bigfoot are the "little people" who are said to inhabit the Adirondacks mountains. I never heard any first-hand stories among the Iroqouis about encounters with these "little people" -- for that matter, I never heard and first-hand stories in that region about Bigfoot, either -- but the Iroquois pass down stories about hunters who occasionally saw small human-like beings in the Adirondacks (which are not all that far from the Catskills, where Rip Van Winkle was alleged to have met some little bowlers) (and slept for 100 years -HF). Some present-day Iroquois assert that the "little people" are still there, just not seen as often because the Iroquois don't spend as much time hunting up in the mountains as they used to. many Iroquois seem to regard both Bigfoot and the "little people" as spiritual or interdimensional beings who can enter or leave our physical dimension as they please, and choose to whom they present themselves, always for a reason.
Stories about small, humanoids who inhabit wild places are found in many areas of the world, especially Europe. (The Kiowa tell a story about several young men who decide to go exploring south from their Texas home for many days, seeing many new things, until they came to a strange forest [obviously the jungles of southern Mexico] whose trees were home to small, furred humanoids with tails! This they found to be too weird, so they immediately headed back for home). I never thought to connect the stories about the "little people" with the Sasquatch until Ray Crowe brought up the possible connection. After all, if there may be large relatives of humans living in remote areas, would it be so impossible for there to be small ones? Details that stretch credibility, such as pots of gold, pointed and belled caps, games of ninepins, etc., could conceivably be embellishments added over generations to some genuine accounts of sightings.
Throughout Native North America, Bigfoot is seen as a kind of "brother" to humans. Even among those eastern Algonkian tribes to whom Bigfoot represents the incarnation of the Windigo -- the human who is transformed into a cannibalistic monster by tasting human flesh in time of starvation -- his fearsomeness comes from his very closeness to humans. The Windigo is the embodiment of the hidden, terrifying temptation within them to turn to eating other humans when no other food is to be had. he was still their "elder brother", but a brother who represented a human potential they feared. As such, the Windigo's appearance was sort of a constant warning to them, a reminder that a community whose members turn to eating each other is doomed much more surely than a community that simply has no food. So the figure of the Windigo is not so far removed from the figure of the "messenger" coming to warn humankind of impending disaster if it doesn't cease its destruction of nature.
The existence of Bigfoot is taken for granted throughout Native North America, and so are his powerful psychic abilities. I can't count the number of times that I have heard elder Indian people say that Bigfoot knows when humans are searching for him and that he chooses when and to whom to make an appearance, and that his psychic powers account for his ability to elude the white man's efforts to capture him or hunt him down. In Indian culture, the entire natural world -- the animals, the plants, the rivers, the stars -- is seen as a family. And Bigfoot is seen as one of our close relatives, the "great elder brother"
Heyoka
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article does not cite any references or sources. (October 2007)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. Heyoka, approximately translated from Lakota, means ‘contrarian’ or ‘sacred clown’.
Heyoka are thought of as being backwards-forwards, upside-down, or contrarian in nature. This spirit is often manifest by doing things backwards or unconventionally--riding a horse backwards, wearing clothes inside-out, or speaking in a backwards language. For example, if food were scarce, a Heyoka would sit around and complain about how full he was; during a baking hot heat wave a Heyoka will shiver with cold and put on gloves and cover himself with a thick blanket. Similarly, when it is 40 degrees below freezing he will wander around naked for hours complaining that it is too hot. A unique example is the famous Heyoka sacred clown called "the Straighten-Outer":
“ He was always running around with a hammer trying to flasten to flatten round and curvy things (soup bowls, eggs, wagon wheels, etc.), thus making them straight â€
John Fire Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions 1972: 250
During the Sun Dance, a Heyoka sacred clown may appear to tempt the dancers with water and food and to dance backwards around the circle in a show of respect. If a dancer looks into the mirrored eyes of the Heyoka, his or her dance is finished.[citation needed]
[edit] Heyoka tradition
The Heyoka symbolize and portray many aspects of the sacred, the Wakan, in a rather novel way. Their satire presents important questions by fooling around. They ask difficult questions, and say things others are too afraid to say. By reading between the lines, the audience is able to think about things not usually thought about, or to look at things in a different way.
Principally, the Heyoka functions both as a mirror and a teacher, using extreme behaviors to mirror others, thereby forcing them to examine their own doubts, fears, hatreds, and weaknesses. Heyokas also have the power to heal emotional pain; such power comes from the experience of shame--they sing of shameful events in their lives, beg for food, and live as clowns. They provoke laughter in distressing situations of despair and provoke fear and chaos when people feel complacent and overly secure, to keep them from taking themselves too seriously or believing they are more powerful than they are.
In addition, sacred clowns also serve an important role in shaping tribal codes. Heyokas don’t seem to care about taboos, rules, regulations, social norms, or boundaries. Paradoxically, however, it is by violating these norms and taboos that they help to define the accepted boundaries, rules, and societal guidelines for ethical and moral behavior. This is because they are the only ones who can ask "Why?" about sensitive topics and employ satire to question the specialists and carriers of sacred knowledge or those in positions of power and authority. In doing so, they demonstrate concretely the theories of balance and imbalance. Their role is to penetrate deception, turn over rocks, and create a deeper awareness.[citation needed]
“ For people who are as poor as us, who have lost everything, who had to endure so much death and sadness, laughter is a precious gift. When we were dying like flies from white man's disease, when we were driven into reservations, when the government rations did not arrive and we were starving, watching the pranks and capers of heyoka were a blessing. â€
- John (Fire) Lame Deer, quoted in Seeker of Visions 1972: 250
Wicasa Wakan means Holy man, not "Medicine man" or "shaman" (a term of Siberian origin). This is an important distinction. A Lakota medicine man is called pejuta wacasa.
[edit] Thunder dreamer
It is believed among the Lakota that if you had a dream or vision of birds you were destined to be a medicine man,[citation needed] but if you had a vision of the Wakinyan Thunderbird, it was your destiny to become a heyoka, or sacred clown.[citation needed] Like the Thunderbird, the heyoka are both feared and held in reverence.[citation needed]
“ When a vision comes from the thunder beings of the West, it comes with terror like a thunder storm; but when the storm of vision has passed, the world is greener and happier; for wherever the truth of vision comes upon the world, it is like a rain. The world, you see, is happier after the terror of the storm... you have noticed that truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping...... as lightning illuminates the dark, for it is the power of lightning that heyokas have. â€
-Black Elk, quoted in Neihardt 1959: 160
The Heyoka are healers and have many functions, for example healing through laughter and awakening people to deeper meaning and concealed truth and to prepare the people for oncoming disaster with laughter.[citation needed]
St.Patricks Day 26 yrs ago.......My last drunk...........I spent the entire day in the bar drinking 50 cent mugs of GREEN beer......they were giving away free GREEN shooters whatever they were I had at least six........now I closed the bar but the weirdest thing I noticed was that I was Pissing GREEN by the end of the Night.......Now I still lived with my parents back then Well when I came home that is.......Well they had my car towed from the Bar because they had had enough and were going to confront my Alcohol and Drug use........Well I came out of the Bar and went nuts that my car was gone and Scared the h*ll? out of the bar Fly I was going to........You know what with..........I walked home drank a Six pack on the way.......and preceded to notice my car was at the house well I broke down the door and beat up my parents and ended up in Jail.......Two days later I went to a Doc and got a blood alcohol test done it was a .25 alcohol level and the doc said I was the youngest late stage alcoholic he ever seen......20yrs old.....He said I was probably funtioning on a .50 level most of the time that I had the beginings of jondice my skin was yellow and puffy........Well being the good bar patron I was I went back to the bar two weeks later to tell them I was getting Sober and Clean And I could not drink there anymore So the bar tender that I new well told me When I came I could have free Cokes instead.....So I paid my tab which was 70 dollars.......Now do the Math.......50 cent beer at 70 dollars is a 140 beers.......no wonder I was pissing GREEN!!!!........3/18/1982 is my clean date.......I don't think I did it right other than not using anything.and Working the Steps with my sponsor but I keep doing them again and again.......My life has been good and I am gratful for the wonderful friends I have.....My parents fogave me eventualy.........My Mom is still alive but she now asks me over and over again if I am still sober it is a delight to tell her Yes 10 times a day.......Her memory is gone......but I still love her..........I was a X-factor kid.......Parents never smoked or drank.........Dad was a minister mom was a teacher I thank the Creator daily that they confronted me.....That cared enough to save my life and others from my insanity..........Now I have many generations of sponsor ,sponsees under me........I sponsor four regular and two when they need me..............lots and lots of sponsees and grand and great grand sponsees.........and so on....They keep me accountable So I have to keep changing or they will walk past me......................So That is about it mini 4th step in a blog..........Greywolf
I put up a video on the 2012 issue,Many may not believe it but it is Coming.......Four more yrs.....And we will learn the truth behind the legends..........What will happen who's to say........Prophets.........Ancient cultures.......Legends..........Calenders Ending....ooooooowwwwwww????? I just know what my spirit guides tell me But even that may not be all true........because I know full well that the Future is not set in stone.......Now the Mayan calender is set in stone but thats besides the point........want more ask and I might have an answer for you........GreyWolf