Giants Cannibals & Monsters

Analysis of the book; "Giants, Cannibals & Monsters", by Kathy Moskowitz Strain.

I read the book about Bigfoot in Native Culture. It draws connections to Native American folklore and the existence of Sasquatch.

There are many stories in the book from Indigenous people that do sound like Bigfoot. While many others seem fanciful and total myths. They talk about giants that take people in baskets on their backs and kill and eat them.  That does not sound like Sasquatch to me. There are ogres that fly and dance, or made of stone. Some are as tall as trees and can take multiple men in one hand. Certain stories passed down through the generations, I think are more exaggerations, or embellishments of possible encounters with something else strange in the woods.

But many of the characteristics of these beasts do resemble behavior that has been observed by the unknown hominid in North America.  The Native folklore describes some giants as being covered in hair, having a bad smell, large red eyes and Big Feet. They make hooting calls, whoops, whistles, cries and screams. Some of the monsters activities include throwing rocks and hitting tree trunks. All of these descriptions and behaviors are consistent with many modern day sightings of Sasquatch, which the native people call them Skookums, Ohmas and by many other names.

A few of the stories involve monsters that want to wrestle with people. There is an event in “The Legend of Boggy Creek”, about the Fouke Monster of Arkansas, where the Bigfoot grabs a young man and engages in a kind of wrestling match.

In the book there are Transformers that can change into other animals. There is precedence for shape shifters in the paranormal. The skinwalker is a legend from the Navajo, of a man that can change into an animal like a wolf, similar to a werewolf. And in fringe ufology, reptilian conspiracy theory, draconian type aliens are believed to be able to change shape as well.

A lot of the tales mention the giants as talking to people in their native language. I don’t think Sasquatch can verbalize in human language. But there have been reports in recent years of these yet undiscovered primates being able to communicate telepathically with homo sapiens. This might help to explain how some native people might be able to understand what particular monsters are saying.

A few of the stories of giants in the north eastern United States, could have been sightings of Susquehannok tribe. The Native people were seven feet tall. They were also referred to as giants by some of the first Europeans, when they arrived in the new world.

They use of the word cannibal in the book for beasts eating people. Cannibals eat their own species. Sasquatch are a different species from man. The monsters in the book are really more man-eaters than cannibals.  

I use to think that Sasquatch, for the most part, was  a benevolent creature towards humans.  However some stories have arisen about Bigfoot carrying away people and killing dogs,
in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in California.
But when they describe these beasts eating people, well I find that to be a little ‘hard to swallow’.

Author's Note

It took me a while to get through the book. My lips don't move that fast anymore.

Reviews

[Dave Brown]

My last Sasquatch encounter is with the one on the front of my T-shirt and we seem to be quite compatible
Thanks for the heads-up

[John the Baptist]

An interesting look at a legendary creature here. I personally have never encountered a Sasquatch, a UFO, a Marian apparition or a poltergeist, but that's all I can say with certainty about any of these phenomena. They may be true; they may not be.