Information about wild people from the American continent has been known since pre-Columbian times and concerns mainly the mountainous regions of the Far West. A systematic study of the material began only in the 50s of the XX century. It is associated with the names of zoologists Ivan Sanderson, Tom Slick, Peter Byrne
In 1961, Sanderson published the book The Disgusting Bigfoot: A Legend Comes to Life in Philadelphia (it has not been translated into Russian). It provides a fairly complete analysis of the problem, mainly based on American material. This was a generalization of the first stage of work. The next generalization should be considered the work of John Green from Canada "Sasquatch: Monkeys Among Us", published in Seattle in 1978 and also not translated into Russian.
Despite the fact that the American Indians who inhabited the vast continent did not have a written language, did not communicate with each other much, their stories about local wild people are absolutely the same all the way from Alaska to the mountains of Venezuela and Chile. The name common among the Indians of North America is sasquatch. American pioneers dubbed it "big foot" - "big foot", or "big feet", drawing attention to the very large footprints.
Here are some testimonies from the American continent.
A story from Theodore Roosevelt's (later US President) "Hunter in the Wild" book, 1982
“This story was told to me by an old gray-haired mountain hunter named Boman, who was born and spent his entire life on the border in Idaho. He clearly believed what he was saying, since in some places in the story he could not help shuddering. This happened when Baoman was still young and was hunting with a friend in the mountains separating Solman from the headwaters of the Wisdom River. The hunt was not particularly successful, and the comrades decided to go to one very wild and deserted gorge, along which a small river flowed, where, as they say, there were many beavers. The gorge had a poor reputation as a lone hunter had been killed there the previous year. Apparently, he was killed by a wild animal. His half-eaten remains were found by prospectors who stumbled upon his camp.
Memories of this event did not prevent the two indicated hunters, who were also daring adventurers, like many people of this profession … there was a lot of game.
It was still an hour or two before dark. They built a hut from the branches, dropped and unpacked their things, and set off up the river. At dusk they returned to camp. To their surprise, it turned out that someone, apparently a bear, had visited the camp, rummaged in their belongings, scattered the contents of the sacks, and simply out of prank destroyed the hut. The traces of the animal were perfectly clear, but at first they did not pay much attention to them, since they had to do the restoration of the hut, make a bed, put things and light a fire.
By the time Bauman was preparing dinner, it was already dark, and his companion began to look more closely at the tracks. Then he took the smut from the fire and followed the footsteps of the animals along the path trodden by the animals … Returning to the fire, he stood for a minute or two, and then suddenly said: "Boman, this bear walked on two legs." Boman laughed, but his companion insisted that it was. They examined the torch tracks again and saw that, in fact, they were marks of two legs or paws. However, it was too dark to be sure of this. After discussing the question of whether these could be traces of a person, and having come to the conclusion that this was impossible, the hunters wrapped themselves in blankets and went to bed.
Around midnight, Beman was awakened by a noise. He sat up in bed. A sharp smell of a wild beast hit him in the nose, and he saw the outlines of a huge figure in the darkness near the entrance to the hut. Grabbing the gun, he fired into an obscure threatening shadow, but apparently did not hit, since immediately after that he heard the crackling of deadwood under the feet of the creature rushing into the impenetrable blackness of the night forest. After that, the hunters hardly slept, re-lit the fire and sat near it, but heard nothing more. In the morning they examined the traps set the day before and set new ones. By tacit agreement, they stayed together all day and returned to the camp in the evening.
When they returned, they saw without any surprise that the hut was destroyed again. Yesterday's visitor returned again and in a senseless rage scattered their belongings and destroyed the hut. The ground was covered in footprints. Coming out of the clearing, he walked along the soft ground near the stream, so that his tracks were clear as in the snow. Having carefully examined these tracks, the hunters came to the conclusion that, after all, whoever it was, he walked on two legs. Both were quite excited. Having collected a large pile of dead wood, they kept a strong fire in the fire throughout the night and took turns on duty. At about midnight, the creature came out of the forest to the opposite bank of the stream and stood there on the hillside for almost an hour. There was a crunch of branches under his feet as it moved. Several times it emitted a sharp, grinding, drawn-out groan, extremely gloomy. However, it did not dare to come close to the fire.
In the morning, the hunters, after discussing the strange events that had taken place over the past 36 hours, decided to pack their things and leave this valley in the afternoon.
All morning they stayed together, examining trap after trap, none of which hit. Upon leaving the camp, they did not leave the unpleasant feeling that someone was watching them. In the dense thicket of bushes, they sometimes heard the crackling of branches after they had passed, and sometimes rustling and noise could be heard in the small pines, past which they passed.
By noon they were about two miles from the camp. In the bright sunlight, the fears experienced seemed absurd for two armed men, accustomed, over the years of lonely wanderings, to meet all kinds of dangers created by people, animals and the elements. There are three more beaver traps set up on a small pond in a deep ravine nearby. Boman announced that he would go to these traps, and his comrade went forward to the camp to collect things.
Beaver found three beavers at the pond, one of which was freed and dragged to the beaver house. It took him several hours to work with the beavers, and when he headed home, he noticed with some unpleasant feeling that the sun was already low.
Finally, he came to the edge of the clearing where the camp was located. The fire was extinguished, although a small gray smoke still hovered over it. Collected and connected things lay nearby. At first Boman saw no one and, calling out to his comrade, received no answer. Coming a little closer, he shouted again, But then he saw the body of His friend, stretched out behind the trunk of a fallen tree. Rushing to him, the frightened hunter found that the body was still warm, but the neck was broken, and there were traces of four huge fangs on the throat.
The footprints of an unknown creature-beast, deeply imprinted on the soft earth, told the whole story. The unhappy man, having finished preparing and packing his things, sat down on a fallen spruce, facing the fire, with his back to the dense forest and waiting for his companion. Here he was overtaken by death in the form of a monster silently emerging from the forest. The creature did not devour the corpse, but, apparently, jumped and galloped around it in wild delight, at times tumbling over it. And then it rushed off into the endless jungle of the forest.
Bomen, shaken to the core, thought the creature was half human, half devil, some kind of werewolf. He threw all his belongings except his rifle and ran as fast as he could until he reached a meadow with beavers where hobbled horses continued to graze. Jumping on his horse, he continued to move away from those places all night. Until I was out of reach."
And here is the testimony of William Roe of Edmonton, Alberta:
“As a young boy, I studied the life and habits of wild animals in the forests of Michigan. I later made a living for myself and my family in Northern Alberta by hunting and spent many hours observing nature. She fascinated me … The most incredible experience I experienced was when I met a wild creature near the small town of Titus John Kasch, about 80 miles from Jasper, Albert. I worked on the road near Titus John Kash for about two years. In October 1955 I decided to climb Mike Mountain 5 miles away and see an old abandoned mine, just out of nothing to do. I arrived at this shaft at about three o'clock in the afternoon, after an easy climb.
I had just emerged from a group of low bushes on the lawn and saw what I first thought was a large grizzly bear on the other side of the lawn in the bushes. This grizzly was no more than 75 yards (69 m) away from me, but I didn’t want to shoot him because I couldn’t take him home. So I sat down on a piece of rock and watched, rifle in hand. I could see part of the animal's head and the top of one shoulder. A minute later, the animal got up and went out onto the lawn. Then I saw that it was not a bear. I will try to convey as best as possible what this creature looked like and how it behaved when it stepped out onto the lawn and headed straight for me.
My first impression was that this is a huge man about 6 feet (1 m 83 cm) tall, almost three feet wide, and probably weighing about 300 pounds (136 kg). He was covered from head to toe with dark brown hair with silvery tips. When he approached me, I saw that it was a female. However, there was no female outline in her torso. It was wide and straight from shoulder to hip. The arms were much thicker than humans and much longer, almost to the knees. The legs were correspondingly thicker than that of a human, about 5 inches wide in front, tapering towards significantly thinner ankles. When she walked, she first stood on the heel, and I saw grayish-brown skin on her soles.
She walked over to the bushes I was hiding in, about 20 feet away from me and squatted down. Stretching out her hands, she grabbed and pulled the branches of the bush to her and with her teeth tore off the leaves from them. Her lips wrapped around the leaves as she ate. I was close enough to see that her teeth were white and straight. The head was higher in the back than in the front. The nose was wide and flat. The lips and chin protruded more forward than the nose. But the hair covering her, absent only on the parts of her face near the mouth, nose and ears, made her look like an animal as much as a person. The hair, even at the back of the head, did not exceed one inch, and the facial hair was much shorter. The ears were similar in shape to human ears, but the eyes were small and black, like a bear's. The neck was also not human-like - much thicker and shorter.
Observing the creature, I pondered. Isn't there a movie being filmed somewhere nearby, and this creature is an actor, made up to look partly like a man and partly like an animal. But the longer I watched, the more I came to the conclusion that it was impossible to artificially reproduce such a creature. Later, in any case, I made sure that there were no filming in this area. Moreover, no one lived on Mike Mountain, judging by the words of the inhabitants of Titus John Kash.
Finally, the wild creature seemed to sense me as it looked straight at me through the bushes. Her face showed amazement. She looked so comical that I smiled. Still squatting, she took three or four small steps, then straightened up to her full height and quickly walked back the same way she had come here. For a while she watched me over her shoulder along the way, but not with fear, but as if with reluctance.
The thought occurred to me that if I had shot her, then, apparently, I would have received a creature of great interest to scientists around the world. I have heard stories about the Sasquatch, the giant hairy "Indians" that live in British Columbia Indian legends and are claimed by many to still exist. Maybe, I said to myself, it was a sasquatch. I raised my gun. The creature continued to move away quickly, occasionally turning its head to look at me. I lowered my gun. Although I called this creature "it", I felt that it was still a human being, "and I knew that I would never forgive myself if I killed him.
On reaching the other side of the clearing, the creature threw back its head and let out a terrible cry that seemed to me half laughter, half speech, and which I can only describe as some kind of neighing. Then I came out of the bushes and entered the forest of tall pines, trying to see this creature again. It came out onto a hillock at a distance of about two hundred yards (182 m) from me, threw back its head and again emitted that sound, the only one I heard from it, what this half-laugh-half-speech meant, I don’t know. Then the creature disappeared, and I never saw it again.
I wanted to know if it eats only plants or also eats meat. I started looking for feces or food debris, found them in five different places, and although I carefully examined them, I could not find any wool, shells, or insects. Thus, this creature leads, apparently, a purely vegetarian lifestyle.
I found one place where it appears to have slept for several nights under a tree. The nights in the mountains are cool, especially at this time of year, but the creature did not use fire. I did not find any signs that this creature had any, even the simplest, tools. There were also no signs of other such creatures in the area.
I don't know if this creature is a sesquoch. This will forever remain a mystery to me, unless the same creature is found.
I confirm that all of the above is true in every detail, as far as I can recall everything I saw.
Signed by William Ro."
An even more incredible story was told by researchers D. Hunter and R. Dahinden in the book "Sesquoch", published in Canada in 1975
It also has not been translated into Russian, except for a small abstract prepared by D. Vinogradova for the magazine Around the World.
Here is a summary of the story of Albert Osttman, lumberjack and hunter. At the beginning of the 20th century, he traveled in the mountains of the Far West, was engaged in hunting and simultaneously conducted geological prospecting for gold. Once he noticed that in his absence someone had turned over his things, scattered and crumpled everything. Who could have done this? Beast, man? At night, Ostman lay down with a Winchester in his sleeping bag. He woke up from a strong jolt and realized that someone had lifted him into the air and carried him somewhere. At times there was a grunting like a human. Flo what kind of person could carry a grown man so easily with a gun, canned food and some other weighty junk in his sleeping bag? Osmey heard about the sesquach, so lying in an uncomfortable position on someone's mighty shoulders, he had already begun to compose a version of what was happening. Finally the sack was laid on the ground, the hunter rolled out,without releasing a hard drive. Four monsters were standing around him. One is two and a half meters in height, the other three are smaller. Obviously, they were the girlfriend and children of the first one to kidnap the hunter. The hairy monsters seemed like an enlarged caricature of a human. They stood around, apparently frightened by their "acquisition".
Albert did not feel much fear, especially since he always had a gun in his hands. But he did not dare to use it against these creatures who looked like people.
Looking around, he realized that he was high in the mountains and could not go down on his own. Therefore, he decided to settle down near the sasquatch's lair for a while and decide what to do next. For some time he had canned food, and matches were preserved, so the situation was not desperate yet.
He monitored a family of wild people, who in turn watched him. Ostman became convinced that they all have tremendous strength, dexterity, the ability to silently disappear and also appear silently.
For several days Ostman cooked his own food on a spirit lamp, gave leftovers to the beast-people. When trying to find a way of salvation, they stopped his actions. However, he never dared to use a rifle against the sesquoch, his hand did not rise. A kind of friendship was established between man and demihumans. Once, for the sake of laughter, Ostman gave the male host a pinch of tobacco. He swallowed it and began to roll on the ground in pain, Albert was afraid that he would be offended and show aggressiveness, but decided to shoot only in the most extreme case. K., luckily, everything worked out.
In the end, the hunter found a way to escape along the bed of a small stream. When the man was leaving, the female tried to stop him. For the first time in several days he fired, fortunately, a shot in the air was enough to scare the wild woman away.
The history is recorded in all details, its reliability is not excluded.
Several times on the territory of the American continent, the remains of a Bigfoot were discovered and even managed to catch live individuals. Here are some cases documented by Professor Ivan Sanderson.
In 1912, someone Ernst Edward, a resident of Shushwapa, British Columbia, Canada, said that he dug a human skeleton 8 feet tall (2 m 44 cm) on the banks of a river. The jaws were disproportionately large even for this height. It was amazing that among the teeth there was not a single one affected by caries. Edward, with the help of Indian assistants, dug up the entire skeleton, examined it carefully, then sent it to Europe, to the museum in the city of Wrexham, North Wales, England. According to the testimony of the museum staff, this skeleton was never obtained by them for unknown reasons.
Here's an even more surprising message from British Columbia, from Yale. A message from the Daily British Colonist dated July 3, 1884: “Near tunnel No. 4 … a creature was caught, which is half-human-half-animal. The creature is somewhat gorilla-like, standing about 4 feet 7 inches (140 cm) tall and weighing 127 pounds (58 kg). Has long black, thick hair and is human-like, except that its entire body, except for the hands or paws and feet, is covered with sleek hair about an inch long. Its front limbs are longer than human ones and possess extraordinary strength. So, he grabbed a stick and broke it off with a twisting motion, which no ordinary person could do. After his capture, he behaves very calmly and only makes sounds from time to time,which are part bark, part growl. Berries are his favorite food, and he drinks fresh milk with obvious pleasure …
The capture took place as follows. Ned Austin, an engineer, examining the cliff on the rise at the eastern end of the tunnel, saw a creature lying close to the path, which he took for a human and immediately gave a brake signal. The train braked immediately and stopped a few seconds later. At that moment, the imaginary man jumped up and, uttering a fragmentary animal cry, began to quickly climb the steep cliff. The conductor, the messenger, the clerk accompanying the baggage car, and the assistant driver jumped off the train. Since the train was 20 minutes ahead of schedule, they began to chase. After 5 minutes, the one whom they took for a crazy Indian was surrounded on such a ledge of rock, from where he could neither climb higher nor descend. The question arose how to capture him alive. Guide Craig quickly resolved it,climbing on all fours 40 feet above this creature. He threw a piece of rock at the creature. Then the strange man was tied up and carried to the baggage car.
The further history of this creature is unknown.
An expedition undertaken in California in 1967 by a young American explorer Roger Patterson turned out to be a milestone for the study of the riddle. The material he received is still being studied in different countries of the world. But this is a separate conversation.
In the Andes of South America, information about wild people is also available and also dates back to the depths of centuries. On October 25, 1988, the own correspondent of the Pravda newspaper from Lima said: “A group of French climbers discovered an unknown creature in the Andes, in the Peruvian department of Ancash. In their opinion, we are talking about one of the varieties of the elusive inhabitant of the mountainous regions. Judging by the description, the Peruvian Yeti differs from its giant counterparts, which were seen in other parts of the globe, in smaller stature. His whole body, except for his face and palms, is covered with thick hair …"