Relict Hominoid Inquiry, an online bigfoot journal

[parnassus]

This thread is for discussion of articles and other matters discussed in a new online journal, advertised as peer reviewed, called the Relict Hominoid Inquiry, edited by Jeff Meldrum, Ph.D, of Idaho State University.

It deals with what is popularly known as "bigfoot," and its various incarnations:

Quote:

The objective of the RHI is to promote research and provide a refereed venue for the dissemination of scholarly peer-reviewed papers exploring and evaluating the possible existence and nature of relict hominoid species around the world.

There is an editorial board listed, as well as the usual instructions to authors, etc.

At present, there is one "research" article posted, Strain, KM. Mayak Datat: the Hairy Man Pictographs.
There are also:
From the Editor:
ADAPTIVE RADIATIONS, BUSHY EVOLUTIONARY TREES, AND RELICT HOMINOIDS


and

Brief communication:
FOOTPRINT EVIDENCE OF THE CHINESE YEREN
Jeff Meldrum, Zhou Guoxing

and

Essay:
HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF RELICT HOMINOIDS
Dmitri Bayanov

and
two book reviews:
a five year old review of Meet the Sasquatch, By Christopher L. Murphy, in association with John Green and Thomas Steenburg, written by Daris Swindler, posthumously published.

and

a review of Bigfoot Exposed: An Anthropologist Examines America’s Enduring Legend. By David J. Daegling, written by John Green.

There is one entry in "links,' to Meldrum's virtual casts

"News and Views" and "comments" are currently closed, though material/comments can be sent to the editor if one desires, and I suppose he might publish them. email: meldd@isu.edu.

[LTC8K6]

Any neutral/skeptical content anticipated?

[BravesFan]

Hmmmm, what are the odds that this is the "peer reviewed" journal that Ketchum's waiting on? Would explain why the long wait eh?

[The Shrike]

Just checking out Strain's article a bit, my first thought is that we've seen this before. Hasn't she already published this paper as a FS technical report or something?

Next, I think the "child Hairy Man" is a badger, the "mother Hairy Man" is an otter, and the "father Hairy Man" is a bear. That would be my default interpretation, and I would require quite a bit more than is presented in the paper for me to reject those interpretations if I had reviewed this. My opinion is contrary to this rather definitive and ill-supported statement in the paper: "The pictographs include paintings of a male, female, and child Bigfoot (known as the family), . . . (Fig. 4)." If I was a referee on this paper, there's no way I would let that statement through because the support provided for why those images are interpreted as "bigfoots" is so flimsy. There's also the problem that none of them look like bigfoots!

It seems the stories equating bigfoot to the pictographs came from interviews in the 1970s (the height of the cultural bigfoot craze in this country) and from people for whom it's not clear that they were direct descendants of the culture that created the pictographs. House of cards, and a drafty one at that.

Here's where bigfoot legends stem: classic boogeyman stuff:
"Parents always warned their children, “Don’t go near the river at night. You may run into Big Foot.”"

Wow. Parents warning their children not to go messing around in a river in the dark? I can't imagine how such a thing could evolve without a bigfoot down by that river threatening to eat them, "bones and all."

I don't doubt that native people on the Tule River see the rocks as having a special cultural and spiritual significance. I don't see, however, a clear reason to suspect that, when created, those three figures were intended to represent "bigfoots". Stuff like suggesting that the enlarged "halo" around the head of the "child" could be a sagittal crest is just silly. It doesn't make sense for the pictograph and doesn't make sense biologically.

Anyway, it looks like the RHI is off to a great start!

[Deacondark]

Those pictographs look like hides laid out to dry. Like an animal hide laying out after being skinned. Does it look that way to anyone else?

[The Shrike]

Originally Posted by Deacondark

Those pictographs look like hides laid out to dry. Like an animal hide laying out after being skinned. Does it look that way to anyone else?

Yes.

[parnassus]

deleted

[parnassus]

Originally Posted by The Shrike

Just checking out Strain's article a bit, my first thought is that we've seen this before. Hasn't she already published this paper as a FS technical report or something?
---

Strain has at least one earlier version of this paper, "Mayak datat:
An Archaeological Viewpoint [sic] of the Hairy Man Pictographs," based on a 2003 talk at a bigfoot convention, posted on the intertubes.

(There may be other versions.)

Much of this 2003 paper (roughly half) was simply "cut and pasted" to make the present article published in the RHI, which, in part, accounts for the chopped-up quality, which makes it difficult to read. It really shows no signs of professional editing, and is quite difficult to follow; the sub-heads and organization seem haphazard. The abstract is inappropriate. The earlier version seems better organized (though this isn't saying much).

In addition, there are some significant changes in emphasis and content, some of which I can detail in a later post.

One of the most important points to be "taken home", as pointed out by The Shrike, is that it seems, (and this is hard to glean from the paper even if you are looking for it), that neither of the terms "Hairy Man" nor "Bigfoot" was recorded as being used by the tribe prior to 1975. (the expression Bigfoot originated in 1958, and the Patterson film received wide exposure starting in 1967). Native Americans no longer live in teepees and hunt buffalo; they do watch television, read books and newspapers and spend a lot of time in contact with the rest of the world.

Another point: as far as I can see, Strain presents no tribal reports that two of the pictographs represent primates, let alone a woman and a child, let alone a woman and HER child, let alone a woman and her child BIGFOOT. In fact, the stories that Strain relates describe this "hairy man" as a solitary creature.

p.

[jhunter1163]

Every time I hear "Hairy Man" I think of this:

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the JREF. The JREF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

[parnassus]

The translation of the title Mayak Datat seems to be in doubt: on this personal blog ."
Dec. 1, 2011,

Quote:

(their Yokut name is Mayak datat, which translates as “hairy man”. They have another name for the creature: Shoonshoonootr, one of the few natives words to literally translate as “big foot”)

But in Strain's paper at RHI, which doesn't have a submission date or an acceptance date or a publication date, she says:

Quote:

Mayak datat – big foot – mi!yak datr!atr! and Sunsunut – hairy one – shoonshoonootr!

In the (?)2003 paper Strain wrote that both Yokut words meant Hairy Man:

Quote:

The most dominant pictograph at Painted Rock is that of the Hairy Man, also known as Mayak datat (mi!yak datr!atr!) or sunsunut (shoonshoonootr!)

In a 2008 interview transcribed on the internet, she said:

Quote:

The painting is of a Bigfoot, known to the Yokuts on the Tule River Indian Reservation, as Hairy Man or Mayak Datat.

A 2007 book by James K. Agee, Stewards Fork: A Sustainable Future for the Klamath Mountains, at p. 187, says:

Quote:

"...hairy man, or mayak datat..."

(I couldn't find Agee's source, but from the context, which is about bigfoot in the Klamath, I would strongly suspect he got it from Strain.).

In short, the current paper at the RHI is only place, over multiple statements, over a span of 9 years up until 3 months ago, where it is stated that Mayak Datat means "bigfoot" rather than "hairy man." Of course, maybe all those previous statements were in error, and this time she got it right. Regardless, of where the error(s) is/are, she ought to clear it/them up.

in addition there seems to be a possible confusion about the other term, "sunsunut." Grant writes:

Quote:

On the ceiling there is a large pelt like figure of a mountain lion in yellow ochre. According to Latta (1948), it has been identified by Yokuts informants as the evil supernatural spirit Sok so' uh holding the sun in his mouth.

I am not a linguistics expert but I have dabbled in translation of Siouxan languages enough to suspect that names and images may have gotten mixed up here: Sok so' uh sounds quite a bit like "sunsunut", and there may be some confusion over the names of images within the same grotto. Note that Strain, in the RHI paper, gives us the translation "Hairy one," not "Hairy Man" (although she has the translations reversed). Just a question.

That's mho.
p.

ps corrected for the author of the 2011 statement.

[GT/CS]

She's been rambling on about that art for years.

Apparently it never dawns on her that whoever drew the creature was most likely a terrible artist and the image doesn't portray what was meant. For example, what is the headless thing to the left of it? And the short penguin-looking creature?

It looks to me like the drawing was a family portrait made by a less-than-talented artist after eating some goofy mushrooms!

We now have those awful SUV window stickers so we no longer need to draw our children's images on rocks.

[River]

Originally Posted by parnassus

Strain has a personal blog on which she refers to herself as a paleontologist, and talks about bigfoot and about the "hairy man."
interestingly, there, on Dec. 1, 2011, she says:

But in her paper at RHI, which doesn't have a submission date or an acceptance date or a publication date, she says:

http://i44.tinypic.com/id574j.png
WELL, WHICH IS IT? IS MAYAK DATAT "BIGFOOT," OR IS IT "HAIRY MAN?" I mean, it's only THE TITLE OF THE PAPER!!!

In the (?)2003 paper she wrote that both Yokut words meant Hairy Man:

http://i44.tinypic.com/ojf3t1.png

In a 2008 interview transcribed on the internet, she said:

http://i41.tinypic.com/34g12di.png
A 2007 book by James K. Agee, Stewards Fork: A Sustainable Future for the Klamath Mountains, at p. 187, says:
(I couldn't find Agee's source).

I dont think that is Strains personal blog. It's this guys. She looks quite different.

[parnassus]

thanks, my bad. I edited my post to reflect that.

I do think there may be some confusion in the naming of the images. According to Strain, the upright "man" seems to have two names, Mayak Datat and sunsunut. But she refers to another prominent image as a coyote eating the sun, and gives it no tribal name. Grant, in a paper presented in 1979, says this latter pictograph resembles the pelt of a mountain lion eating the sun, and that it is said to be an evil spirit called "Sok so' uh," which sounds quite a bit like Strain's "sunsunut".

Why does one image have two names, and the other none? Does "sunsunut' (one of the two names given by Strain to the upright figure) actually mean "hairy one", not "Hairy Man," and is actually the Yurok name for the "evil hairy spirit eating the sun" image, rather than being a second Yurok name (the other being Mayak Datat) given to the upright manlike image? If this were the case, then Mayak Datat might be a recent appellation meaning 'big foot" given to the upright figure. If this were the case, then the RHI paper would be correct (that Mayak Datat means "big foot"), but Strain's early versions (that Mayak Datat means "Hairy man") were incorrect.

In line with this idea, Grant describes the upright figure thus, with no mention of hair:

Quote:

...a large polychrome human with they typical blunt neckless head and a variant on the weeping eye convention..."

and does not apply a name. He provides a drawing of the figure, but does not show hair. I take Grant's description and drawing to mean that he did not believe that hair was a prominent part of the image. This would fit with the idea that the "hairy one" image is the one on the ceiling, the evil one eating the sun, "sunsunt."

Incidentally, Grant's paper, which is not cited by Strain, begins with
"At the time of first white contact, the Yakuts Indians of central California occupied the entire San Joaquin Valley..." ,
and the second paragraph of Strain's paper at RHI begins with
"At contact, the Yakuts occupied the entire San Joaquin Valley..."
coincidence, I suppose.

[BravesFan]

Originally Posted by River

I dont think that is Strains personal blog. It's this guys. She looks quite different.

Is that her behind the rhino?...............ahem

[parnassus]

Originally Posted by The Shrike

...

If I was a referee on this paper, there's no way I would let that statement through because the support provided for why those images are interpreted as "bigfoots" is so flimsy. There's also the problem that none of them look like bigfoots!

It seems the stories equating bigfoot to the pictographs came from interviews in the 1970s (the height of the cultural bigfoot craze in this country) and from people for whom it's not clear that they were direct descendants of the culture that created the pictographs. House of cards, and a drafty one at that.
....

Anyway, it looks like the RHI is off to a great start!

From the 2003 paper (emphasis added):
in 1973, Hairy Man was associated with the "white" term of "Big Foot" and since then, it has been accepted that Hairy Man and Bigfoot are and have always been the same creature. Johnstone (1975) noted that Hairy Man had always been described by the Yokuts as "a creature that was like a great big giant with long, shaggy hair" and since Bigfoot also meets that description, the two are the same.

Well, I guess that settles that!! not.

[mikeyx]

Originally Posted by LTC8K6

Any neutral/skeptical content anticipated?

why would there be, that's not what it's about.

[BravesFan]

Originally Posted by mikeyx

why would there be, that's not what it's about.

Well, if it is to truly be peer reviewed it MUST have referees who aren't predisposed to buy into any ole Footer malarky. Or else it's just a bunch of baboons signing off on unscientific jargon because it backs up their own belief system. There's nothing peer reviewed or scientific about that.

[parnassus]

In addition to the previously noted instances where Strain referred to Mayak datat as meaning Hairy Man, rather than Bigfoot, I find this recent one, from 2011:

Quote:

The most dominant pictograph at Painted Rock is that of the ‘Hairy Man,’ also known as Mayak datat.

I am sure there are others, as she has given a number of talks on the subject, and may have written some paper for the Forest Service, etc. I'm not gonna spend my afternoon googling for more. I think I have made the point that after 9 years of saying one thing up to 2011, she now, in the RHI paper, says the other.

[AlaskaBushPilot]

One fraud they are deploying is to pretend myths are real animals. Natives know the difference between the caribou, moose, bears, and whales they harvest vs myths and religion. So did the first Europeans who came into contact with them.

California saw, from the late 1700's onward, Russian, English, Spanish, and American ships regularly with Russian Colonies in particular supplying their Russian-Alaska colonies with agricultural products. Major changes had already occurred in American Indian cultures due to the introduction of the horse by the Spanish in the 1500's. The USA was already a country by 1776 and the Lewis-Clark expedition in 1804 established that the Indians and Europeans in California (Bigfoot Country) had been accustomed to trade and relations with Europeans for generations. It was the land in-between that was less well developed.

The first written communications you have of course are Columbus' before 1500, but from then on waves of mariners, settlers, trading companies all over what is now the USA, and eventually even an American Government was interacting with the California natives centuries before Roger Patterson shows his face.

And in these centuries, nobody (Like Lewis and Clark) bothers to mention this 800 lb primate as a real living creature? There are all manner of myths going on, but nobody is confusing myths with reality. Neither native nor european side: religion, folklore, myth - people know the difference. Animals are the main trade commoddity.

These trading companies were after high-dollar furs initially, and they approached it as more of a military operation since they were raiding the animal populations of the indigenous people with cannons and shotguns on the high seas at first. Sea Otters were the top fur on the California Coast and Alaska initially.

But they're inland by the late 1700's and have to make forts/trading posts on native lands, and hold formal civil relations with them. They're taking bears and moose, sheep, beaver, fox (they run fox farms by then) marten - anything with a hide. They're trading metal products and guns, fabrics, knives and utinsils, flour etc. in return. These are settlements now, interacting daily with the natives of the region.

You can still look up company records to see how many hides of various types were brought in, and what their expenses were, what their settlements needed, the relations with the locals, regular reports. In the 1800's you have anthropologists publishing all manner of articles on native people, with drawings and their customs, how they use animals be it buffalo, whale, or deer.

Fort Ross is completed in Sonoma County in 1812, after four years of building up to it. If Bigfoot existed, it is impossible for it to have escaped the attention of people in Fort Ross through 1842. Four decades, not a peep - and they are in the animal harvest business.

From a historical perspective its an outrage, really. To slip in a pre-history to bigfoot like this: exploiting the difference between myths and real animals that were the main trade commoddity for centuries.

[RayG]

Originally Posted by The Shrike

Just checking out Strain's article a bit, my first thought is that we've seen this before.

Yup, sure have.

RayG

[parnassus]

yes, other anthropologists have other ideas, the point being that in a paper which is supposed to be "scholarly" the author should consider various viewpoints. In bigfootery, it suffices to just call everyone else an armchair critic...Meldrum himself does it. It's a big applause line for him at the Bigfooteer Conventions.

[HarryHenderson]

"In comparison, here's a cast of my wife's foot."

Nice tie...doctor.

[mikeyx]

Originally Posted by LogicFail

Well, if it is to truly be peer reviewed it MUST have referees who aren't predisposed to buy into any ole Footer malarky. Or else it's just a bunch of baboons signing off on unscientific jargon because it backs up their own belief system. There's nothing peer reviewed or scientific about that.

PEER = Meldrum reviewed by other Meldrum followers in context, so denied.

[parnassus]

Meldrum's paper (Footprint Evidence of the Chinese Yeren) in RHI is classified as a "short communication."

As a writer, he suffers from several of the same deficits as does Strain. One of these is a lack of organization: he presents information in almost a stream of consciousness, with little regard for the headings/subdivisions of the paper. For example, the abstract is not an abstract at all, but a sort of historical introduction, which goes into minute and irrelevant detail eg the name of the forest ranger who made the report. Meldrum makes too many assumptions and speaks in jargon. The title is a good example of these problems: there is no "yeren", yet he speaks of it as if there were; and it can't be called Chinese, again, because it is not known to exist. So would a scientist know what the paper was about by reading the title? no.
If he wanted to preserve the general form of the title, yet communicate accurately the subject of the paper, he could have written: "Alleged footprints of an unclassified hominid in China," or some such.

Meldrum is in the habit of using passive voice and intransitive verbs. As a result, the "actors" and their motivations and activities are obscure, and the narrative becomes "magical." ie things just "happen", which is not a realistic view of the world. This style is merely annoying in lay communications, but in scientific writing it is surely inappropriate. Writing in the active voice with transitive verbs would makes it make causation clearer.

Meldrum's writing is rambling, and undisciplined as regards brevity and the related virtue of clarity. He seems to see this paper as a story of his excellent adventure rather than a brief and succinct scientific paper. He would do well to practice expressing his findings in ultra short fashion.

Like Strain, and unlike most other academics, Meldrum doesn't seem to regard opposing views as important to discuss in an scientific paper. This is an important shortcoming, as it forces the reader to do his own literature search to evaluate the methodology and conclusions.

The substance of the paper is this:
A Chinese forest ranger, who had participated in a 1970's search for an uncatalogued primate, claimed that he saw an upright bipedal animal in 1995 and casted its footprints. The dimensions and general contours of the casts resembled those made by Roger Patterson after an alleged encounter with such a creature in the US in 1967.

That is the paper, reduced to its essence. When stated in that way, it becomes apparent that since the ranger was on a search for this animal in the 1970's, he would have been informed as to what to look for, ie what "yeren" tracks "should" look like, and Roger Patterson's casts were well described. Some years later, the ranger shows up with casts that match the description, and a good story. But it takes another 15 years for the story to be investigated and written up, by which time the trail is cold.

Why is this worth writing about? It isn't. It's most likely just a Chinese hoaxer trying to import the successful hoax perpetuated by an American. Of course, Meldrum cites his article on the Patterson tracks as evidence to the contrary. This is just bootstrapping one weak story on another.

No one else would publish it. So Meldrum publishes it himself. One more step towards promotion.
p.

[parnassus]

The last major piece in the RHI at this time is an "essay" by Bayanov, entitled "Historical Evidence for the Existence of Relict Hominoids." This is a near impossible read. From the typos/misspellings, and terrible style, I suspect no one at the RHI ever read it with a critical eye. I will give Bayanov some slack on syntax, as English is not his first language, but he writes much as do Strain and Meldrum: disorganized, passive voice, misplaced clauses, and the "excellent adventure" stuff ("I went somewhere and met someone and did this or that, read this or that book...") which is perhaps more acceptable in an essay than in a scientific paper, but when your essay is 27 pages long, it just makes the thing seem that much more interminable.

The title of the paper is misleading: It should be two papers, entitled "A history of the field of hominology," and "My research into European and West Asian religious and secular myths, legends and folklore with regard to manlike figures." The subtitles are misleading as well, e.g. "Natural History" is not what is contained within that section.

If I might make a comment that refers to all these papers: A writer and his reader make a certain tacit agreement: The reader tentatively commits to reading a work, on the condition that the writer has done his best to organize it logically, to make it easy to read, understand and assimilate. When the writer, instead, writes carelessly, uses ambiguous or difficult phrasing, switches ideas in midstream, gives misleading signposts, tosses in irrelevant information while omitting what should logically be included, etc, the reader quickly becomes frustrated and may decide to give up and toss the paper away. This is the experience one has in reading all of the papers in the RHI.

One can legitimately ask why. Are these, by coincidence, simply three otherwise competent scholars whose research relates to bigfoot, who all have the same isolated problem, ie expressing themselves on the written page? Or is their scholarly incompetence more general, and their writing skills simply the most obvious manifestation of more global deficiencies?

This post is long enough. In a subsequent one, I will deal with the content of the essay in a bit more detail.

ps, anyone who would like to tackle the book reviews, feel free....

p.

[AlaskaBushPilot]

Originally Posted by parnassus

T Are these, by coincidence, simply three otherwise competent scholars whose research relates to bigfoot, who all have the same isolated problem, ie expressing themselves on the written page?

The softball lob. I'll take it. Thanks for doing the heavy lifting on reviewing.

Clear delivery would mean nothing to say. So what other option do they have than bloviating, deceiving, handwaving and rambling nonsense?

The key deception you mention again is the title "Natural History" instead of "Myths/Legends". It's like calling Santa Clause "Natural History".


Liar liar, pants on fire!

[parnassus]

Re: Bayonov essay:

Here is one of Bayonov's key examples of ....whatever it is he's trying to prove (I really don't know what it is). You be the judge.
​

Quote:

​One of the most realistic portrayals of the hominoid side by side with Homo sapiens is the 13th century sculpture of a peasant and a wildman on the north portal of Notre Dame, Semur-en-Auxois, Burgundy (Fig. 4). The low cranial vault, prominent brow, large orbits and prominent cheek bones, receding chin, and set of the head on the shoulders all bespeak a typical Neanderthal.​

I don't get it. Is the guy's head down a bit? is that it? is it just posture or is he a "hunchback"? is his cranial vault small, or is his hat just down? His face is not unlike the other guy.... That "fur" is just his clothing (you can see the lower ends of the pant legs). He has normal feet and hands. His arms and legs and shoulders are not massive. Bigfoot looks like this? pals around with guys and wears clothes and a hat? I'd be willing to grant a number of possible interpretations of this sculpture including gay, but bigfoot? no. This is really the problem with historical accounts. There a lot of "somewhat not normal" people around, and always have been. I could show you pictures but you all know what I mean. Some people can't walk smoothly or talk or even think very quickly. Some are hairy. Some people have big heads, spinal abnormalities, etc, etc...the list goes on and on. Some people have different cultures and languages and skin pigmentation, and Europeans used to describe those people in pretty nasty terms. For that matter, Americans did so until the middle of the twentieth century. I'm surprised Bayonov didn't cite Mississippi newspapers to prove that a subhuman race was living in the South.

[BravesFan]

Semur-en-Auxois' La Collégiale Notre-Dame's sculptures were not indicating "wildmen" co-existing with humans!! it depicts the ascending of Mary, also has bestiary and plant motifs involving original sin, the Incarnatino of God on earth as Jesus Christ and depictions of several prophets....

Talk about just making stuff up....




Hey! What's wrong with Mississippi?? :-p

[tube]

Ben Radford suggested that a literal interpretation of a piece of art when it may be figurative or augmented in some way was a "Bangles Fallacy." This is an allusion to the Bangles Walk Like an Egyptian video. In the video people move in postures that recall the strange representations found on some ancient Egyptian walls.

http://orgoneresearch.com/2009/10/19...ngles-fallacy/

[BravesFan]

Originally Posted by tube

Ben Radford suggested that a literal interpretation of a piece of art when it may be figurative or augmented in some way was a "Bangles Fallacy." This is an allusion to the Bangles Walk Like an Egyptian video. In the video people move in postures that recall the strange representations found on some ancient Egyptian walls.

http://orgoneresearch.com/2009/10/19...ngles-fallacy/

True.... However,most medieval art wasn't very abstract in it's interpretation. In fact during much of the middle ages it was illegal to paint or sculpt anything not related to Christianity.(not that artists didn't , they just hid this stuff in religious works). So I would say that most of the sculptures of a 13th century church should be interpreted as depictions of events from the bible with a bit of thrown in decorative features.

This is a far cry from claiming it shows ancient wildmen. I would reckon that sculpting ancient wildmen would be considered heretical by the church.

lemme guess, any footer who we told this to would just say it was the sculptor hiding behind religious figures to express his ideas about Bigfoot, in France, in the 13th century, on a capital tower of a church.........

[parnassus]

The Bangles were some foxes, and they sang the song, but they really didn't do the walk. I'd say he should have called it the King Tut fallacy, a la Steve Martin. Greatness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl5dZxA-rZY

[parnassus]

All I said was he could have studied their newspapers for more recent material similar to what he was using in his essay. But since you asked, the Ole Miss football team has been crapola since the 60's.
p.

[BravesFan]

Originally Posted by parnassus

All I said was he could have studied their newspapers for more recent material similar to what he was using in his essay. But since you asked, the Ole Miss football team has been crapola since the 60's.
p.

I'm an Auburn fan! LOL, but Ole miss had some good years with Eli at the Helm

[parnassus]

Back to the Bayonov essay at RHI.

In the first paragraph of what he calls "Natural History," Bayanov cites Lucretius:

Quote:

A celebrated source here is Lucretius Carus (1st century B.C.), who in his famous De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) describes a race of wildmen, who had very strong bodies, covered with hair, who lived in woods and caves, who had neither language, nor clothes, nor any industry, who hunted animals with sticks and stones, and ate meat and other foods raw. It is most remarkable that Lucretius says that these woodland wildmen were ancestral to modern man.

The last sentence give a hint to Bayanov's ploy. Lucretius is NOT describing a race of men that existed in his time or that he knows to have existed. He is merely speculating on some sort of more primitive ancestors of man. Is that really news to us, that we have primitive ancestors? is that evidence of bigfoot? It's meaningless in terms of bigfoot, but unless you read carefully and do a little research, you might think it was significant. This is quite representative of the material he presents in the essay.
p.

[parnassus]

The local (Pocatello) news-papper notices the RHI:

Quote:

...
The inaugural editorial, written by Meldrum, discusses the hominoid family tree. [?? it does?--parnassus]

"One of the themes of the journal emphasizes that there is a growing recognition of the ever-increasing [business] bushiness of the hominoid family tree," he said. "The human species has not been solitary in the past; why would the present be an exception? [duh? because we are the baddest mother flippers ever to walk the earth? and we are endowed with a cantankerous gene?--parnassus] Why would we be the last hominid standing?" [Hello? doesn't the question predict the answer?--parnassus]

Well-known for his interest and [unpreductive] research on the topic of the sasquatch, Meldrum said that the journal will be dedicated to articles regarding the existence of such [creations of the human imagination] creatures worldwide.

"As the journal's logo suggests, this is a global phenomenon," he said, mentioning the Himalayan yeti, the Chinese yeren, and the Russian almasty, and explaining that these creatures are each different potential [profit centers] relict species.

A study by Melba Ketchum, of DNA Diagnostics, establishing the DNA sequence of [some hikers, hunters and campers ] the sasquatch is currently in review [it is??--parnassus]. Depending on the outcome of the study,[ Meldrum] “The Relict Hominoid Inquiry” could see vastly increased popularity [sales of books and casts] and mainstream exposure [to coeds], according to Meldrum.

Meldrum was recently interviewed by a reporter for the British publication “New Scientist Magazine” for an issue regarding human evolution. He said the interview focused on the growing scientific interest in the possibility of [having their own television series]relict hominoids and was an opportunity to showcase the launch of the journal.

So far, no press conference video.

[AlaskaBushPilot]

Speakin' of the family tree...

There's a couple different ways to look at it. one is all currently living hominids arranged in order of common ancestry.




The other is to look back through time in the fossil record, millions of years into the past:





So I wonder where bigfoot is in either of those.

[Moss]

Originally Posted by LogicFail

Semur-en-Auxois' La Collégiale Notre-Dame's sculptures were not indicating "wildmen" co-existing with humans!! it depicts the ascending of Mary, also has bestiary and plant motifs involving original sin, the Incarnatino of God on earth as Jesus Christ and depictions of several prophets....

Talk about just making stuff up....




Hey! What's wrong with Mississippi?? :-p

Careful: the Wild Man is a common motive in European medieval and Renaissance art. I'm not exactly sure what they symbolize but I don't think the neanderthals qualify.

[BravesFan]

i was more referring to the "coexistence" part, but point taken!

[AlaskaBushPilot]

Originally Posted by Moss

Careful: the Wild Man is a common motive in European medieval and Renaissance art. I'm not exactly sure what they symbolize but I don't think the neanderthals qualify.

Right. Hoaxers hijack folklore.

They get away with it pretty easily by exploiting folklore that is distant from their audience. Native folklore for example. In this case medieval folklore. This kind of myth or folklore is omnipresent in history from the earliest writings like the Epic of Gilgamesh circa 2000 BCE.

It does gall me I have to admit - that they can be this brazen. This isn't genius level criminality here. Thousands of years in folklore available to select from.

[AlaskaBushPilot]

Something I found alarming academically with the Strains paper: She deduces that bigfoot and hairyman must be the same. So therefore she tells the story of hairy man with the term "bigfoot" replacing hairy man in the text! Parnasus is already challenging the whole hairy man language but this shows how shameless thery are by inserting "bigfoot" where it isn't. Brazen.

She could not get one single eyewitness report of a bigfoot on the reservation by an indian from that reservation. Heh. A secret report from someone outside who worked there. But then passed that off as reservation indians seeing bigfoot. Plural. Wow - no scrupals whatsoever! Inventing sightings that do not exist.

What she has definitely shown is that bigfoot belongs to the class of myth, just like hairy man and all other manner of wildman across the ages and cultures. And we do get the direct admission at the opening of the last paragraph paraphrased:

none of this is proof that bigfoot exists. Then on to a list of other reasons it would be "interesting" to study this stuff and publish it in a journal dedicated to "poofing" bigfoot into existence.

The whole paper was talking animals and mythological beginnings of man, you know native religion or folklore or whatever you want to call it. Raven says this, Eagle says that, Coyote snitches blah blah blah. Fine, is this a native folklore journal? Or are you saying there might be talking animals in the forest along with bigfoot because of this folklore?

This is the whole manipulative denial routine: I'm not doing what your eyes are seeing. I am not poofing bigfoot into existence or retrojecting it into history where it did not exist before. Who me? No, I am just interested in how the Tule Indian history I just fabricated compares to other history I am going to fabricate in the future.