Indians had Sasquatch too...

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Those who think stories about a huge hairy mystery giant called sasquatch are of a recent origin, Should talk with Wenatchee Valley College Historian, John Brown.
Brown has found evidence that the search for such a legendary creature was underway in the Northwest by the time the earliest white men arrived in the area. While researching material for a book he co-authored  with Dr. Robert Ruby --"The Spokane Indians, Children of The Sun"---he came across a passage that must relate to what is now called Sasquatch.
The reference was in a letter written by Rev. Elkanah Walker from Ft. Colville in 1840. With his wife, Mary, Elkanah Walker was a missionary to The Spokanes. In a letter to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, he wrote:

"...I suppose you will beat with me [sic] if I trouble you with a little of their (the Spokane Indians) superstition, which has recently come to my knowledge."

"They believe in the existence of a race of giants which inhabit a certain mountain off to the west of us. This mountain is covered with perpetual snow. They inhabit its top. They may be classed with Goldsmith's nocturnal class, as they cannot see in the daytime. They hunt and do all theri owrk; in the night."

"Their men are stealers. They come to the people's lodges at night, when the people are asleep, and put them under their skins and take them to their place of abode without their even walking. When they awake in the morning, they are wholly lost, not knowing in what direction their home is. The account the Indians give of these giants will in some measure correspond with the Bible account of such a race of beings. they say that their track is about a foot and a half long. They will carry two or three beams upon their back at once."

"They frequently come in the night, steal their salmon from the nets, and eat them raw. If the people are away they always know when they are coming very near by their strong smell, which is most intolerable. It is not uncommon for them to come in the night and give three whistles. Then the stones will begin to hit the houses. The people are troubled with their nocturnal visits."

Brown says he has known about many Spokane Indian legends about monsters but they have been of Paul Bunyan-types that carve out valleys, etc... The ogre refered to in the letter is not really a monster, just a little bigger than a man and he had no idea what "mountain to the west is referred to...the one that is always snow-topped. Perhaps it was Mt. Rainier."

The Spokanes also believed in a race of little people, Brown says. Even if the stories about the little people and giants aren't true, the Indians believed they were, he says.

Many people today believe just as fervently in the existence of a hairy man-like object that sometimes is glimpsed but never really seen. Plaster casts of prints supposedly from the feet of such a creature have been exhibited.

One Sasquatch hunter has what he believes is a picture of the man-animal. This area's involvement goes back 25 or 30 years to the "Wildman of Lichtenwasser", supposedly seen on that mountain by fishermen.

Myth or fact---no one knows. But at any rate, John Brown indicates reports of such a bigfoot are nothing new.

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Source:
September 21, 1975
Wenatchee, Washington - The Wanatchee Daily World Newspaper
Article courtesy of The Bay Area Group and Warren Thompson