BC Mowglis
Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 31st, 2006
Reports of Sasquatch, a name coined in the 1920s, were documented in many ways before that specific label was used.
How about “Mowglis”?
Obviously, this name is linked to its use in The Jungle Book, a collection of stories written in 1894 by Rudyard Kipling. The best-known of them are the three stories about the adventures of an orphan “man cub” named Mowgli, who is raised by wolves in the Indian jungle.
Moving the term from the 19th century to the early 20th century, it gave newspaper reporters a catchy moniker.
Here, in an article from the October 28, 1905 issue of Ohio’s Van Wert Daily Bulletin, we get to read specifically of these cryptids:
“British Columbia Mowglis”
Tribe of Wild Men Roaming Woods and Frightening People.
James Johnson, a rancher living near Cornox, seven miles from Cumberland, B.C., reports several Mowglis, or wild men, who have been seen in that neighborhood by ranchers, says a Nanaimo (B.C.) correspondent of the San Francisco Call. Johnson asserts that they were performing what seemed to be a sort of “sun dance” on the sand. One of them caught a glimpse of Johnson, who was viewing the proceedings from behind a big log. The Mowglis disappeared as if by magic into a big cave.
Thomas Kincaid, a rancher living near French creek, while bicycling from Cumberland, also reports seeing a Mowgli, whom he describes as a powerfully built man, more than six feet in height and covered with long black hair. The wild man upon seeing Kincaid uttered a shriek and disappeared into the woods. Upon arriving home Kincaid wrote Government Agent Bray of Nanaimo, inquiring if it would be lawful to shoot the Mowgli, as he was terrorizing that vicinity.
The government agent replied that there was no law permitting such an act. It is reported that on a recent hunting expedition up the Quailicum river an Indian saw a Mowgli and, mistaking him for a bear, shot at and wounded him. During the past month no less than eleven persons coming to Nanaimo from Cumberland have seen the wild men. Parties have been organized and every effort is being made to capture the Mowglis.
As I have mentioned in my books, before the names like Abominable Snowmen (1921), Sasquatch (1920s), and Bigfoot (1958) came into common usage, the phrases most often employed in the 19th century and early 20th century for unknown hairy hominoids were ones like “Wild People,” “Wild Men,” “Wild Women,” and “Wild Children.” To call these British Columbian cryptid hominoids “Mowglis” merely seems another way to link these early creatures to “Wild People.”
Thanks to Jerry Clark of The Unidentified & Creatures of the Outer Edge: The Early Works of Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman for passing this new item along.
- Similar Phenomena:
YAY! Mowglis! I’ll call my first born that!
wutcha gonna do, raise ‘im in the woods? LOL
Excellent find, great article. Many thanks.