————————

Without fail, local witnesses and legends describe Orang Pendek as: 1) an ape, 2) about one meter (~ three feet) tall, 3) with a strong chest and arms, 4) short hair covering its body, 5) that walks bipedally (on two legs). Even though its name means “short person”, everyone will tell you that, “Of course it’s not a person, it’s an animal!” Consider orang-utans, whose name means “forest person”. Apes and monkeys have been ascribed human-like qualities throughout history in this region of the world.

————————

Again, someone else is doing the interpretation of the anecdotes, not me. But if that’s indeed what is going on, we may have more company than we think.

(Oh. The “strong chest and arms” seem to have led to researchers considering the gorilla a good candidate among known primates to spark conversation among locals about the o.p., as those features do indeed seem most prominent in the gorilla.)

Things-in-the-woods: Remember it’s not about belief, it’s about EVIDENCE. I have no desire to believe, but to KNOW.

I know I know, but one thing I thought pretty interesting about the orang pendek was that, when alleged eyewitnesses were brought in from widely separated villages in “the animal’s range,” sequestered from one another, and then brought individually in front of a World Wildlife Fund artist, the resulting “perp sketches” evinced a pretty remarkable consistency. In additon, people given stacks of photos of known primates and sketches of the orang pendek, and asked, with no help, which one is the o.p.?, would either stop on the o.p. (if that were among the ones presented), or would stop at the same photos (of gorillas, if memory serves), and say, pretty consistently, how that animal was similar to the o.p., and how it differed. Then there’s the local headman who has systematically set up baited pit traps, wherever he can, in an indignant effort to show skeptics that HE ISN’T KIDDING!

That said. I wasn’t there; and I sure hope nobody said or showed anything of a “leading” nature to those eyewitnesses. Skepticals are essential wear in these situations. I just think that the NGS-funded search for the o.p. is the kind of thing that is fully justifiable, given the evidence on hand, none of which, granted, amounts to proof. When two Westerners with scientific credentials go on record as having seen the o.p., which I understand is the case, well, I’d hope that would prick ears up.

Indeed, myths and legends are, or should be expected to be, unstable, and have lives of their own. But one must remember that these myths and legends seem to have a tendency to encompass practically every animal indigenous people know about; and that a myth can just as easily be describing an animal they know as it can an animus they made up.

One thing I’d like to see resulting from stuff like this: field biologists going out there with an eye to documenting EVERYTHING THEY SEE. In other words: open minds, researchers. You’re looking for unknown stuff, right? Expanding the frontiers of knowledge, right? Good. Let’s not brand hairy-hominoid sighters as nuts; particularly when they’re scientists. Entomologists, herpetologists, mammalogists, ornithologists, icthyologists, botanists, geologists; they’re all NATURALISTS. They have trained and honed powers of observation that should be brought to bear - it’s a shame if they aren’t now - on EVERYTHING they encounter out there.

In other words, let’s give a woodpecker hunter a real chance to alert us to the sasquatch. Call it Ben Radford’s Dream.

It might be rather hard to get hold of (my university library had a copy), and it doesn’t of course have any real revelations.

It is interesting, however, in showing how amorphous and unstable these myths/legends are, and how they may have a life of their own. Basically, different locals describe the orang pendek in completely different ways (many of which are noting like the now standard little hominid), and it is suggested that nobody really talked about the orang pendek at all until debbie martyr (who comes across as quite odd) made her claims and western investigators got interested.

It was a useful little sceptical-ish brake on my desire to believe..

Still, its interesting to have yet another example of island dwarfism just to prove its in no way impossible that there might be little humans or other apes running about in various parts of the world. It certainly makes it possible that something (dead or alive) might be found in sri lanka (although that is a very big island, and pliny is always rather a, shall we say, ambiguous source).

Another example that springs to mind are the reputed Taiwanese pygmies (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6217502.stm for an article which tells a bit about them).

Nittaewo, the three feet tall hairy hominids of ancient Ceylon (Sri Lanka) — mentioned by Pliny in the first century — who were said to exist to the end of the 18th Century. It is time to look again at reports of little people, with an eye to the discovery of their subfossil remains and living existence, from Sri Lanka to the South Pacific.

The inhabitants of Flores had mentioned there were small dwarf like individuals to the early European settlers. Perhaps exploring Sri Lanka may have the same result of finding remains of small Hominoids. The Portuguese arrived in Ceylon at the 16th century, so Europeans would have been on the Island period for a brief before the Nittaewo disappeared.

Unfortunately, the island nation is in a 25 year civil war, with the 2002 cease fire being terminated by the government this year. Tourism has been in the decline since 2006 when sporadic fighting and attacks returned late last year, before the end of the cease fire, various national governments recommended that its citizens NOT go to a large national park, which is an attraction to tourists, as there was a small Rebel presence there. I have numerous Sri-Lankan in laws and friends who talk about the deteriorating conditions there and the situation is so tense.

Sigh…. Similar to parts of the Congo

Good point.

I also agree this is a great day for cryptozoology.

Couldn’t agree more.

So, are the menehune pongids or something like dwarfed Ainu? (the modern Ainu are mixed due to Japanese persecution over the centuries, originally they would have resembled the Saami-like people of the Tarim Basin 4,000 years ago) See the anime’ Princess Mononoke for a Japanese take on that.

Another thing to consider is that people don’t dump their folktales when they move. My grandmother would tease us children by telling us that the cream she set out for the cats was really for the little people. Polynesians having encountered, or having heard of Floriesians might well carry the tales to islands where the latter did not live.