Manitou
Posted by: Loren Coleman on June 25th, 2012
This is the Manitou mask of the Dynamic Design Intl. company.
Just as Skookum is another name for Bigfoot/Sasquatch, so too appears to be manitou.
For more on the locations of sites named after manitou, and details on the Manitou name game, see here.
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“Just as Skookum is another name for Bigfoot/Sasquatch, so too appears to be manitou.”
That statement is too strong. It may be that if an American Indian saw a Bigfoot, he would consider it *a* spirit, or *a* manitou, just as a white explorer might think of it as *a* devil. The white man’s idea of a devil, let alone *the* devil, though, is loaded with many characteristics not to be found in a mere bipedal ape. The white man would not imagine that Bigfoot was tempting him to drink to much, or gamble his money away, or spend his money in the brothel, though he may think that the Devil might appear in some frightening form like a Bigfoot. Similarly, it is clear from their stories that the American Indians did not consider the Great Spirit to be like a Bigfoot.
You could actually make a better case by noting that the Indians living around Mount Shasta believed that they (and all other humans) descended from the fairest daughter of the Great Spirit and a grizzly bear. In reaction to this, the Great Spririt “bade them hold their tongues, get down on their hands and knees, and so remain till he returned…. So the grizzlies could not rise up any more, or use their clubs, but have ever since had to go on all-fours, much like other beasts, except when they have to fight for their lives, when the Great Spirit permits them to stand up and fight with their fists like men.”
OK, a grizzly is a grizzly, but something like a grizzly that does not go on all fours and can use a club, but is not really a man — does that sound like it might be something else? It probably means nothing, really, but it is interesting.
Of course, the ancient aliens crowd would say this is evidence of how an exterrestrial race (the Great Spirit) gave some of its DNA to a primordial race of Bigfoot-like creatures to create the human race. That’s complete nonsense as far as science goes, but an OK premise for a science fiction movie.