What are some of the Indian legends/stories of BF?

[taffy341]

Please tell us some of the area's legends about Bigfoot.
I've read that some tribes have reported of two (2) types of Bigfoot. Have any of the legends you were told about mentioned different types? Have you ask if there were differences? I know the readers of this forum would enjoy reading some of the legends told to you.

[aaronp]

A good book that I have is called "Raincoast Sasquatch" and it covers sasquatch sighting, enounters and legends from the Olympic Peninsula all the way up the Pacific coast to Yakutat, Alaska. There are alot of stories in there covering alot of the coastal tribal accounts about BF.

Two that I can think of:

One takes place in the Salmon River country of central Idaho a long time ago. A tribal member was having a tough time locating and catching some salmon for his family, and he was being watched by a BF. This BF comunicated via sign language to follow it. The BF showed the tribal member an area where there were salmon stacked up at a bottle neck in the stream that made it easier for him to catch fish for his family. This story took place on the South Fork of the Salmon River.

A second story talks about a group of four men who are traveling through the mountains come upon a BF and somehow challenge him to a wrestling match (for whatever reason I can't recall off hand) but all four men are having this friendly wrestling match with the BF and lose. They then provided the BF with some dried meat for defeating them. I was told that BF could understand indian sign language, or make primitive gestures that were similar and understood.

In the Clearwater Mountains of North Central Idaho, my uncle was working for the USFS when he was in highschool back in the late 1960's. He was on a survey crew staking in a new road. My uncle's job was to walk ahead of the group with a pack full of surveying stakes and everyso often drop a plumb bob write some info on the stake and leave it for the guys coming up behind to place in the ground. They were working their way alongside a stream when he came upon a large rock outcropping on a ridge. When he neared the outcrop a loud scream was heard in which my uncle releated it to the sound of a bull elephant. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and as he turned around to drop his pack to run, the other 5 guys in the crew were already climbing trees. He said the scream lasted for several seconds, and to this day, everytime he tells me the story, he wishes he would have looked on the other side of the outcropping to see what made that scream. The road they surveyed was completed and is a major roadway to the Lolo trail Motorway.

Another story that I remember hearing from another tribal family is from back in the early 1900's in the Selway River country of Idaho. A family group went on a hunting trip. They traveled in by horseback to a remote cabin and set up camp for the week or however long they were going to spend out in the mountains. One day, while the men were out hunting, the wife of one of the hunters who remained back at camp to have dinner ready when the returned, was cleaning, or washing the dishes inside the cabin. While she was doing this, she happend to glance out the window and saw a BF looking at her from not too far away. This scared to bejeezus out her and she hid in the cabin until the men returned. When she told them what she saw. They packed up and left.

A personal experience I have had is when I worked for the USFS while in college back in 1991. I was working on a ranger district right next to the Selway Bitterroot wilderness in Idaho. In May of that year my self and 3 other people on my crew were stationed at a remote work center and we were instructed to tear down some old wooden sheds that were built to house some sediment monitoring equipment from some study that was done on road building and erosion from those roads. We were to tear down and burn the scrap lumber during the week. One evening while back at camp, we were sitting around the camp waiting for our food to cook inside the cabin, when we all heard a loud roar come from down in the bottom of the canyon. The workcenter/camp sits on top of a ridge above a drainage that flows into the wilderness area approximately 4 miles down stream. Upon hearing this roar, none of us knew what to make of it. We gathered all the tools, pulaski's, shovels etc... and locked them up except those we could use to defend ourselves. And it was an erie night wondering if what ever made that noise was going to make their way up the mountain to where we were camped. Nothing ever did that we know of.

Four months later, myself and a coworker were the only two left on the crew. The others returned to school and my coworker and I chose to take off a semester and work. Well, it was September now and we were surveying steams in the vicinity of the same area and we were using the same workcenter to stay at. One evening after work, my coworker and I were playing horseshoes at camp waiting for our food to cook and from down in the bottom of the canyon we heard the exact same loud roar. But now there were only two of us and not four as there was earlier that season. The two of us slept inside the cabin with a pulaski next each one of our cots that night.

This roar I heard was loud and similar to a loud roar that an african lion would make. I seemed strange that we would hear this in the same location in a roadless area.

[taffy341]

Thanks... that was really an interesting reading...
The Forest People generally are good to the good hearted. I wonder if the BF's family was near by below in the canyon and it didn't want you to innocently enter the area. They are wise about humans and know that normally their dominence will be established and respected due to instilling fear.
I bet the BF knew you would stay put in the cabin for the rest of the night (some say they have laughter and if so, I bet the BF was smiling to itsself knowing that the two (2) young buck humans wouldn't be wondering around the canyon that evening... LOL.

[buddharat]

I also suggest "Bigfoot:The True Story of Apes In America" by Loren Coleman. Not only does it talk about sightings, it goes into some of the hoaxes as well as fables/legends. It's really well written and once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down until it was done. If you're looking for stories you'd like this book.