Hairy Bigfoots Are Girls Too!

Pliny the Elder was a man of many talents in Ancient Rome. He was a naturalist, author, naval commander, and lawyer. For the purposes of this blog we will focus on his naturalist and author sides. His last known work was an encyclopedia titled Naturalis Historia. It is one of the largest ancient texts to survive to modern times. While it is not an encyclopedia as we know today, it focuses on what strange and wonderful things Rome was discovering and bringing home from its expansion throughout the ancient world.

One story that has been connected to Bigfoot has been his telling of a tribe of people called the Gorgades. Located off the Atlantic coast of Africa on a group of islands lived a tribe of people whose women were completely covered in hair. Some scholars today believe the location to be what we now know as the Canary Islands.

Pliny the Elder, Natural History 6. 200 :
"Opposite this cape also there are reported to be some islands, the Gorgades which were formerly the habitation of the Gorgones, and which according to the account of Xenophon of Lampsacus are at a distance of two days' sail from the mainland. These islands were reached by the Carthaginian general Hanno, who reported that the women had hair all over their bodies, but that the men were so swift of foot that they got away; and he deposited the skins of two of the female natives in the Temple of Juno as proof of the truth of his story and as curiosities, where they were on show until Carthage was taken by Rome"

 

Hanno II of Carthage, also known as Hanno the navigator was the explorer credited with the discovery of these tribes. While he described the women as being completely covered by hair we do not have a description of any males because Hanno recorded that the males were so swift that they could not be observed well or captured. He managed to capture three females of the tribe. However upon trying to get them to board the ship they clawed and bit at Hanno's men. So he killed and skinned them. Upon his return home he placed the skins in the Temple of Juno (a female deity) where they remained on display until Carthage came under Roman control. No text survives that shows anything more about these skins or if they were removed or destroyed.

While it would be easy to look at this encounter as nothing more than a gorilla or ape there are a few thought provoking pieces of information which may indicate otherwise.

1. It has been documented in texts that Hanno had contact with apes and gorillas before yet he does not describe these creatures by any of the common names for them during his time.
2.  In the Fulani languages that was spoken where Hanno was exploring  the noun for 'man' was 'gorko'. And he chose to refer to this tribe as Gorgades.
3. In previous encounters with gorillas Hanno never described them as speaking or having any speech. But he puts the Gorgades in the same speaking category as other tribes he encountered and captured. And that the lands of the Gorgades were in the same territory of the Fulani language tribes.

While not conclusive evidence in the least bit, it is food for thought when looking at the historical record of Bigfoot.