Big Food and Beyond with Cliff and Bobo. These guys are your favor It's so like say subscribe and raid it.
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Greatest Gone Yesterday and listening watching Lin always keep its watching.
And now your hosts Cliff Berrickman and James Bobo Fay Bobo. How are you doing today?
Pretty good? Cliff, how's going with you?
I'm pretty good, man. Things are all right. The museums humming along, which is great despite the rainy day. I spent four or five hours with the Long Term Witness yesterday up there across the river from Longview, Washington in that general area. Really interesting stuff is going on up there, but that is nothing at all compared to what we have in store today for the podcast. Yeah, hell man, I don't know how you feel abouts, but usually it pod.
I'm looking forward to it. This is gonna be great, but today I'm actually nervous.
Oh dude. I skipped all my appointments today. I didn't want to get an offender, benders, anything that happened to making miss this. I was like, no way, because we got a giant in the field. His book's one of the top three books on like Relic Comin has ever written the.
Yeah, well, his first book is one of the best books ever written in that The Images of the Wild Man in Southeast Asia. But he has a new book coming out in May. From what I understand, where he actually says pretty much straight out and wait, of course we'll get it from this gentleman in a minute, pretty much straight out, like, hey, there might be another hominoid alive. And for someone with degrees in anthropology to say that, well,
that's sticking one's neck out pretty far. A little bit less so today because there is a paradigm now for religd hominoids. But twenty thirty years ago, I mean he would have been chased out of town with pitchforks and torches. So I am we are out of our minds with excitement to welcome doctor Gregory Fourth to Bigfoot and beyond. Doctor Fourth, Thank you so much for coming on our little podcast here.
You're welcome, very welcome.
When I saw in my news feed there was an article I think it was a New Scientist, that an anthropologist is suggesting that there might be another homanoid species alive and well in Indonesia, down in flores I immediately thought of your book, of course, and I started reading and I saw you were the author of the article. I was just over the moon, so thrilled that you've come out with another book on it seems like it's going to mostly be focused on the Ebugogo. I don't know if that's true or not.
No, not quite this. Geographically, the focus of this book is a region towards the eastern end of Flores, very mountainous region towards the eastern end of Flores, which is inhabited by people called Leo l Io is how it's how it's usually spelt. And the creature that they recognize as an animal that lives in their forests, especially their mountain forests, is called now I glossed that as as
ape man. I use the time ape man because local people who you know, some of whom claim to see these things, and many more who know something about them, tend to describe them as having a monkey like a monkey like a period appearance, especially as regards the face. Well that I know, apes on flurrees. Evolutionarily speaking, of course, apes preceded hominins and so so eight man seems you
know the best very much. I mean, it's not direct translation of the Leo name, but it's very much in the spirit of that of that name, so we're stuck with stuck with ape man. Of course, I lived towards the western end of Flores and there they are relevant
as well. That The main difference, I guess you could say between the Leo eight Men that the Laiho and the Abu Gogo of the Nagae region further west, is that the Abu Gogo are supposed to be extinct, and all local people you talk to say that they were, you know, they ceased to be two hundred maybe three hundred years ago. But there's no point looking for one now, they say, because they're all all gone.
The Leo in the eastern part of Flores, I remember in the previous book it was described as having an abductive HeLEX, like a grasping big toe. Does that still stand or because that would that would probably indicate something different than Home of Threesience's I believe, right.
I would guess, so I do, you're right. I do briefly mention in in in the the general book the Images of the wild Man, but I don't remember any such toe. Maybe maybe I use more Layman terms in the book, or more likely I am as somebody else is perhaps you know, given that description of something else.
Well here I have it right here in front of me, because I was perusing the book earlier, and it's on page sixty eight, this third paragraph. It says one man characterized Leah's feet as like hands capable of grasping.
Oh, I see what you're getting at. Yes, thank you for translating for me. The point is that I have I have certainly heard that in that instance. Of course I did say one man, just one man. This is not a common, not a not a common, particularly common designation. In fact, most people don't really you know, can't say for sure anything. They can't say anything for sure about the about the feet, Yeah, there there there is. I guess.
More generally you could say there is a notion that their feet, like other parts of them, are more monkey like than in physically physically modern uh, physically modern humans.
The work done on homofloresiensis so far seems to indicate that homofluoresiensis has a very flexible foot, probably probably no march, and probably a lot of flexibility in the mid tarsal joint in that area. So I could see how a brief observation of a even if you happen to notice the foot, you probably notice this a lot more mobile than say a Homo sapiens.
Yes, I mean, I think you're right with regard to the analysis analysis of Homo foresiences that I will say, you know, among eye witness reports that there wasn't anything that that you know, pointed specifically in that that direction. But I do in the book, I do go into some deeptail about what people told me about the feet, and that they indicated the first of all, that they walked in around the peculiar manner, something approaching what's called
the groucho walk, if you know how that goes. Yeah, and that I mean reconstructions of homoiences point in that direction as well. Also for resience's feet of course were relatively relatively large, uh you know, given the short legs and the overall small size of the of the body. So yeah, there are quite a number of things like that that that fit fit quite well. But as a statement I'm saying that they have feet like monkeys or
feet just like hands. I didn't hear that very often, and in my recollection I never heard it from an eyewitness, but you can check in the book when it needed to course.
Well, of course, of course I've already pre ordered it. Actually, I cannot wait to get my eyes on it. So I imagine a lot of our listeners are unaware because you know, images of this of the wild Men in Southeast Age is a very academic book in a lot of ways, and and you know it takes a special kind of person interested in bigfoot to read the academic stuff. Most of the time, it's a little bit more accessible to the public. So can you give our listeners a
little bit of background. I know most of your work has been in cultural anthropology. I think it has on the island of Flores but you've been to all the islands in Indonesia, So tell us little bit about your anthropological background, please.
Well, what you've just said is generally accurate. I decided to I decided to study ath forulge and University way back towards the end of the nineteen sixties, as a matter of fact, so that puts a kind of a date on me. And I was quite successful as an undergraduate, and I got a place that was in Canada, by the way, at Simon Fraser University and in British Columbia
and Sasquatch Territory. As a matter of fact. After that, I got a place at Oxford University in England to do graduate work, and I for various reasons which I'm particularly interesting, I decided with my supervisor at the time that I should prepare for graduate field work on the island of Sumba. Sumba is very close to Flores, actually
quite close due south also in eastern Indonesia. While I was on Flores, as a matter of fact, I did hear stories about hairy homonoids, but these were quite different from what I subsequently encountered on on on Flores itself. And for one thing, the the Sumbanese characters were mostly the topic of of myths. But anyway, to move along,
I am yeah. So I finished my darktorate my PhD in nineteen eighty and I got a position with the British Academy at because I'm still in England at the time, the British Academy with one of their institutes in as it was in Southeast Asia, that was in Singapore, and one of the requirements for me as deputy director of that institute was to start a new piece of field work. Well I didn't, so I didn't go back to Somber, but I didn't go very far away. For various reasons.
I've always been fascinated by Flores Flores Island and there was one definite region part of that island, the one called Nage, which you know, nobody published anything to speak of about this area before, so I thought, right, you know, this will be the place to go and fill in some gaps. Well, it's very I arrived in Naga Country
in nineteen eighty four. That was my first you know, full field season there, and it wasn't It wasn't long before I got talking to my hosts, members of the Naga Naga tribe some people call it or it's not terribly accurate, And somehow the topic got on to you know, hormonoids, creatures that that aren't human, but they look a lot like them, and typically they're naked of course their area and all that sort of thing. And that's when I
that's when I first heard about the bugogo. And yeah, no, it certainly a bugg sounded rather more naturalistically described than creatures I'd heard about previously on Somber and elsewhere. I yeah, I was going to say that at this time that sort of topic was by no means the main focus of my field research. In fact, as much as anything, I was interested in mapping indigenous social organization and seeing how that compared with what had been reported from elsewhere
in Eastern Indonesia. I was, however, also interested in the indigenous religion, cosmology, all that sort of thing, which I mean, when I first arrived, I was told whether ein'ight none no more because in the specific region I was working in, specific part of Nagay, just about everybody had become converted to Catholicism, or you know, some twenty years or more
previously in the nineteen sixties. I thought, you know, there has to be some kind of memory at least of local spiritual beings and how I'm supposed to deal with them and all the rest. And indeed, as I pushed the point a bit, more and more came out. And this is kind of a digression on homonoids, but it turned out that indeed the indigenous religion was still still alive originally well and coexisting with Catholicism.
A lot of times the missionaries come in and they take elements of the previous religion and kind of show it to the people that are trying to convert, to make the transition easier on them, I guess, or something.
I mean, I think they need to be a bit careful there. I mean that they have to somehow get across the differences as well, and my missionaries themselves. There are different opinions about the validity of that of that of that approach, But I mean, one thing I found out eventually in that context was that while there are these various categories of spirits, spirits, forest spirits, and so on in the Nagai region, according to local people, the go go, well, we're not We're not one of these.
They were not They were not supernatural. They they you know, they were visible, they reproduced, they could be killed, all these sorts of things with which are natural creature can can do. And and indeed, that same sort of distinction I discovered among the that the Leo people much more much more recently, and well I should mention Leo and Nagae are somewhat related, have similar cultures, and their languages are related as well, So that resemblance isn't isn't surprising?
So one that seems like one of the main differences between the eastern and western populations of humans, the Nagae and the Leo, was that the Naugae claimed that like, oh, yeah, the Ebu Gogos, we killed them all off, We put them in that cave, we burn them out. They're dead, they're gone, whereas on the other part of the island the Leo people say that, no, no, they're still here. They're walking around. We see them sometime.
Yeah, very rare. They're considered to be very rare creatures.
Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bogo will be right back after these messages.
What's the most recent was an account that you deemed credible?
The most recent encounter, Well, I have a report from twenty seventeen, mainly from a woman, a woman in her forties I guess she is now, which it was very detailed. She was supposed to have seen this being in twenty seventeen, and in fact, when I spoke to her it was
just weeks after the incident took place. Her husband at the time was at home or in a field hut a garden hat taken care of some business while she was on the other side of a field near a forest forest stream from where this harmonoid emerged in the
late late afternoon. The way she described it was rather different from most other most other descriptions, and for that reason and one or two others, I didn't list it in the book, as you know, the best kind of case, even though even though it was, as I said, the most the most recent. This being was quite short, about sixty centibrators if you can translate down, and she described
it also. She said it wasn't particularly hairy, which is not a problem, but she spoke of it as having a sort of white, whitish whitish area on its on its chest, which again is not typical these things I described as being dark skinned, much like local humans themselves. And there are one or two other reports about something white on the body, but this was most most definite about this. There was also a disagreement between her and
her husband. She wanted to claim that she was the only one who saw it, that her husband was too scared to come out of the hat, which she was quite a bold woman, were outgoing, certainly by Leo's standards, and she well. He insisted that he had seen it from the hat, although not nearly as closely and as well as as she'd seen it. In the end, she relented and said, oh, yes, well he did. He did see it too, but I saw it better, and I saw it first, and so on. But then in the
following year, twenty eighteen, they this cup. They claimed they'd seen it again, which which started to make me wonder a bit. But I didn't definitely definitely couldn't, didn't definitely discount it. So that's the most recent but as I said, not not the best example of a siting.
When did that one person find that the corpsure when they claim they found a dead one?
Yeah, where there were two people who observed said they observed corpses or carcasses if you prefer. It's a bit philosophical of course as to whether it's some kind of human or something else. But yeah, I both those reports by two quite different individuals, are in my chapter seven, where I discuss at length what I call three you know, particularly remarkable or compelling encounter. One of them was from an elderly guy who I met back in twenty eleven.
That's when I first heard his story, and I was able to interview him again in twenty fourteen and twenty twenty fifteen. In twenty fifteen, I think he was getting a bit past it, And indeed, according my news, he died not long after that, in twenty sixteen. But all the stories in that chapter, by the way, chapter seven include more than one simultaneous eyewitness, which was another mark in there, another mark in their favor anybody anyway, the old man who I give him the name Voulu, he
had been working on road and bridge construction. He wasn't Leo, by the way, it's from a neighboring a neighboring area called end Day. But anyway, being a member of a work crew, they were traveling through well, they're traveling on a stretch of road which is probably the highest point on the main highway that that goes from one end of Flores's Island to the other. In rather cloudy conditions, as during the rainy season, they're going through through jungle.
They something right in front of the truck. Now Volo himself was in the back of the truck standing up, so he was looking over the cab. He reckons. He got a better sight of this, of this creature than did anybody else anyway, that the driver himself couldn't stop in time. The road, by the way in Throat Florid's the roads are you'll you'll you'll never find much more than you know, maybe half a kilometer straight road going through that part of the Leo territory, so very windy.
Turning a corner, this thing came down from a bank on the left and the truck, the truck went one went into it. So I was able to learn not just about Volo and his experience, but about the other people involved. Unfortunately, the driver and other members of the crew had all passed on so far as anybody knew by this time, and Volo couldn't. He knew the driver, and he knew the driver's name and all the rest of it. But these other workmates he he had, you know,
very little memory of those. I tried to trace people down, but I was I was unsuccessful, So we kind of stuck with Volo. But indeed he you know, he spoke about the incident as it involved other people as well, and it was it was quite credible. They the driver's first inclination was that he should bury the creature. Now to understand this, you we'd have talked quite a bit about local culture and their views of humans versus animals and all the rest of it. So I won't go there.
So that's all in the book. But anyway, he couldn't bury it because well mainly because they were due to arrive in there up in the mountains at this time. They were due to arrive before nightfall in the coastal town of Endy, So they decided. The driver decided to continue on and on the following day when he was due to come back that way to take care of the body. Then in the meantime he wrapped it in
an old an old shirt. Now all this took place, as I think I said, in the early nineteen seventies, so we're going back aways now, you know, like about we're talking about fifty fifty years. But I mean, the story was compelling in various respects. For one thing, the main eye witness, my main eyewitness, Volo was as I said, from the India region, and he'd never heard of a lijo before. He wasn't familiar with the creature. But the driver, who was a leoman, said straight away, this is a liore.
And apparently other members of the crew agreed with him, although they apparently you know, what is familiar with thaihoa and all the all the law surrounding these creatures, as was as was the driver. Yeah, you know, I questioned this guy over well, doing three different field seasons, and what I was getting it wasn't always the same, but by no means, but it was, you know, it sounded to all intense purposes like one of these creatures in terms of size, facial appearance, and ipial bipedality.
By the way, what is the general description of these Is there a consensus? What is the general consensus of a size and all that sort of stuff of this particular flavor that the.
Yeah, I mean, they very somewhat as one should expect, especially between eyewitnesses and non eyewitnesses, although there's not such a distinction between those two groups two you know, calls calls calls a lum they are well might briefly say they look very much like Homo florisiensas, and that there is in chapter ten, I uh, I cite Mike morewood On, Australian member of the discovery team of Homo flerusiensis, who who said of the Go Go as a matter of fact,
which he read about in in a book of mine, and he said, talking about the said these fit florisiensas to a T. Anyway, I I follow up that that quotation the remark that actually what fits thorisiences to a T is not the but these, if anything, even smaller they lie.
Ore and how big are they? How big are these supposed to be?
You know, most estimates go from I mean the tallest would be and I have a qualification on that moment, in terms of Irish witness sightings, the tallest would be about one point one may be getting on for one point two meters, so we're talking about somewhere between three and four feet.
There.
A lot of people, though, talk about them as being smaller. A lot of people just say a meter, you know, which is becoming a kind of conventional way of describing their height. But you know, going down you get eighty centimeters, fifty centimeters, sixty centimeters. The average, of course is much higher than that is it's around it, it's around a meter.
These people are pretty clever, even people aren't gone to school, pretty clever with the metric system, by the way, and I've tested them, and yeah, you know, I mean they're not a is accurate by any means, and of course we're dealing with memory as well, so but but anyway that that would be, you know, I'm confident that we'd be talking around a nit a certainly very much smaller than than a modern modern human being, even the lear themselves,
and though they are small by global standards, that they stay much taller than than Talking about memory, by the way, is interesting the question I considered for a while and made a bit of an investigation into human memory. It seems that that something that looks human but not human, if you will, somewhere in between, something ambiguous and anonymous like that would would would would stick in should stick
in the memory for quite a long time. And I uh I realized that that that point was was relevant to many siding reports that I had received, you know, from like ten years ago, twenty years ago. Anyway, most people say that they okay, so they have body hair. This would be particularly noticeable, of course, since that they you know, they don't have clothes. There's a certainly area than local people there they had hair, though it isn't isn't now long, it's not not much longer than they
say than the body hair. And some people say that that you know, there's no not not much distinction at all between head and bodies. It's continuous. Two sorts of hair are continuous. Not always the same color, by the way, So you don't see somebody with black body hair or a specimen with black body hair and you know red dead hair or anything like that. That the hair is generally dark, although it can be lighter, much lighter. It
can be kind of gray silvery. They identify those as the old specimens are not not not not unreasonably.
Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bobo will be right back after these messages. What kind of build do they have? Are they? Are they say, robust versus grass style like in the austral epithe scenes. You know, Sasquatches, for example, are uniformly are generally described as very robust, thick animals. So what about these the lituh are they are they more? Are they thin? Or are they on the thicker side of things?
You know, I think in terms of the skeleton for his ensas to speak about phrasiences for a minute. They are in is generally generally a robust but but but how that kind of translates into flesh is perhaps a bit a bit unclear. I is something I when I was finishing the book or something I came across in a book by Daniel Lieberman, whose name you're probably familiar with,
a biological anthropologist. So he was talking about Homo erectus and who is also robust, of course, and I might just mentioned there that that parisiensis other other primitive hormonins found on Florence in fossil form. Uh. You know, according
to one view, at least I recond be related to erectus. Anyway, to get on with with Homo erectus, Lieberman says that they probably would have been skinny because of you know that dietary factors that they wouldn't you wouldn't get a fat one or one that was particularly I can't remember his exact words, but the impression I came away with is that, you know that the creature he was describing
would would appear quite gaunt. And indeed, descriptions of various sorts of of the eight Men do suggest to something that is rather skinny or gaunt. At the same time, you know, there are other suggestions that they are more more robust than you know, gaunt would suggest at any rate. So I look at informant statements, leo statements, you know
that there isn't really a clear a clear picture. Also, of course, if you're just talking about if you're just talking about eyewitness accounts, generally speaking, we're talking about one person who's seen one of these at one time, and that's it. You could imagine that there would be some difference in as regards gender, sex, or age, or what have you. You would imagine there would be some internal apparent difference.
Yeah, there'd be a lot of genetic diversity I think within individuals within a species of course.
Well depend But what do you mean by a lot of genetic diversity? But which comes up against you know, questions of population size and density and all that that that kind of stuff. But yeah, anyway, this is an issue I discussed in the book. Is it difficult to generalize? Is my point. I never never had one that could be described as fat or was described as fat.
Have they ever described as being escepsionally athletic, like fast for their size or strong from the eye witnesses.
Yes, some people mentioned that with regard to eye witnesses, there are well, I'm trying to think of how many are not? Not many described seeing the things moving quickly. I mean the one, the one I can recall off hand, or the one report I can recall. What it was was at night, so not a great time to see something, and in other respects as well, it was a bit a bit unreliable, so it wasn't my my most credible account.
But ye're generally speaking that they well, there's two things here that they are described as being able to move fast, not not just running on uh, you know, on on the flat, but but moving up inclines as well, you know, scrambling up banks, which it have been quite good at doing in a place like Flores is very very very mountainous accidented, so that there are descriptions of descriptions of the eight men doing that. Also their feet, in so far as the feet correspond, feet and way of walking
correspond somewhat to what's been described. As for what's been described, I should say for floresiensis that that would that would fit with an ability to move quickly and efficiently up in clines, also to to climb climb trees, which most most hormones, even humans as a matter of fact, are quite good at.
So the people that have seen them. They must not be that afraid of people, then I guess. Have they're just seen strolling or casually walking away? Is that the most witnesses report, Well, they do.
They tend to. They might first be seen, you know, moving slowly, but even when they become aware of a human presence a presence, they'll they'll move out of the way.
They go into the bush most most likely. But yeah, no, I mean I can say that there are descriptions of these things, if not eyewitness reports and second hand reports or what have you, of the things moving away, they are generally they're genuinely described as being afraid of human beings, and human beings are they say, equally afraid of them? So you know, they don't stick in one another's company for terribly long? Is the general point?
Have you have they been observed carrying things that might be interpreted as tools?
Very good question. I The general view among LEO eyewitnesses or not is that they don't have any kind of culture. If you had no material culture, that they don't have or employ tools or weapons. They sometimes described as throwing stones. In fact, two eyewitnesses witness reports mentioned mentioned that but any any one of them carrying a stick or you know, a club or anything like that. No, I have, I have done such a such account.
I did read those articles two years ago, three years ago about finding mysterious tools on Sula Wisi, which is of course in the general area. I was curious if you if there's any connection between the two, the Suwelisi horminoids that made these tools that we don't know who did it, and then what's going on down in Flores.
Yeah, well, a few things to say about that. I first, I want you to talking about stone tools, which to an amateur your eye can look like just sharp bits of rock, right, the archaeological record for florisances that talk about them again, it's uh. I mean, there are dates of tools and dates of the fossils which see to overlap, but they can't definitely be.
That.
The floriances can't definitely be linked with the tools. For one thing, you have not much change over a long period of time on Flores of of two tool making traditions, so you can't say anywhere that, oh, you know, this was one group and these are the distinctive tools, and this is another group. You know, the species for them that matter and their distinctive tools, so that I mean the main place for well, in fact, this can't be overemphasized.
Three iences known from only a single site, which you know, so that people say, oh, well they're extinct. You know, we don't have dates for them past you know, fifty thousand years ago or whenever it was. Well, that's true of that site. But you know, obviously this species which did survive on flories for hundreds of thousands of years, well certainly tens of thousands, maybe into the hundreds of
thousands of years, depending on how you distinguish species. It was a bit of a survive So there's no reason to believe they could ever possibly have lived and just lived and become extinct in just one one cave.
Nor is there a reason to think that that was the last of them, Like the chances of the very last individual the species being found as a fossils ridiculously, it's ridiculous. They certainly persisted for beyond that fifty thousand year mark that area.
I suppose it's somehow possible that those are the most recent living individuals, but it's you know, it's not it's not that likely.
Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bogo will be right back after these messages. Because there's a there's a tradition of Harry harmonoids on Suluisi as well.
I yes, you are, you are right in various parts of SULUESI but I should also say that that there is has been a theory and interpretation that Feruziens has got to Flores from from Sulues rather than coming from the west to Flores from neighboring islands like like Sumbaba. So there's there's a kind of a kind of connection
there as well. But I don't think that the studies ethnographic, alphological, or otherwise have been done of you know, sulue homonids as have been done of the of the homonids homonoids, I should say, on mystery homonoids on on Flores and particularly of course the leo Ilio eight men.
Well, I think a lot of the focus on Flores has been of course because of Homo floresiensis, which would bring about my next question. Do you think that more work either is being done? I mean, maybe it's not an opinion of obviously is more work being done on this sort of ethnographic study in light of the Homo leuson ensis discovery in the Philippines.
Yeah, I I difficult to answer that one. I will say, kind of going back a bit, I will say that with regard to mystery homonoids like the eight Men and go on on Flores, that I I was convinced. I guess you could say I don't have any great stake in it. I mean, my natural or social inclination as a cultural anthropologist was to explain things like as as imaginary, although I yeah, a little bit of a qualification to that.
But then when I heard about Homopharesiensis being discovered in Liangbo and in the western part of far western part of Flores, I was I was quite gobsmacked, actually, but as were a lot of people, and I started to think, well, now, hang on just a minute, you know, what exactly did
these things look like? And and so on. And that's when I started to entertain seriously that the possibility that uh, these local, local stories, local legends in some cases reflected human experience of a living a living animal, a living species, and that this a living species was a hormone in like homophoresiensis and the Austropathesians and uh and so on. But talking about sort of taking up research, continuing research where there are ethnographically well attested cases of of human
like beings, you know, inhabiting local areas. I think that was your question, Wasn't it?
More or less? I think a broader maybe I was talking about specifically on answerts, but I don't think there's a need to be specific. I think in general, what maybe maybe a better, more broad question would be, what being a cultural anthropologist, what role do you think folklore and mythology and local stories and whatnot have in reflecting the native fauna of an area, And specifically, what does that have to do or how does that pertain to relict hominoids, you know, mystery homonoids.
Good question, quite a lot to it. I will say first of all, that ethnographic reports, ethnographic interpretations such as as mine uh tend not to be followed up by biological scientists, paleoanthropologists, or well, let's just leave it with biological sciences, because we're talking about possibly some some organism
still being alive. Yeah, and indeed did right. The individual inclinations of academic scientists and researchers that there there would be institutional problems standing in the way of somebody saying, look, you know, there's this guy forth who has written this incredible book about local people's uh uh views, detailed descriptions of you know that this animal, they call it an animal which corresponds very closely to Homo flusiences which you know also at one time at least inhabited the same
the same island. It's simply it simply wouldn't fly. Although I said, nothing like that has happened, has happened so far. You know, some biological sciences, some of my acquaints anyway are very open minded. But but some are not. And there is has been for a long time an inbuilt to tendency to say, oh, and these things are just folklore whatever that is, or they're you know that that
they're mythical. In other words, they're entirely imaginary, and people are not necessarily lying to you, but that they you know, they're talking about something which is more like a forest spirit than an animal, but talking about you know, culture more generally. Yeah, I mean a concern of mine for a long time on floor is not just among leo but well more among the Naga and other people. Actually is to is to investigate what they know about local
animals of of of all sorts. And I well, their knowledge is impressive, and I find that most of it, most of it is it comprises nowtrualistic descriptions of empirical features and behaviors of species which are you know, otherwise recognized or recognized by academic zoologists as inhabiting inhabiting the island. Of course, that their knowledge is is broader than the the empirical facts, and that they know a lot, of course about the practical uses of of local animals and
animal products. They they have a symbolism of of animals, where whereby animals that are otherwise represented, you know, like long tailed macaques, and which are indeed long tailed macacus. We'll also figure in uli which don't don't don't stand
the test of uh of of for academic zoology certainly. Now, for example, in the Leo that there are two creatures that people say they've seen seen very rarely and which gave them a hell of a fright in both in both instances, one is a kind of fresh water turtle.
And I use this case in the book as a comparison a fresh water turtle which hasn't been documented but by scientists as residing on on Flores, but hydrological surveys, for example, indicate there's no good reason why it shouldn't be there because it's on other islands around and about right, So this is of orts but but you know, not not. It's not in the same league as as the lockss
locknest monster. Anyway, from Leo and from other regions as well, further to the east, I've found people who have seen these and I particular times. Again, they're probably probably extinct by now because you know, they they don't seem to be seen very much any longer. But there's good evidence for them, you know, being on the island. Local people recognize it. At the same time, because of their their rarity, I'm being about the turtles now, there's fresh water turtles.
Because of their rarity and because only certain people have seen them, they're they're reckoned to be. They are represented as being more supernatural than natural, and for that reason, they are fearful because they are believed by people in the know to be linked with as spirits, which are invisible beings that can can do do people can do people harm before I forget the other. The other creature locally reported by just a few people, it's even more spectacular.
This is something called the coconut crab burgos later is the Latin name uh And these are actually the world's largest land crustacean. So like pincher to pincher, we're talking about a width of all but a meter, which is far bigger than any you know, any crabs terrestrial or aquatic that the Leo are familiar with. And they see this as a supernatural manifestation whenever somebody comes across one, and which can be dangerous.
They seem like it though, because they're claws. I've messed around those things. Their closet the most powerful clause in the world. I mean, they're so they can crack coconuts, rock coconuts.
There's been some controversy over that. But yeah, they are pretty pretty big, and those clothes are are pretty pretty effective. I should I should say they again are They are known academically, They are known from other parts of Indonesia, and in terms of existing currents and the way they reproduce and so on, that there's no reason why they shouldn't occasionally not every year, but occasionally show up and thrive and continue to grow, and all the rest on
floreses or in one or two parts of Florid. So these things have a supernatural aspect. Certainly they're connected with forest spirits, as I said, but the descriptions of them are thoroughly naturalistic, and they fit very well with known known space species. We know who are amboinetsis in the case of the turtle, and as I said, the coconut crab in the case of bergolatrisy, the the giant crabs.
Is there any reason to think that the Homo fluesiensis and Homo louse on encess from the islands to the north, and I know that there are different species, there's some different there's some differentiation between that I don't know what. I don't know what it is because so far I haven't read anything. I haven't read very much at least about Homo lose on incests. I haven't found a study
or anything they really get into. Maybe you can address are you aware of the differences between those two species and why weren't they weren't lumped into one?
Good question? I mean, often taxonomic categories, taxonomic labels are provisional. You know, any of these things work. We do change very quite regularly. I think, well, I think the evidence for well, now, since it's the geological redating, I guess the most recent dates for fences are further back in time fifty sixty thousand years ago, whereas, if my memory
serves me correctly, I could check my own book. But andy that at present, I think there are more recent and they lose on answers, so maybe not maybe well, just leave dates out of it. I think that they're somewhat bigger. And the evidence for lose on Ensis is is, you know, not as not as rich as as as as regards specific physical, geological, et cetera. Differences between the two,
I can't. I can't comment off hand. But there's also caused the Red Deer Cave people in in China, which is both lose on Exis and the Red Deer Cave hormonins. They they were unearthed after after Parisiensis, and they but they added also cause to the same trend what seemed to be becoming a trend in in paleontological thought, and that was that the you know that the the human or hominin family tree is is far bushier than was
previously supposed. I mean, when I was an undergraduate decades ago, the view basically was that you had these things called ostropithesnes. They you know, that they evolved into Homo by way of Homo habilists, which may be an ostrol policine itself, but yeah, anyway, eventually you got Homo Homo ergostare and
sometimes called and as it's called now as pertains to Africa. Anyway, so you got erectus, and then you know, you had Heidelbergiensis and Neanderthals and then finally humans that these things succeeded one another in a single line like yeah, so
you didn't have much if any overlap. But now that I mean certainly going back millions of years to the appearance of the first hormonins and the first the first species of Homo, as well as in more recent times, you see that our ancestors were just one of a number of hominids knocking about places like Africa. But now also we're increasingly learning Asia as well, where you had
discovery of the the also somewhat mysterious Dennis Oven HORMONI. Yeah, and it's was once thought that Neanderthals, of course, were exclusive to Europe, but it seems they, you know, there are a few other players, so many.
Uh, Western Asia as well, apparently some degree now with the proliferation, I guess maybe that's not the right word, with the increasing number of members into the genus Homo, and also australopithesies the horminins in general, and and with so many of them persisting into almost modern times really and and I would, I would strongly argue into modern times also, whether it's we're talking to gogos or sasquatches
or any number of things. Certainly the attitude amongst academics, particularly the younger academics, must be changing to some degree, a little bit more open mind did for things like for what you're you're you're suggesting that there actually are species, at least one, and if there's one, there's probably more than one species of horminin or hominoid still walking around. Do you see that in the academic world.
It's hard to say. I mean, I know, I've come across a number of paleoanthropologists, biologists and so on who are sympathetic, very sympathetic to my my research in other wise they think it's you know, it has value and that it is relevant to their own paleontological logical interests as well. But typically that is uh that that that understanding of things is separated from from their own academic
their own academic work. And I think you know from the case of Jeff Meldrum that you know on Sasquatch, that that things can be very, very tough for somebody who actively researches as a as a physical apologist a pale anthropologist in the way that that he does.
So.
But you're talking about younger peeping people being more open minded just.
Well, just with the new discovery based not not just on younger people being open minded, but based on the paradigm shift that happened in prelawanthropology over the last fifty years.
Yeah, no, I think I think you're right, but I I you know, it's got some way to go. I think there's this shift before it it really allows the views of people might like myself being fully taken advantage of by natural scientists. If I am hoping things will continue to get better as as time goes by, so that you know where like I don't know whereas thirty forty years ago, perhaps you you know, somebody zoologist or pinion told just reading my book would just say, well,
this guy is you know, is it not? You know Looney tunes sort of thing. Nowadays are saying, well, you know, it's really very doubtful that you know, the environment on Flores would would support you know, another another species of harmony. And in fact, that's a kind of a kind interpretation of something that was said by what's his name Hawks, John Hawks in an online piece I read I read yesterday. So val is growing milder. I guess this is what I'm trying to say.
By and large, I mean, I know your book has yet to be published officially. I mean there's a couple of copies floating around. But what was looking back to your first book, or the first book that I was aware of. I know you've published quite a bit, but Images of the Wild Men in Southeast Asia? What was the academic response to that book when it was published?
Oh well, I've opened a bit of a candid worms no, in a very good way. I'm glad you asked this question. I published that with with Routledge or route Ledge. I don't hear it spoken naturally you see the name everywhere Routledge. Yeah, they took the book up. I originally had an agreement with keegan Pool Publishers, which used to be conjoined with Routledge, but unfortunately the they by that point had become a
rather small operation in London. And uh, the the head man I can't remember his name now, very nice man, though he died very suddenly. Uh. And it was Routlets that that took over had the option of taking over titles in that that King and Paul had commissioned anyway, So yeah, it was published by Routledge. But but they did, know I can safely say, they did no publicity that I've ever been aware of on the on the book. Naturally.
I told a few people about it, but it and like everything it got on the internet in some shape or form, it wasn't promoted. So I can't I can't compare or I can't say any I can't say anything about a general a general response to that book back in twenty eight, because you know, I don't think there was very much a tool. Yeah, so this is my first trade book, and it's been quite a quite a revelation, I must, I must say, But yeah, no, I really don't know what the in any general academic response was.
I mean I suspect there would be disapproval. Well, well, i'll tell you with regard to my article, my first article on the giant crabs on Flor's Island, which was based on well it was based on zoological literature but also but mainly on my own ethnographic work. I sent that to Christasiana, which is, you know, a leading journal for about zoology of crustaceans carcinology, I guess it's called, and they they send it out for review. They didn't.
They just actually, well we didn'tually published this sort of nonsense, but they sended out for review and I got one review back, which really was quite quite extreme. I mean, first of all, he said, you know this is not is not relevant to a scientific journal. If if if this man wants to if this man wants to show that that burger lats exist on on Flores, then you know he needs to go to catch one, basically, and it needs to be a field zoologist, which which which
I wasn't. So that in all these reports, descriptions, what have you from local people was just dismissed as well. The best term because it is anecdotal.
That's the kindest way you could put it, I think.
Someday's point out. Of course, the plural of anecdote is data. If you get enough people by saying relevant things, you know, you've got to explain that information somehow. Where is this coming from? The easiest explanation usually is that to the people talking to you have actually seen something that looks like what they've described.
The sasquatch thing. You know. I mean I read in your article that you're basing your hypothesis that these things might still be live based on something like thirty witnesses that you've spoken to personally. Well, I mean, I own a bigfoot museum in the Pacific Northwest. I very reasonably, during the run of tourist season or whatever, I might get thirty witnesses a month in my museum that I personally speak to that I have no reason to doubt.
It's so interesting that in some ways about the you know, like you said, the I love, the plural of anecdote is is data, you know, And and the easiest way to explain it is that there's a biological animal. But the laziest way to explain it is that Oh, these people are just all wrong.
Yeah, they're they're they're you know, mentally mentally deranged, or you know, they saw a bear or what have you. I agree, I just I just want to say though that that my case in regard to Flora is in the Leo is UH is grounded in quite a thorough understanding and and and and analysis of of their their culture, which is is quite different from North American uh, North
American culture. I mean, for example, if you're able to find a catch a sasquatch or indeed film it like Roger Patterson and the other guy did years ago, so they claimed, you have become quite famous and possibly something financially in it as well for you in North America, whereas that doesn't apply to anyone who you know, comes across an eight man, you know, up up in the highlands of Flora. Is it any LEO person who who
does that? For reasons I explain. For one thing, they may not they may not tell anybody about it, they
may not want to talk about it. And if they did, well, I spent a lot of a place, a lot of I put a lot of attention, as you say in the final chapter, to asking well, why you know, okay, if people are finding dead bodies, for example, why hasn't this, why hasn't this got out got outside of Flora's at least and you know too to the ears and eyes an academic scientists, and I don't won't go into the details, but I show that it would be very unlikely to to leave the island or really to be accepted as
a credible report by very many other people than that that the person who came across the across the thing one of the one of the cases of somebody who did find a body that was about I guess eleven years ago. Now he got rid of it straight away. Now why did he do that? Uh? I do actually give some explanation for that. No, this was the thing that you know, shouldn't it was found he founded on his line, and it shouldn't be on his land or you know, anywhere near to humans are such a thing
it needs to be. He wouldn't even bury it because there is a notion that like well, disinter their their relatives that have been buried by somebody else but by humans. So so he took it a long way away, uh and dumped it in the seas. That's what he told me.
That may seem suspect, but again, if if you put it in in the context of you know, local views of the world and what's in it, and how are you relates the things that are in all that kind of stuff, that then it makes more sense than than burying it.
Oh. Sure, we'd run across similar things with sasquatches and people not sharing their encounters or not wanting people to know that they had seen them, because in a lot of these rural areas sometimes there the mutation is the most valuable thing they have and they don't want to be thought of as a drunk or a hallucinator or something.
So yeah, no, that's that's interesting because it's it's people are being quiet, but for different cultural reasons. Is what I wanted to suggest.
If you got funding to go actually look for remnant you know rollo commonis that are still alive, do you have do you have specific places you have you'd put camera shops and that sort of thing.
Yeah, yeah, I would. I think about that a bit, and indeed i'd have to get local cooperation to to determine which would be the very best place, But I would say anywhere in the Highlands in mountainous regions of Leo Leo country. You'd have to You'd have to have academics involved. I mean qualified academics like field biologists and
maybe primatologies. I suggest somebody is the actually that in terms of cooperation, that if you could find a few email primatologist to kind of Jane Goodall figure might be the best bet for doing this, this kind of research.
Which which brings about the idea of just discovery in general. Usually, obviously a holotype is needed dead one to describe in a journal, et cetera. Do you think that would be the most promising avenue forward and trying to prove the leha Oh, for sure?
You know, I think that that almost goes without saying doesn't that bad? When it could be a lifestyle which would be extraordinary. But yeah, you have to have a physical specimen, or at least that you know, a good, good part of a physical body. I guess the single most diagnostic part would be the teeth. But if you found one dead or alized and chopped its head off, that the head would be a pretty good substitute for the whole uh, for the whole body. You know. It's
when you think of of sasquatch. The hair has been discovered which hasn't been linked with any you know, other kind of existing existing creature. Quite a lot of hair samples I think have been found not to be primate or bigfoot or what have you. My understanding is that there's somewhere, uh you know, it's it's it's ambiguous as to what what what what this where where this hair
hair came from? So and of course i'm the problem is we don't actually have a sample of sasquat hair two to compare with you know, things later found pretty obviously, so I mean there are I'll tell you. I was asked yesterday whether you know people found bones of the ape Man. I must have been having a bad day because I think I said basically no, but there are, maybe taking the question too literally, but there are bones and teeth and so on which people claim to possess
as relics or of ape man. These have magical powers, you know, according to local theory of magic.
So these would be like the holy relics like the yetty hand and the yetty scalp held in the Pengbulja monastery. So they wouldn't they wouldn't be lent to outsiders for some sort of analysis to prove a species.
Right, this, this would be difficult. I mean I wasn't even allowed to see some I was allowed to photograph a couple of things which clearly weren't primate. Most of what I saw, you know, looked like it had come from as a scullp It looked like a puppy dog's and I know, on and on. But there are a few bits and pieces of bone which could could be anything for me in the setting. You know, I couldn't. I certainly couldn't identify them. But you know, so that's
perhaps another end of another avenue. But no, it'd be a tough job to get, you know, much cooperation on this. And uh, you know, by the same token, you've got a bit of fakery going on. Uh not always, but you know, in some instances. It's like in any in any scientific devor. You know, you're not going to hit the bull's eye every time. You're going to make a few mistakes and you know, follow fullse leads and all the rest of it. So that's to be that's to be expected.
Are you getting a lot of positive press on your your upcoming book? Here?
Pretty positive.
Yeah, I know.
I mean I've had as in I think the article you you meant, and there has been criticism from uh named or unnamed uh anthropologists, paleoanthropologists like I think mentioned John Hawkes. But that that's fine. I'm not in fact, I could counter to what he said if I've been given the chance. But that that that's that's great. You know, I'm not not I'm not worried by by criticism coming from you know, one direction or the or the other. Much too worry about those kinds of things.
Well, I'll tell you the knowing that this book is coming down, it's like hearing a voice crying in the wilderness because there's there's so little good academic work coming out. And you know, there is the work by doctor Meldrimer, doctor Bender, Nagel, or a variety of other people. But but to have a new book on an on what what's gonna end up being a largely unheard of before now relative hominoid you know, the Lehua. I mean, that's not doesn't that's not a household name by any name,
by any means. But but with the idea of these these homonoid species persisting until until close to, if not the present day, we should expect uh a smattering of these, frankly from all over the world in some regard, you know, whether it's here or uh Gareth Patterson's work in South Africa or the sasquatch thing in America or whatever.
So no, I just recently actually, you know, being asked. I will thank you right away for your very informed questions. So know, the diner a homony and homonades and a homonoid as well is pretty novel, or at least it has been recently.
But we nerds.
Yeah, well so that vague thoughts come to mind, and these last several days, a couple of weeks, it's it's it's things broke, and that is h you know, well maybe this idea of mystery hormonoids, let's just use that term. You know, a lot of people really have never heard of this stuff. It might have had a bigfoot but have a very vague idea what it is or or the yetty But that as far as as it would as it would go. So yeah, newness is uh is often a good a good thing to have on your side.
Well, and so we're a couple very well informed and respected PhDs so thank you for sticking your neck out, because whether you realize it or not, you're doing it for a large community of people.
Well yeah, and just my final point, I'm glad that the news is getting to those people because like with the The wild Man book, you know, very few people knew about it. If they did, they just they'd come across it by accident somehow. I mean, there may be for all I know, you know, tens of thousands of zero xerox, but further copied copies going around because the sales certainly haven't been particularly good.
Well, it is one of, in my opinion, the best books written on the idea of relativeminoids and what that could possibly mean this general survey, because you do go outside of Asia, and your survey you do talk about the sasquatch to a small degree, and no, I go all over.
The place, and as certainly outside of Flores in eastern Indonesia, so.
By far that one of the best academic books written on the subject. There is. In fact, I literally took this to Sumatra when I went there, and.
I hope it was useful. But yeah, yeah, no, I think I think you'll like the new one just as much or indeed even.
Better, fantastic. We cannot wait to get my hands on it. And for our listeners the book comes out. It's a publication, deed, it's going to be May third, which is just in a week from when we're recording this right now. Pretty much. It's called Between Ape and Human an Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Hominoid by doctor Gregory Fourth. I
cannot recommend you need to read this book. I have not read it, of course, but I have read his first book literally a half dozen or a dozen times, and this book is going to be more accessible about a different kind of hominoid. I cannot recommend this book enough, even though I haven't even read it yet. As ironic as that is.
I think as the verse of saying you disagree with this book even though you haven't read it, that's it in the context of banned books. Have you ever read it? Of course not.
I won't keep you.
But thanks to both of you for your questions and your interest.
Thank you, Yeah, thank you for your interest in your time.
Yeah, take care all right, clip well man, that was awesome. We had him on and he stated about twice as long as he said he was gonna yeah.
Yeah, I hope that, you know, I hope you like the questions. I hope we give him enough to talk about it. I cannot wait to read this book. Man, I'm so excited.
Is that wild Man booker self east age of that is that you can make a case I being the best book written, and that's you know that topic. Yeah.
Yeah. The only criticism I've heard of that book is that it was too academic. And that's not a problem for me, man. I mean I think more science and more scientists needs to be applied to this idea of relative hominoids.
Yeah, I mean I was able to read it, all right, It's not that technical. I thought it was just super interesting.
Oh it is.
It is. And you know, I was surfing around the online maybe last week or something, and I found copies I think directly from the publisher for like fifty bucks. But yeah, fifty bucks is a more than fair price and as about as cheap as you're going to find the thing, because it is a textbook. Essentially, get the book, Get Images of the wild Man, and Sound East Asia by Gregory Fourth. It is fantastic in this new book. I'd only heard of the Leyahoa from his first book.
So I assume that this book, this new book coming out next week, was going to be about the Aba Go Go, just like the Images book was. But no, I was so surprised to hear that it's about a different hominoid.
Yeah, that was pretty shocking.
All right, Well, anyway, bobes, you want to take us out?
All right, folks, thanks for listening. Hope you learned something. I'm sure you did, bec as we did, and hit like, hit share, Let your friends and neighbors hear this, and until next week you all keep it squatchy.
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