海角大神

You may be familiar with Bigfoot and the Yeti, but what about the Yowie and the Chuchunya?

The image of a big hairy humanoid hiding in the wilderness appears not just in movies like 鈥淗arry and the Hendersons鈥� and the animated film 鈥淪mallfoot,鈥� which premieres on Friday, but also in cultures all over the world. Visitors to the mountains of the Chinese province of Hubei report sightings of the Yeren, or 鈥渨ild man,鈥� who dwells in the forest. In Cameroon, the fearsome Dodu is said to dine on grubs. The Mapinguari stalks the rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia; the Yowie walks about the Australian outback. In Russia鈥檚 Sakha Republic, it鈥檚 the Chuchunya, and in the Caucasus and Pamir Mountains of Central Asia, it鈥檚 the Almas.

Why do stories of giant ape-men keep popping up in such disparate places, despite the persistent absence of physical evidence? And what does that say about us?

鈥淚t certainly strikes a chord,鈥� says Eugenie Scott, a physical anthropologist and former director of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit that defends evolutionary biology and climate science. 鈥淲hen we are out in wild places and we hear noises and rustling and we hear sounds that we can鈥檛 explain, the inclination may be for us to infer that those come from a human-like creature.鈥�

Sasquatch-like creatures play important roles in some of our most enduring stories. In one of humanity鈥檚 earliest known works of great literature, the 鈥淓pic of Gilgamesh,鈥� written more than 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, there鈥檚 Enkidu, a wild man created by the gods to act as a countervailing force against the civilized but harsh King Gilgamesh. Enkidu ends up wrestling with the king and becomes his close companion.

Western literature kept returning to the theme of a creature standing at the intersection of human and animal. The Old English epic 鈥淏eowulf鈥� has the title character battling Grendel, said to be a descendant of Cain. In 鈥淪ir Gawain and the Green Knight,鈥� one of the founding texts of English literature, Gawain was said to occasionally battle with Wodwos, wild men who dwelled in the rocks. In William Shakespeare鈥檚 鈥淭he Tempest,鈥� we meet the half-human, half-demon Caliban who has been tamed by the sorcerer Prospero. In Jonathan Swift鈥檚 鈥淕ulliver鈥檚 Travels,鈥� Lemuel Gulliver encounters the Yahoos, whom he characterizes as 鈥渂rute[s] in human form鈥� and compares unfavorably to the equine-yet-rational Houyhnhnms.

The theme continues right up through our modern mythology. Consider the dual nature of Han Solo鈥檚 loyal companion, Chewbacca, an able spacecraft pilot and mechanic who is perpetually one holographic checkmate away from dismembering someone, and who, as we鈥檝e learned from Disney鈥檚 most recent addition to the 鈥淪tar Wars鈥� canon, occasionally eats people.

鈥淚t's a great mystery of something that can exist outside of our modern constructs,鈥� says Gail de Vos, a Canadian librarian, author, and professional storyteller who writes about folklore and contemporary legends. 鈥淚t鈥檚 beyond civilization.鈥�

But how did these mental images of wilderness-dwelling man-apes first arise? Is it a cultural memory from when farmers coexisted with hunter-gatherers? Or did it begin even earlier?

鈥淓ven if Bigfoot doesn鈥檛 exist now, perhaps once upon a time听it was some sort of distant relative, some sort of evolutionary branch, that then died out,鈥� says Laura Krantz, the journalist behind 鈥淲ild Thing,鈥� a podcast about Bigfoot and those who try to prove his existence. 鈥淚 have no idea if that鈥檚 true or not, but where there鈥檚 smoke there鈥檚 fire.鈥�

For Ms. Krantz, stories about Bigfoot prompt us to think about an undomesticated version of ourselves, which she calls a 鈥渞oad not taken.鈥�

鈥淚nstead of becoming civilized and wearing pants every day, [Bigfoot] decided to stay in the forest and maintain a more primal existence,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 think some people in a romantic way yearn for that idea.鈥�

Krantz, who says she grew up hiking and camping in Idaho, says she is drawn to the idea that, despite industrial civilization鈥檚 pervasiveness, there are still some wild places.听听

鈥淚t's this idea that the world can still be unexplored enough so be wild and and untamed,鈥� she says.

But that idea, says Donald Prothero, a former Occidental College geologist and paleontologist who, with Canadian writer and illustrator Daniel Loxton, wrote the 2013 book 鈥�,鈥� has been untenable for a long time.

鈥淚n fact, nearly all the great forests of the world, and especially in the Western US, where most supposed Bigfoot reports come from, are not unexplored and not pristine by any stretch of the imagination,鈥� he says. 鈥淢ost of our primary forests have been logged more than once.鈥�

The insistence that there may still be something lurking out there in the woods, says Dr. Prothero, is perhaps a reaction to the very scientific advancement that continually debunks Bigfoot and other cryptids.

鈥淢ystery is part of what we need to believe about the world,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd science has of course been ruthlessly stomping out mystery for a century now at least.鈥�

[Editor's note:听An earlier version of this story included an incorrect reference to the Biblical story of Jacob and Esau.]