For more than a century, reports of a strange beast known as the Fouke Monster circulated among the locals in southern Arkansas. Described as a large, hairy man-like creature, it said to hunt the vast Sulphur River Bottoms as it travels The secluded waterway known as Boggy Creek. the following is an excerpt from this must have book!
This excerpt is from "The Beast of Boggy Creek: The True Story of the Fouke Monster" by Lyle Blackburn. You can purchase it here.
THE ARKANSAS WILD MAN
Throughout history, in all corners of the world, people have reported seeing "hairy wild mess" who occasionally emerge from the forests and cross paths with those of the civilized world. Often interwoven into the lore of werewolves or modern day Bigfoot, these wild men have a long history of sightings, which are eerily similar in all cultures. Arkansas is no different, having a few bona fide wild man stories of its own dating back to the time when early Americans began settling the area.
Whether or not these can be attributed to the Fouke Monster—or Sasquatch in general— is, of course, impossible to determine due to the lack of solid evidence and typically sketchy details. However, these accounts are certainly important in that they provide a historical record of hairy creatures being reported in the state long before the notion of Bigfoot became popular in American culture.
As Spaniards began to explore the Arkansas region starting around 1541, they wrote of encounters with Native American tribes such as the Tunica, Caddo, Quapaw, and Osage. In looking at these early tribes and others, we find that they too may have encountered wild men or Sasquatch-like creatures in the area. In fact, most Native American cultures have stories or mythos about some kind of large, hairy man-like creature said to inhabit the forests of North America and British Columbia. Though the stories and representations differ slightly from tribe to tribe, each has a specific word to represent this creature in their language. According to Kathy Moskowitz Strain, archaeologist and author of Giants, Cannibals (5. Monsters: Bigfoot in Native Culture, the Caddos used the word Ha'yacatsi to describe such a creature. The word literally translates to "lost giant," which seems consistent with the modern mythos of the Sasquatch. Others include the Cherokee word Kecleh-Kudleh (hairy savage), the Creek word Honka (hairy man), and the Choctaw words Kashehotapalo (cannibal man) and Nalusa Falaya (big giant).
SETTING THE STAGE
Some researchers argue that these entities were nothing snore than spirit animals, but others point to evidence suggesting that they were real living, breathing creatures. For example, masks and totem poles made by these early Americans depict faces that are eerily similar to those of apes. If no such ape-like creatures existed on the continent, it is hard to understand how they could have visualized such a design. Likewise, cave paintings from this era contain drawings of a large hairy, bipedal creature referred to as "Hairy Man." One such site is Painted Rock, located in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California. The pictographs found here include animals such as the coyote, bear, eagle, condor, frog, and lizard. Looming over these common animals is another more mysterious one: a towering, hairy two-legged creature that bares a striking resemblance to the modern-day Sasquatch. Since every other animal in the Painted Rock pictograph is a known creature, it is reasonable to assume that the Hairy Man is likewise a real creature, albeit a very large one with a shadowy history.
Real or not, by the 1700s the native tribes of Arkansas had more to worry about than hairy giants. As French colonial settlers began moving into the area, the Indians suddenly found themselves competing for their own land. At first they were able to coexist by establishing new social and political relationships, which benefited both peoples through trade and commerce, but this eventually collapsed when Arkansas cause into the hands of the Union during Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase of 1803. To make way for American settlers, the United States concocted various treaties that ultimately forced the long-standing Arkansas tribes onto reservations far from their homeland.
When the population of Arkansas reached 60,000 in 1836 it was granted official statehood: The state's main contribution' to the Union was farming, attesting to the rich, fertile lands found within its borders. As such, snore and snore settlers were drawn to Arkansas hi search of opportunity. In conjunction with the growing commerce population, newspapers began to spring up, documenting local happenings. In searching these documents several early incidents of "wild man" sightings can be found.
The first incident was reported by both the Arkansas Gazette and Memphis Enquirer on May 9, 1851. In this account, two hunters near Greene County were startled when they came upon a very large, hair-covered animal as it was trying to catch a calf from a herd of cattle. When the creature noticed the men, it stopped its pursuit of the calf and just stood there eyeing them. 'Then suddenly, it turned and ran. They described it as "...an animal bearing the unmistakable likeness of humanity. He was of gigantic stature, the body being covered with hair and the head with long locks that fairly enveloped the neck and shoulders."
Upon investigation, the men reportedly found human-like tracks that measured 13 inches long. This is quite remarkable since the length correlates with the size of modern-day Bigfoot tracks. The reporter at the time theorized that the beast was in reality a human survivor of an earthquake that occurred in northeast Arkansas on December 16, 1811. But, of course, this hardly explains the gigantic height and the amount of hair covering the body. It sounds more like a modern report of a Sasquatch than a "wild man," but either way the theory does illustrate the tendency to classify these "monsters" as wild men during this time period. Apparently, this was not the only time a "wild man" was seen in the area. The article goes on to state: "This singular creature has long been known traditionally in St. Francis Green and Poinsett counties. Arkansas sportsmen and hunters having described him so long as seventeen years since."
The second report dates to 1856 and describes a hairy "wild man" attacking a man in Sevier County north of Texarkana, Arkansas. The incident was first reported by the Caddo Gazette and was retold in the May 8 edition of the Hornellsville Tribune. This incident is often cited in popular books on the subject of Bigfoot and is considered to be more circumstantial evidence that Bigfoot-like creatures were living in the area as far back as newspapers began to report such sightings. In this account, a party of men were actually in pursuit of the wild man, which they described as " stout, athletic man, about six feet four inches in height, completely covered with hair of a brownish cast about four to six inches long.
He was well muscled, and ran up the bank with the fleetness of a deer."
The party was apparently trying to take the creature alive, so one of the men approached it on horseback. But the wild man did not find this to his liking: "... as the wild man saw the rider he rushed towards him, and in an instant dragged the hunter to the ground and tore him in a most dreadful manner, scratching out one of his eyes... and biting large pieces out of his shoulder and various parts of Isis body."
This incident is somewhat unique in that the creature acted violently. This is not the norm for the majority of Sasquatch encounters, but ironically, it does apply to the Fouke Monster, which has reportedly threatened humans at times. However, most Bigfoot sources fail to mention what occurred next, which would suggest that this may have been more of a wild man than a monster: "The monster then tore off the saddle and bridle from the horse and destroyed them, and holding the horse by the mane, broke a short piece of sapling, and mounting the animal, started at full speed across the plains."
The ability to commandeer a steed does not bode well as proof of an unidentified ape, although the line that states this was "an attempt to capture the famous wild man, who has been no often encountered on the borders of Arkansas and Northern Louisiana" does certainly cite a history of weirdness in the vicinity of Fouke.
Another interesting wild man incident can be traced back to 1865. In this fantastical account, a seven-foot "wild man" was captured in the Ouachita Mountains area near Saline County, Arkansas. Unfortunately the original source of the tale is 'nuclear since the story was not widely publicized until it appeared in the 1941 book Ozark Country written by Otto Ernest Rayburn. Rayburn was a popular writer, magazine publisher, and collector of Arkansas/Ozark folklore who was commissioned by publishers to write the book as part of a series called American Folkways. The „des, which includes a total of 28 books, was aimed at preserving the America's historical folkways such as Arkansas' Ozarks.
"According to Rayburn," write Janet and Colin Bord in the Bigfoot Casebook: Updated, "the Giant of the Hills was often seen in the Arkansas Ouachita Mountains. This 7-foot wild man was covered with thick hair and lived in caves or by the Saline River. Everyone was afraid of him, although he does not appear to have harmed anyone. The decision was made to capture him, and the story tells that the men actually succeeded in this. They lassoed him in his cave and took him away to Benton jail. They also dressed him in clothes, which he tore off before escaping from the small wooden building. He was recaptured, but there the story suddenly ends."
Presumably this was word-of-mouth folklore known to Otto Rayburn at the time, or told to him during his research, but beyond that it is impossible to determine how well known the story was around Arkansas... or how truthful it is. As with many old-time folktales, the story may have been embellished or relevant parts of the story may have been lost so that what remains may be open to many interpretations. Since a final climatic ending is missing, it can probably be assumed that Rayburn did not completely fabricate the story and was only recording it as-is for posterity's sake. It would seem that if the story was in any way embellished by Rayburn, lie would have certainly tacked on an appropriate ending about the beast's second escape and eventual return to the hills, or perhaps created a King Kong-esque twist in which lie kidnaps a local woman and ascends to the top of the general store only to be shot down by the townsfolk. But sans such an ending, it would appear that the author merely called it as lie heard it, adding credibility that this is a genuine tale. Whether the wild man in question is actually a. Sasquatch-like creature, we may never know.
You can purchase this book: "The Beast of Boggy Creek: The True Story of the Fouke Monster" by Lyle Blackburn here.
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