Bigfoot Research Paper

Bigfoot is like Santa Claus. When you are young you believe in Santa until your parents tell you they were lying to you all those years. Bigfoot is the same in many ways. Some people choose the believe that bigfoot exists, even though there is no proof, just as there was no hard evidence proving the existence of Santa Claus. Others choose to believe it does not exist, until proven otherwise. Non-believes accept that native people in all cultures, including many here in the United States, describe large, hairy, bigfoot like creatures in their folklore and legends, without thinking these stories were ever truthful. There is also proof that human ancestors coexisted with a prehistoric beast called Gigantopithecus, whose traits were incredibly

Many tribes have their own descriptions, names, stories and traditions including these creatures ("4. Native,” 2012). Some tribes describe the animals as spirits that live in the forests while others believed that Bigfoots were real creatures they must coexist with on the same land (Cryptid, 2016). According to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, “Every native linguistic group has its own name for these figures, suggesting the stories of these figures did not all arise in the same place.” ("4. Native,” 2012). This means that the tribes did not interact with each other to spread the legend of the creature, but instead each culture created a myth of the same or similar creature, leading each tribe to have a different name for it and making it impossible for the legend to simply have been spread. Most stories of Bigfoot like creatures differ from tribe to tribe, however there are some general commonalities. These creatures in most Native American tribes are said to be between six and nine feet tall (“Native American,” n.d.). They are also said to be very strong and very bad smelling creatures that live in the forests and hunt for food at night (“Native American,” n.d.). Native Americans do not believe these animals can communicate using human language, but instead they communicate with each other using whistles, grunts, and gestures (“Native American,” n.d.). One source on Native American culture states, “In some Native stories, Bigfoot may have minor supernatural powers-- the ability to turn invisible, for example-- but they are always considered physical creatures of the forest, not spirits or ghosts.” (“Native American,” n.d.). This information slightly contradicts some other information found by stating that these creatures are always considered physical beings, but the belief that these creatures have supernatural powers is still an