Aboriginal Names for Sasquatch

Introduction:

The Many Names of Sasquatch

by Pat Barker

Sasquatch

The term "sasquatch" was used in 1929 by John W. Burns, a British Columbia teacher from the town of Agassiz, in the lower Fraser Valley. He wrote an article for the Canadian news magazine, MacLeans, about the large, hairy creatures, and titled it, "introducing B.C.'s Hairy Giants - A collection of strange tales about British Columbia's wild men as told by those who say they have seen them".

The Coast Salish First Nations name for these creatures is sesquac, sesxech, or suhsq'uhtch. Burns anglicized it for his article. And so the name sasquatch has become synonymous with these creatures in Canada.

Bigfoot

The term "bigfoot" was first used in California in 1958 in a newspaper article in the Humboldt Times. Workers excavating a road construction site in the woods of Northern California had found large footprint tracks in August 1958 around their equipment. Jerry Crew made a track cast of a footprint at the work site that was 17 inches long and 6 inches wide. He showed the cast to newspaper editor, Andrew Genzoli. The story that was written about it coined the name "Bigfoot" which quickly took off in the United States.

Aboriginal Names

Native tribes from across North America are said to have names for this creature - names that have existed in their culture for many centuries. In fact, these names were being used long before European settlers ventured across the ocean. We may conclude then, that the indigenous peoples that have inhabited the North American continent for at least 11,000 years have been aware of these creatures for a very long time, and have been sharing the land with them.

Myth or Reality?

Native stories are full of symbolism. Are the animal spirits they speak of based on real creatures? Have the stories been embellished? Is any part of them based in fact? How much can we believe, and how much should be considered partial fabrication, myth, or just good old fashioned storytelling?

Many large, frightening creatures exist in native lore. Some very closely resemble what witnesses have described seeing - a large, hair-covered bipedal "wild man", that lives in the woodlands surrounding Native lands. And some of these aboriginal stories describe a creature that comes out after dark, steals children and eats them, or carries off native women as mates. Do we take the various tribal names for this creature at face value, assuming that they all belong to the creature we have come to know as sasquatch or bigfoot in modern day society?

Is the "windigo" a sasquatch? 

Current belief is that the name Windigo does not stand for this creature at all, but is meant to describe a tribe member who became lost in the woods and metamorphosized into a tall, bone-thin cannibal that various tribes call Windigo. Some bigfoot researchers have wrongly assumed the term Windigo describes sasquatch. Franzoni, Mizokami and Glickman who compiled the original list included Windigo on it. However, we've noted that this is an incorrect assumption.

A Reality to First Nations and Native Americans

If the "windigo" isn't a sasquatch, are all the other names wrong too? Not at all. Aboriginal names for sasquatch are entrenched in their languages across the continent and are based on eye witness sightings by native peoples over the centuries. Most native bands have strong convictions that these creatures do exist, that they are our brothers, and that seeing one forecasts an important event in one's life.