(DOWNLOAD) "From Wild Man to Monster: The Historical Evolution of Bigfoot in New York State" by Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore ~ Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: From Wild Man to Monster: The Historical Evolution of Bigfoot in New York State
- Author : Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore
- Release Date : January 22, 2009
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 66 KB
Description
When the first European settlers VV entered what is now New York State and its environs, they brought with them not only their material culture, but also an array of beliefs in mythical beings. Such creatures had been part of the European psyche for centuries. A central character in this pantheon was the "wild man" thought to inhabit the darker parts of the European countryside. Also known as the woodwose, wooser, or "wild man of the woods," it was conspicuous in folklore between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries and holds a prominent place in later medieval European artwork and literature. A wild man's image even appears in many coats-of-arms and as a herald figure in book illustrations. During the later Middle Ages, "wild people" were thought to be ordinary humans, such as hermits and eccentrics: the socially marginal and mentally deranged, who had turned to life in the wilderness and began to regress, growing a thick coat of hair and foraging for food like a wild animal. The character of the wild man did not remain a feral human. The image evolved slowly over time into a more malevolent and less human form. By reviewing sightings of man-like monsters in nineteenth-century and contemporary New York, this transformation can be traced. Not surprisingly, the early pioneers of what is now New York State reported their own wild men. Some of these accounts undoubtedly depict hermits or deranged individuals whose dishevelled and unkempt appearance led to the conclusion that they were degenerates regressed to a feral state after living in the wild. The first New World account of a wild man in the region occurred in 1818 near Ellisburg, close to the Canadian border, when a "gentleman of unquestionable veracity" reported seeing a man dashing through the woods. It was covered in hair and bent forward as it moved. A massive search ensued, involving hundreds of residents, but to no avail (Exeter Watchman 1818). Two decades later, in August 1838, a boy told his father of encountering a hairy boy in the town of Silver Lake, Pennsylvania, on the New York border:
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