COLORADO HISTORICAL SASQUATCH
TIME PERIOD: AD Prehistory-late 1800’s
AREA INVOLVED: North-central New Mexico, area relevant to southern Colorado history
TAOS INDIAN TRADITION
Cannibal giants appear in "myths" of the Taos. They are described
by the Tao’s as giant men with long hair covering the whole body, big hands,
big feet, big muscled arms, big head and big mouth. The Taos believed
that these man-beasts were a dangerous type of man that lived
in the forests and would sometimes come and kill members of their people
and take them to high mountain caves and eat them. Their stories
tell of finding the openings of the man-beasts caves littered with bones
of the unfortunate victims. Stories tell of the Taos trying to kill
one of
the cannibal man-beasts by setting fire to brush at a cave opening
and shooting it with arrows as it came out. They were unsuccessful
in their attempts and the creature ran away wounded. These events
were supposed to have occurred about 800 years ago according to traditional
belief.
Another Taos traditional tale is a story of how two young women from
the Lytton area were kidnapped by giants. The giants were described
as horribly smelly by the girls who eventually escaped from them.
It is traditionally told that the giants carried the two girls to an island
on
a river a great distance from their homes and that the giants ate meat
of small game and deer. The giants were called Tsawane’itEmux by
the Taos. The kidnapped girls also said they were called Stsomu’lamux and
TsekEtinu’s (English interpretation unknown).
Credit given to Colorado BFRO member Keith Foster : KFoster@bfro.net
Uploaded to the BFRO Database by: Dawn Harrack <Dawn@BFRO.net> and Matt M. <Matt@BFRO.net>.