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Seven Ages of Man - 04 The Trows, Ebu Gogo/Homo floresiensis - various sources
Identifier
021792
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The discovery of the remains of a meter-tall hominid on Flores Homo floresiensis, alive perhaps as recently as 13,000 years ago (though a 2016 study suggests 50,000 years), has inspired more literal interpretations of the Ebu Gogo stories. Anthropologist Gregory Forth, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alberta, Canada has stated that "wildman" myths are prevalent in Southeast Asia and has investigated their linguistic and ritual roots, speculating that H. floresiensis may be evidence that the folktales of Ebu Gogo and similar creatures such as the Orang Pendek on Sumatra may be rooted in fact.
Picture : The Venus of Laussel is an 18.11-inch high limestone bas-relief of a nude female figure. It is painted with red ochre and was carved into a large block of fallen limestone in a rock shelter (Abri de Laussel fr:Abri de Cap Blanc) in the commune of Marquay, in the Dordogne department of south-western France. The carving is associated with the Gravettian Upper Paleolithic culture (approximately 25,000 years old). It is currently displayed in the Musée d'Aquitaine in Bordeaux, France
A description of the experience
Myths of Flores, Indonesia
Wikipedia
The Ebu Gogo are a group of human-like creatures that appear in the mythology of Flores, Indonesia. In the Nage language of central Flores, ebu means 'grandmother' [ancestor] and gogo means 'he who eats anything'.
The Nage people of Flores describe the Ebu Gogo as having been able walkers and fast runners around 1.5 m tall. They reportedly had wide and flat noses, broad faces with large mouths and hairy bodies. The females also had "long, pendulous breasts." They were said to have murmured in what was assumed to be their own language and could reportedly repeat what was said to them in a parrot-like fashion.
The Nage people believe that the Ebu Gogo were alive at the time of the arrival of Portuguese trading ships in the 17th century, and some hold that they survived as recently as the 20th century, but are now no longer seen. The Ebu Gogo are believed to have been hunted to extinction by the human inhabitants of Flores. They believe that the extermination, which culminated around seven generations ago, was undertaken because the Ebu Gogo stole food from human dwellings, and kidnapped children.
An article in New Scientist (Vol. 186, No. 2504) gives the following account of folklore on Flores surrounding the Ebu Gogo: The Nage people of central Flores tell how, in the 18th century, villagers disposed of the Ebu Gogo by tricking them into accepting gifts of palm fiber to make clothes. When the Ebu Gogo took the fiber into their cave, the villagers threw in a firebrand to set it alight. The story goes that all the occupants were killed except perhaps for one pair, who fled into the deepest forest, and whose descendants may be living there still.
There are also legends about the Ebu Gogo kidnapping human children, hoping to learn from them how to cook. The children always easily outwit the Ebu Gogo in the tales.
Stories of the Shetland isles – Dr Hibbert
Quoted in The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves and Other Little People compiled by Thomas Keightley
A tailor, not long since, related the following story. He was employed to work at a farm-house where there was a child that was an idiot, and who was supposed to have been left there by the Trows instead of some proper child, whom they had taken into the hills. One night, after he had retired to his bed, leaving the idiot asleep by the fire, he was suddenly waked out of his sleep by the sound of music, and on looking about him he saw the whole room full of fairies, who were-dancing away their rounds most joyously. Suddenly the idiot jumped up and joined in the dance, and showed such a degree of acquaintance with the various steps and movements as plainly testified that it must have been a long time since he first went under the hands of the dancing-master. The tailor looked on for some time with admiration, but at last he grew alarmed and sained himself. On hearing this, the Trows all fled in the utmost disorder, but one of them, a woman, was so incensed at this interruption of their revels, that as she went out she touched the big toe of the tailor, and he lost the power of ever after moving it.
The Edda
Our concept of thieving is derived from our use of possessions, but a people who have no concept of ownership would not have any concept of theft
The Edda [from The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves and Other Little People compiled by Thomas Keightley
They are obliging and neighbourly; freely lending and borrowing and elsewise keeping up a friendly intercourse with mankind. But they have a sad propensity to thieving, not only stealing provisions, but even women …..