The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-09-06
MODERN MAMMOTHs.
Repeated RumOrs of the Existence of
the Great Animal.

Pail Mall Gazette
If IL be true, as American papers report
that Professor Dycke, of Kansas State Uni
versity has set off for the valley of tha
Yukon, in Alaska, with the express purpose
of ascertaining definitely what foundation
of truth may underlie the repeated stories
brought down by Indians and prospectors
from inner Alaska to the coast, of a gigan-
tic animal whose description corresDonds To
the mammoth, he is certainly a man to DO
envied. So romantic quest. with the pos
slbility, If not perhaps probability OF SO
sensational a discovery, does not fall to the
lot of everyone. None the less has he had
at any rate, one predecessor in this partic-
ular line of research in Mr.. Charles Foth-
ergtll, who visited America in 1923 in search
of living evidence of the mammoth the
giant elk and the great beaver all of which
Northwest. Mr.. Fothergill discovered
neither mammoth, elk nor beaver; indeed
ne does not appear to have gone very far
afeld after them. But seeing that he based
his belief in their existence upon indian
seldom without foundation" it may. per-
haps. be interesting to piece together the
various hints and traditions upon the SUBJ
1ect or q large elephant-like animal which
white men have collected from the Indians
during the last two centuries. Whether
myths of observation handed down
through endless generations of campfire
story tellers from, prirneval times.
whether they embody facts still of recent
memory, or whether, the other hand
they. We're wholly imported must be left to
the Judgment of the reader.
Fabri found q song upon the subject
among the Indians of Canada, translated
it. and sent it TO Button. 1t tells how the
great spirit descended upon earth to in
outre into the welfare of his creatures and
how the bison told him that he could be
happy among the grassy prairies were it
not that the father of oxen, who lived in
the mountains, accustomed to come
forth at times and destroy both herbs and
living creatures.
This is, perhaps, little vague but the
legend collected by Father Charlevoix and
published by him In 1774 in History Of
New France strikes a clearer note. There
is current he says, among these barbar-
ians d pleasant enough tradition of a great
elk beside whom others seem like ants.
He has. they say, legs so high that eight
skin is proof against all KINDS of weapons
and he has a sort of arm which comes out
or his shoulder and which he uses We
do ours This legend certainly suggests an
elephant, OF some kind, and perhaps we
among the Micmacs. the Iroquois, the Da-
kotahs and various other tribes.
These traditions agree in most details.
The Iroquois tell how, in their early days,
their country was invaded successfully by
two monsters. One they called the Big
when chief raised body of men to at
tack it. it fed back into the forests. After
Gus against men" The Big Elk got himself
killed in the end. a like story is told by tho
Scarp, with the victory. The wandering In
dams between the Slave Lake and tho
Northern ocean still implicitly believe in
similar animal. Mr.. Warburton Pike. who
Travelled in Arctic America in 1881 in
search of musk oxen, told of 1.-The giant
muk OK, fully ten times the size of the
biggest bull ever SEEN" whose tracks
many Indians claimed to have come across
far out in the barren grounds
mammoth with it's shaggy hair is GER
tafnly well described a giant musk OK
The reports from Alaska and the extreme
north of British Columbia give more detail.
The animal is described as being over twelve
feet high and more than twenty-five feet
long. 1t has shaggy black hair and immense
curving tusks. 1t is said that not only has
the ivory been brought down by hunters.
but also pieces of the flesh still covered
with hair and hide. This does not Of course,
postulate that the mammoth who furnished
1T has been alive those many thousand
years, for whole ice-imbedded carcasses
have been discovered in Siberia, the flesh
still palatable-to dogs. A real living NAM
moth seems almost too good to be true. yet
none the less may not one wish the NAM
moth hunter good sport.