Bigfoot's Asian minor cousin, named "Littlefoot" also known as Orang Pendek which translates to "Short Person", or "Little People" is a mysterious creature whose sightings often occur on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. However, Orang Pendek is also rumored to inhabit Vietnam, the Philippines, and other parts of Southeast Asia.
The creature has allegedly been seen and documented for at least 100 years by forest tribes, local villagers, Dutch colonists, and Western scientists and travelers. Sightings and descriptions of Orang Pendek, as well as fossil evidence are similar with extinct hominids.
According to the Children of the Inner Forest (Suku Anak Dalam/Orang Rimba) -who have traditionally lived nomadic throughout the lowland forests of Jambi and South Sumatra-, Orang Pendek has been a part of their world and a co-inhabitant of the forest for centuries. Usually Orang Pendek travel in groups of five or six, subsisting on wild yams and hunting animals with small axes. They ambushes unfortunate Orang Rimba hunters who traveling alone in the forest.
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| Illustration of Orang Pendek (Image credit: Wikipedia) |
Orang Pendek is commonly described as a short bipedal primate that inhabits the jungles of Sumatra and other areas of Southeast Asia.
Those who claim to have seen Orang Pendek frequently describe an ape-like creature with Physical descriptions as follows:
- Height, 2 feet 6 inches–5 feet 6 inches.
- Pointed head (possible sagittal crest) with high forehead.
- Humanlike eyes.
- Bushy eyebrows.
- Broad nose.
- Prominent ears.
- Long canine teeth.
- Face and body covered with short, reddishorange,dark-brown, or black hair but is less hairy on the face.
- Thick, square shoulders.
- Pinkish-brown skin. Its jetblack head-hair extends in a mane down its back. Recent reports describe individuals with manes of yellow or tan hair.
- Large potbelly. Long arms.
Several sightings in Sumatra & Philipines:
Edward Jacobson found some curious footprints at the edge of the Danau Bento swamp, southeast of Mount Kerinci, Sumatra, on August 21, 1915. His Sumatran guide, Mat Getoep, said the 5-inch tracks had been made by an Orang pendek.
A plantation manager named Oostingh ran across an Orang pendek in the forest near Bukit Kaba, Sumatra, in December 1917. When the creature noticed him, it stood up, calmly walked several paces, then swung up into the trees.
A Dutch settler named Van Herwaarden got a close look at an Orang pendek in a tree in the jungle north of Palembang, Sumatra, in October 1923. He had the animal in his gun sights, but it looked so human that he felt he would be committing murder to kill it.
Harry Gillmore and Otto Irrgang found small, bipedal, humanlike tracks between the Kampar and Siak Kecil Rivers, Riau Province, Sumatra, Indonesia, in 1958. There were no telltale claw marks such as a bear would have made.
In 1989, British travel writer Deborah Martyr discovered Orang pendek tracks in southwestern Sumatra that were about the size of a sevenyear-old child’s. She sent a plaster cast of one print to the Indonesian National Parks Department, but it has been lost. After five years of searching, Martyr finally saw an Orang pendek in the Mount Kerinci area on September 30, 1994. Walking confidently on two legs, it paused to look at her from 200 yards away, then moved off into the jungle. She has glimpsed the animal twice more since then.
After a strong earthquake near Liwa in 1995, Claude Petit talked to several local people who reported that animals looking like the Orang pendek came out of the forest, frightened by the seismic activity.
Clumps of Orang pendek hair found in 2001 near Mount Kerinci, Sumatra, by an amateur British team led by Adam Davies were sent to the Oxford Institute of Molecular Medicine for DNA analysis. Davies also found tracks with semiopposed big toes that were not made by any known primate.
Legends of “Little People” abound in the Philippines, and those legends are consistent with descriptions of Orang Pendek. Filipino legends showcase a history of “Little People” living in the mountainous, volcanic regions of the Philippines.
These ape-like “Little People” were believed to come down from the mountains to steal from farmers’ crops. Filipino lore even recounts an incident in which the “Little People” in a certain area were wiped out by a volcanic eruption.
The fossil record further supports Orang Pendek’s existence. Fossilized remains of miniature human-like species have been found in the Indonesian island of Flores, as well as in Africa and Russia.
The fossils from Flores belonged to tiny hominids who were hunter-gatherers. These bones were found in Southeast Asia lends further weight to the possibility that Orang Pendek may actually exist.
Furthermore, similar fossils of small hominids have also been found in Russia and Africa. The Russian fossils are bone fragments from an adult hominid that was exceptionally small, as are the African fossils.
The collection of African fossils was found in a cave that anthropologists believe was used as a burial ground.
Thus, there is a strong case to suggest that Orang Pendek has existed in the past as well as in the present.
As humans further encroach on jungle lands, the disasters of deforestation may be what reveals or destroys, Orang Pendek.
There are various debates about what the creature could be. An evolutionary offshoot of the orangutan, whose species was split by the cataclysmic eruption of the Lake Toba volcano? An unknown species of very large gibbon? A human-like relative of Homo floresiensis? Or just a case of mistaken identity, perhaps a sun bear or siamang gibbon? Although a few well-known conservationists have seen it, and even with National Geographic funding a two-year project to attempt to camera-trap the creature, there is still no conclusive photographic or physical evidence proving its existence. The mystery remains.
References:
The Paranormal Chronicles Magazine Issue 2 Spring 2019: "Littlefoot Big Misytery" written by Justyne Williamson
Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology" by George M. Eberhart
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