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An ethnographic study of perceptions of and ideas about mystery hominoids
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- Author / Creator
- Arshad, Amira
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The thesis explores perceptions of and ideas about mystery hominoids, and focuses more specifically on the western Canadian category named ‘sasquatch’ or ‘bigfoot’. Over the last several decades, there has appeared a limited though quite varied literature on sasquatch and other mystery hominoids by anthropologists, biologists, and other academics, in addition to a large amount of amateur cryptozoological writing. Recently, several scientists have taken a more focused interest in possible physical basis for images of mystery hominoids. To date, however, no cultural anthropologist has conducted an ethnographic study of people who hold definite views on the sasquatch, either among local communities or in the community of science. In addition to reviewing literature on the sasquatch written mostly by professional scientists, I fill this gap with an ethnographic study that records and discusses views on this phenomenon of mystery hominoids held by two groups of informants. One comprises academics, all but one a natural scientist and mostly employed (or formerly employed) by post-secondary institutions in Alberta and elsewhere in western Canada and the northwestern United States. The other group is made up of local and mostly rural people in Alberta, including people who claim personal experience of the sasquatch or are familiar with others that do. The importance of the thesis lies in its aim of clarifying what sort of figure people conceive the sasquatch to be (for example, something purely imaginary, or something empirical that reflects experience of a real animal; and something more like a human as opposed to a kind of animal, especially some kind of ape); and, related to these conceptions, why some people, both local people and scientists, are convinced or unconvinced of its phenomenal existence.
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- Graduation date
- Fall 2019
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Master of Arts
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- License
- Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.