This just in from good friend Richard Freeman at the CFZ in England:
"After two previous expeditions to the Indonesian island of Sumatra on the track of the upright walking ape know as orang-pendek (short man) the CFZ will be returning for a third expedition beginning on September the 13th.
"Adam Davis, Dr Chris Clark, Dave Archer and myself will be spending two weeks in the jungle in search of the orang-pendek. Past expeditions have concentrated on Gunung Tuju (the lake of seven peaks) in Kerinchi National Park. This time the better part of the expedition will be spent with the Kubu people in the lowland jungles. Back in 2004 Chris and I spent a day with these people and Nylam their chief.
"The Kubu are the original inhabitants of Sumatra. The modern Indonesians arrived relatively recently from Malaya. They are far taller and more slender than the average Sumatran. They have oriental features but the men have curly hair almost like Africans. Until recently the Kubu live totally wild in the jungle. Now they have houses but still spend months on end in the deep rain forest.
"Nylam told us of his own encounter with an orang-pendek a few years back. He and his warriors had also seen ten meter long serpents that they described as having horns like an ox!We will be working with the Kubu to search for orang-pendek and the horned serpents (the Kubu call them Nagas).
"Apparently there have been a number of sightings of the short man in the area recently. We intend to make our HQ in the ‘garden’, a semi cultivated are that abuts the true jungle. We hope to record some of their culture and folklore as next to nothing has been written on Kubu beliefs. Towards the end of the trip we will return to Gunung Tuju were the creature has also been seen recently.
"They say threes the charm and third time lucky so keep your fingers crossed!"
Here's another creature whose evolution has accelerated massively since it came into the public eye, chupacabras- style.
ReplyDeletethe first reports of Orang Pendek described it as very humanoid and able to talk, very similar to homo floresiensis. Nowadays it's a large bipedal ape.
Both could still be out there.The strange thing is I can't remember any old bipedal ape sightings and certainly no fossil finds, nor any recent Hobbit-type sightings although there were those 7 bodies found in the cave and the Dutch settlers' stories got media coverage.
Let's hope we haven't just missed the last of the hobbits.