Incident #1000672
Washington
before 1840
Account
Elkanah Walker was one of the members of the original Whitman Mission. He said of the Spokane Indians: "They believe in the existence of a race of giants which inhabit a certain mountain off to the West of us. This mountain is covered with perpetual snow. They inhabit its top. They hunt and do all their work at night. The Indians say their track is about a foot and a half long. They frequently come in the night and steal their salmon from their nets and eat them raw. If the people are awake they always know when they are coming very near by their strong smell, which is most intolerable." (One source refers to a letter, another to a diary, and wording is slightly different. Possibly Walker wrote about this in both a letter and a diary.)
When
- Year
- before 1840
- Time of Day
- night
Where
- State / province
- Washington
What was seen
- Shot Hit
- No
Witnesses
- Report type
- hearsay
Source
- Source
- Elkanah Walker quoting Spokane Indians in a letter
- Source Type
- letter
- Source Date
- 1840
- Source reliability
- 6
- Incident reliablility
- 1
- Jwg file date
- 1974
- Incident type
- 3
Creature description 1
- Height
- large
- Posture
- erect
- Object Handled
- animal
- Odour
- strong
- Eating
- fish
- Attracted By
- fish
- Water Activity
- wade in
- Use of Water
- catch fish
- Describe Unsual
- Giants said to be active only at night.
- Feet
- large
- Evidence Left
- footprints
Creature description 2
- Posture
- erect
- Aggressive To
- humans
- Eating
- fish
- Human Contact
- attack
- Other Unusual Y/N
- Yes
- Describe Unsual
- Indians told of "Scoocooms" eating people.
Footprints
- Footprint Length
- 16.0
- Relation to Water
- entering water
- Trackmaker attracted by
- fish