BIGFOOT C0_0P June 1994

A HOMINOLOGISIT'S VIEW FROM MOSCOW,  RUSSIA

Dmitri Bayanov

Eighteen years ago I wrote my first letter to Roderick
Sprague, editor of Northwest Anthropological Research Notes
(NARN), Moscow, Idaho. The letter was printed in NARN
(Vol.11, No. 1) under the heading A HOMINOLOGIST'S VIEW FROM
MOSCOW, USSR. Sprague must be credited with opening the door
to scientific discussion of the hominoid problem in North
America by offering the pages of NARN to hominoid
investigators. The offer was accepted with gratitude and
enthusiasm by Grover Krantz, Gordon Strasenburgh, myself and
others. Now a new initiative has come from Dr. Sprague: the
idea of holding this year or next a fresh and more
"professional" sasquatch conference. This piece has been
prompted by that initiative.

The past 18 years have seen a lot of achievement, but
even more dashed hopes and lost opportunities. One advantage
of getting on in years and experience is the ability to see
and formulate more clearly the causes of past mistakes and
present difficulties. In John Green's eloquent words,
devoted to our investigation, "This is not a game or a
fantasy, it is a question of serious scientific research of
tremendous importance." In my view, the problem is that most
investigators in the field have a rather vague idea of the
scientific implications of their pursuits. Put differently,
the problem is that the scientific research of tremendous
importance is tackled, at least in some of its aspects, in
an unscientific manner or with an unscientific set of mind.
It'll take some examples to explain this rather abstract
thesis.

It's fair to say that inquiry into the snowman problem began
by way of a hunt, not science. The coveted objective of
numerous Himalayan expeditions by Western explorers, and
even of the Pamirs expedition by the Soviet Academy of
Sciences, was to hunt down the enigmatic hairy biped and
show the trophy to an astounded world. A hunt mentality is
still typical of many North Arnerican investigators, as
epitomised in the following words of Rene Dahinden: "I heard
about Sasquatch, I was told it was there, so I thought I'd
go and get one. Grab him by the ass and bring him home to
mother" (The ISC Newsletter, Summer 1985, p.3).

A totally different approach, with the mentality and
strategy of science, i.e. hunting for knowledge, not
trophies, was first introduced into the snowman
investigation by Boris Porshnev, so it is worthwhile to look
anew at this aspect of his work.

When a translation of Ivan Sanderson's article devoted to
the Patterson film was published in a Soviet magazine, Boris
Porshnev wrote in his commentary: "The public is much taken
by the illusion that the 'snowman' problem can only be
solved by a sensational breakthrough. A single 'proof' will
be obtained and submitted: here you are! No, the process of
science is more modest and more majestic. In its course
knowledge is accumulated and deepened, new information is
added to old information, and its overall reliability is
increased. A single sensation won't work if only because any
sensation can be questioned: photographs and films can be
faked, while a live specimen can be declared a rare
pathological case, a freak of nature. Science operates, as a
rule, not with isolated facts but with series of them. That
is why only those investigators who have already studied a
great number of already known similar facts can judge the
validity of the film taken by Patterson and Gimlin....This
film cannot make a revolution in science. When two, three,
ten films are taken, their conclusiveness will increase, if
the need for more and more 'proofs' does not gradually
disappear even for the outsiders....Initially it seemed that
some defendants had to submit a 'proof' to some judges,
whereupon these experts will kindly take into their
scholarly hands further progress of the investigation. Now
wc are dear that it is the defendants who are the only
experts and specialists in the matter. Their circle-will be
joined and enlarged by young biologists who will want to
acquire the existing knowledge and take up the torch. And
the judges will be dozing away in arm chairs in the empty
hall..." (Znanie-sila, 1968, No. 9, pp52, 53. My
translation).

This shows that back in the 1960s, Porshnev well understood
what's what and who's who in our research. Free of
illusions, he had a clear idea how to push it forward. In
regard to Patterson's film, his words do not mean that he
considered the documentary unimportant or unnecessary. No,
he just put that piece of evidence in the context of ongoing
research and correctly predicted that it would not resolve
the problem. And not because it's a film but because a
scientific problem of such magnitude is of necessity
resolved in a different way, in a way of accumulating and
deepening knowledge

In the process of knowledge accumulation, coming information
(including films) must be assessed, some of it accepted,
some rejected. -Who is to do it? Who are the experts?
Porshnev gives a clear answer, which, regrettably, is still
unclear to some of our foreign colleagues. Of course,
hominologists can and must use the expertise of other
specialists, but the last word in the appraisal of evidence
in hominology must belong to them, not the outsiders.

In this connection it must be said that Porshnev not only
proceeded in a scientific manner about the hominoid problem
but he happened to found a new science along the way. This
has to be said loud and dear at last, because most
researchers in the field, including John Green and Grover
Krantz as major contributors to hominology in North America,
have not yet swallowed the news. John Napier wrote that if
Bigfoot is real, then "as scientists we have a lot to
explain. Among other things we shall have to re-write the
story of human evolution." Napier could explain nothing,
while Porshnev did provide an explanation. Napier shunned
the re-writing, while Porshnev was inspired by it. And he
did it! Thus he was a generation ahead of other
evolutionists who haven't yet even realised the necessity of
the task.

It's interesting that at least one aspect of Porshnev's idea
was well understood and accepted by none other than
Grover-Krantz. In a manuscript of his article, sent over. to
me for possible publication in Russia, Krantz wrote in 1976:
"Something very fundamental happened between the time of the
Neanderthals and the rise of modern man. There is no
confusion between the skulls of the two. types The
disappearance of the Neanderthals, whether by transition or
by replacement, shows that some major advance was involved
in this change r must agree with the late Boris Porshnev
that no matter how intelligent and resourceful Neanderthals
were as individuals, they were still on the other side of
the critical line separating animals from man. If one grants
this point, then it makes less difference than might be
supposed just which fossil form, or forms, might be
surviving today. All suggested candidates for this position
are prehuman, bipedal primates which differ from each other
merely in their degree of intelligence and tool-making
skills."

According to Porshnev, something very fundamental which
happened with the rise of modern man was speech, or human
language. In terms of evolution its acquisition was so rapid
and recent that our non-speaking ancestors simply had no
time to disappear under the pressure of their garrulous
descendants. Thus, the existence of wildmen is not a
fortuity but a necessity.

If so, why were they unknown to science? The shortest
answer, already given, is that there was no science to know
them. They were known to and recognised by individual
scholars (Linnaeus among them), as if in accordance with the
ISC Policy Statement, but not by science at large because
neither primatology nor evolutionary anthropology were then
in existence. And without these biological disciplines,
relict hominids were bound to remain unidentified or
misidentified within the realm of what Napier calls the
Goblin Universe.

What's more, certain revisionist, or better, revolutionary
ideas regarding man's origin had to appear in. a scholar's
head before there emerged a specific discipline dealing with
our creatures. On page 273 of his suppressed monograph
(1963), still existing just in 180 rotaprint copies,
Porshnev
 writes of "the destinies of the emerging science of relict
hominoids." It fell to my lot to name the new branch of
knowledge. It happened in 1972, in 1973, "hominology" is
mentioned in my letters, and in the second half of the
decade, the term began to be used in the press.

Was "hominology" really necessary? Wasn't Cryptozoology
sufficient to cover all enigmatic animals, including our
charges? My answer is: even with the advent of
Cryptozoology, hominology is not only necessary but
inevitable. The reason is this. As soon as an object of
Cryptozoology, i.e. cryptid, is recognised by zoology, it
stops being a cryptid and gets under the auspices of one or
another branch of zoology. Such was the case of the okapi,
the giant squid, the gorilla, and numerous other
ex-cryptids. But relict hominoids have no discipline to get
into, except hominology. Zoology, primatology, anthropology,
as we know them today, have no place for living wild
human-like bipeds--the creatures' specifics are not dealt
with by any one of the established sciences. Hominology is
necessary and inevitable because "between zoology and
anthropology there is a big gap in knowledge, a no-man's
land of science." So the hominologist is a hunter for
knowledge in this no-man's land.

In the family of sciences, hominology's elder sister is
paleoanthropology, born of the inter-action
 between anthropology and palaeontology. The elder sister
deals with the fossil ancestors of Homo sapiens. and the
younger one with the living pre-sapiens bipeds.

The homi is at large, but hominology is already in hand. The
discipline does exist, even if only de facto. And what a
marvellous fact it is, especially if we remember that not a
cent or a kopeck of outside funding has gone into its
existence. The task ahead is to get its de jure recognition.
But first, of course, all active hominologists have to
realise what they are and what discipline they are working
for. Do in Rome as the Romans do. When Grover Krantz,
calling for getting "hard evidence" by any means, says,
"People at the Smithsonian keep telling me, 'Put a skull on
my table and I'll believe you, '" he is mixing up
allegiances by introducing methods and conditions of one
discipline (paleoanthropology) into another discipline
(hominology). When he writes to me,  "I know most of my
colleagues would reject, as fake, any films purporting to
show them (i.e sasquatches N.B.), even by Goodall," I
conclude Krantz is not aware that, besides being an
anthropologist, he is also a leading hominologist, and, when
laboring in the latter capacity, should choose colleagues
and advice accordingly.

In my NARN piece I drew a parallel between the birth of
hominology and that of meteoritics. In both cases the
scientific world scorned the evidence of eyewitnesses and
the theories explaining the phenomena. In the case of
meteoritics, a shower of stones that fell near Paris in 1803
convince the French Academy of the reality of meteorites.
The point is, that for the birth of meteoritics, it was not
necessary for every scientist in the world to witness a
shower of stones. Suffice it was that some scientists became
convinced and started research into the subject. The rest of
the scientific community just had to trust the authority of
specialists in the field. And this is true of every
scientific discipline. How do we know that such and such
fossils are not Piltdown-like fakes but represent such and
such forms in man's ancestry? We just trust the word of
paleoanthropologists.  And so with our evidence. When
hominology gets established, and an authoritative forum of
hominologists decrees that the Patterson-Gimlin film is an
authentic documentary, the scientific community will just
have to accept that, no matter what the sceptical
 colleagues of Grover Krantz say.

So the main development of the past decades for us has been
the birth and growth of hominology. Its further progress,
both in theory and practice (in the latter especially),
depends on the discipline's de jure recognition, which in
turn depends on the founding of a specific and official
institution dealing with our problem. Back in 1977, I
addressed a call to the would-be participants in the
Vancouver conference urging them to establish an
international hominolodcal body. As the call fell on deaf
ears, and remains as topical today as it was then, I'd like
to repeat it here for the benefit of CO-OP readers and
would-be participants. in a possible new sasquatch
conference.

(The text of my December 24, 1977 address follows.)

TO: The Would-be Participants	FROM: Dmitri Bayanov
In the World's First	Darwin Museum
Sasquatch Conference	Moscow, 119435
	                U.S.S.R.
December 24, 1977

Dear Colleagues,

This is a follow-up of my letter to Roderick Sprague (see
NARN 1977, 11.1:128-134) in the hope that you will not allow
it to be a voice in the wilderness. In my view the first
sasquatch conference will fulfil its mission if it results
in something even more important and vitally needed: a
permanent international body to cope with our problem. I see
no other way for us to make real progress.

What needs to be realised is that it is not just a question
of obtaining decisive evidence but rather of creating a
standard framework and normal conditions for the processing
of the already existing and newly coming information, as is
the case with all established sciences.

Take paleoanthropology, for example, This elder sister of
hominology also had enough detractors and was in a similar
plight in her early days. Can anyone imagine her enviable
status today without the funds and organisation she enjoys?
Yet, the paleoanthropologist's situation was easier than
ours even in the very beginning, if only because fossils
stay put and don't run away from the researcher as do the
objects of our interest.

What is needed for a science to exist? A collection of
relevant and potentially important facts, for one. A number
of researchers interested in these facts, for two. A theory,
or theories, to evaluate these facts, for three. And an
organisation to coordinate and finance the research efforts,
for four.

We are already in business as regards the first three
conditions, but are glaringly lacking and handicapped as
regards condition number four. This creates a kind of
negative feedback and a steady state of stalemate in the
overall situation, which can last indefinitely unless we opt
to play differently.

To illustrate the above, there's the latest example. I could
name scholars at research institutes of the USSR Academy of
Sciences who are interested in the Vancouver conference but
dare not apply and attend because they have not actually
explored the problem and have no paper to contribute. On the
other hand, Igor Bourtsev and I, who are actively engaged in
the hominoid research at the Darwin Museum, may not attend,
as standing practice goes here, because the Darwin Museum is
not a part of the Academy but of the Ministry of Culture.

Moral: To get established and recognised by the
Establishment it is necessary to set up yet another
establishment, one of our own. Since there may not be enough
clout for the venture on a national basis, it has to be
tried on an international one.

Hence the idea of a World Hominological Organisation.
Purposes: To prove beyond doubt the existence of relict
hominoids; to protect their populations; to study these
creatures by humane methods; to collect, translate, and
exchange information on the subject the world over.

As for my insistence on humane-methods in this research may
I elaborate on the already given arguments. Besides an
aversion to a homi killing, I feel that in our time of
doomsday fears the humanitarian and ecological aspects of
hominology are no less important than its natural science
aspect. If even the anthropologist is found indifferent and
callous in this respect, what can we expect of other
professions?

No professional interest today can be higher than the maxim
"Live and let live." By definition, the hominoid is not a
human being, but he is rightly expected to be man's nearest
living root. There is reason to suspect the creatures can
mate with Home sapiens and, if raised by humans and taught
sign language, can actually become human. It is their total
human potential, and not bipedalism alone, that sets them
apart from other animals and makes people think of murder
before pulling the trigger, as was the case with Roger
Patterson and Robert Gimlin, William Roe, and some others.
Thus the animal collector's purely zoological approach,
advocated by Grover Krantz, is inappropriate in this case.

IŁ, despite all, we say a specimen should be killed in the
interests of science, how on earth can we ever in good
conscience protect the species from slaughter for other
people's interest? That is why I call to proclaim and
respect homi rights from the very beginning.

Modern Home sapiens represents and symbolises the
achievements and failures of civilization. Modern Homo
trogodytes represents and symbolises the top achievement and
subsequent retreat of Nature. Now for the first time in
history the two species are going to meet in the lime-light
of science. Let us make this meeting a happy one for both.
Let it be on the credit side of civilisation.

I address myself above all to those would-be participants in
the conference who recognise the reality of hominoids and
want to make this notion generally accepted. As for those
who are of two minds at present, I trust they wouldn't
object to our organised effort to solve the problem one way
or another. If proved real, the hominoid will be a boon for
all hands in anthropology, including
 today's skeptics.

I don't know how best to begin the creation of such an
organisation, but I know that our scientific establishment
is bound to respond only if a call comes from your
established scientists and organisations. There are academic
institutions and prominent scientists here who would gladly
participate in the work of such an international
organisation should it come into being. The point is who and
how to break the ice.

Why don't the concerned universities of Canada and the U.S.
form a Hominological Association of North America and issue
a call to other countries to join in setting up a world
organisation? In the USSR such a call should be addressed to
the Darwin Museum, Moscow University, the Institute of
Ethnography, and some other organisations. We shall provide
the names and addresses if the idea is approved.

In short, let's get organised and spend our energy on
something more creative than arguments with the uninformed.

Hominologists Of All Lands, Unite

To Show H u m a n k i n d What  Is True And Right!