''Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend'' is a non-fiction book written by Joshua Blu Buhs and published in 2009 by the

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...

. It explores the history of the concept of

Bigfoot Bigfoot, also commonly referred to as Sasquatch, is a purported ape-like creature said to inhabit the forest of North America. Many dubious articles have been offered in attempts to prove the existence of Bigfoot, including anecdotal claims o ...

, discusses the exploits of its believers, as well as hoaxers, and examines the cultural influences that give the entity its staying power.

Overview

''Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend'' is an exploration of the history of Bigfoot (called Sasquatch in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

), and its counterparts, the

Abominable Snowman The Yeti ()"Yeti"
''

Yeti, with a focus on stories from the American

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

. Buhs maintains that Bigfoot does not actually inhabit the forests, but, is "real" in the sense that the stories told about the creature are "part of the American cultural landscape". Buhs contends that Bigfoot is a construct of popular imagination representing a "tradition of the

wild man The wild man, wild man of the woods, or woodwose/wodewose is a mythical figure that appears in the art and literature of medieval Europe, comparable to the satyr or faun type in classical mythology and to '' Silvanus'', the Roman god of the woodl ...

" that "allowed white working-class men" to hold onto traditional, masculine roles while societal changes (

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

and

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...

) in the 1960s and 1970s "challenged their assumptions about society". Although Bigfoot has its roots in European and Asian fairy tales, and sightings of "giant figures with long reddish hair" were reported in the 1920s. Buhs claims Bigfoot stories in men's adventure magazines, like Argosy,

True True most commonly refers to truth, the state of being in congruence with fact or reality. True may also refer to: Places * True, West Virginia, an unincorporated community in the United States * True, Wisconsin, a town in the United States * Tr ...

, and Saga, as well as "mockumentary" movies shown in makeshift movie theaters called "four-wallers" in 1970s rural America helped give shape to Bigfoot and secure its place in popular culture. Bigfoot became symbolic of the changes these men feared and way of connection with (or escaping into) the wilderness. Buhs provides a historical accounting of Bigfoot encounters, including purported sightings and abductions. He surveys the physical evidence collected and photographed (footprints, tufts of fur, droppings), and introduces readers to such devotees of Bigfoot as Rene Dahinden, Roger Patterson, Ray Wallace,

John R. Napier John Russell Napier, Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons, MRCS, Royal College of Physicians, LRCP, Doctor of Science, D.Sc. (1917 – 29 August 1987) was a British primatologist, Paleoanthropology, paleoanthropologist, and physician, wh ...

Albert Ostman Albert Ostman ( – 1975) was a Canadian prospector who reported that he was abducted by a Sasquatch and held captive for six days. He stated that the event took place near Toba Inlet, British Columbia in 1924. The story In 1924, Albert Ostman, a ...

P.T. Barnum Phineas Taylor Barnum (; July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891) was an American showman, businessman, and politician, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus (1871–2017) with James Anthony Bailey. He was ...

, Grover Krantz,

Ivan Sanderson Ivan Terence Sanderson (January 30, 1911 – February 19, 1973) was a British biologist and writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland, who became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Along with Belgian-French biologist Bernard Heuvelmans, Sand ...

, and others who researched, looked for, and, in some cases, faked Bigfoot sightings or exploited the idea of Bigfoot for their own gain. Buhs also outlines how the commercialization of Bigfoot, through the sale of commercial products (B-movies, T-shirts, TV shows, whiskey advertisements), transformed Bigfoot, once feared, into a creature to be ridiculed. Environmentalism, Buhs posits, changed Bigfoot into a gentle giant. By the mid-1970s, Bigfoot research had dissolved into "exposed hoaxes, arrogant and premature proclamations of conclusive evidence, and vindictive infighting."

Reception

Reviewers of ''Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend'' found the book, overall, to be an entertaining account of Bigfoot that lead to "interesting places". Buhs' attempt at telling an historical account of an imaginary creature, for some reviewers, was problematic. Folklorist Jennifer Attebury argued that although Buhs used "excellent secondary sources" and solid primary sources, the exploration of Bigfoot might better be described as "

fakelore Invented traditions are cultural practices that are presented or perceived as traditional, arising from the people starting in the distant past, but which in fact are relatively recent and often even consciously invented by identifiable historical ...

." She suggested that the book might have benefited from theoretical frameworks provided by contemporary folkloristics. Still other reviewers found Buhs' characterization of Bigfoot as reflecting the hopes, fears and desires of white working-class men "a bit of a stretch". Paul Lucier wrote in his review, "Buhs is sympathetic to the Bigfooters, and he tries to restrain any prejudgments, but in the end he cannot help but explode each incident and, perhaps unintentionally, show up the Bigfooters as either fools or frauds". In his review, Benjamin Radford wrote that Buhs characterized skeptics as "routinely ridiculing" the subject of Bigfoot, and suggested that prominent skeptical Bigfoot researchers, like Michael Dennett, treated the subject and its claimants with respect. Some members of the Bigfoot community received the book less than enthusiastically, calling it a literary fraud.

References

{{Reflist, 30em 2009 non-fiction books American non-fiction books Bigfoot Works about skepticism University of Chicago Press books