Ebu Gogo - A Creature of Cryptozoology

When Australian and Indonesian archeologists excavated a limestone cave in the island of Flores, Indonesia they hit pay dirt when they found a skeleton of a new species of human, the Homo Florensiensis that was believed to have lived 18,000 years ago. In life, the skeleton could be about a meter long, about 25 kilograms in weight and with a chimpanzee sized brain. Along with the skeleton, the archeologists found sophisticated stone tools. Seven other skeletons of these "dwarf' people were found by another team. This would make you conclude that there is a truth to the Indonesian folklore after all.

Indonesian culture just like any other has folklore about ghosts, little people and mysterious beings. Word of mouth folktales are handed down from generation to generation. Indonesian village people would talk of an ape-like creature that walks like a man. They call this mysterious being ebu gogo. Ebu gogo means grandmother who eats anything. Ebu gogo is very much like the boogie man which is used to scare children. People in the island of Flores would tell children to behave otherwise Ebu gogo would get them. These people believed that small people not like apes or human used to live in this island.

Ebu gogo have hair covered bodies, longish arms, big bellies and protruding ears. They would walk upright just like humans although with an uncomfortable pace. They are nimble climbers and pretty strong for their size. They can easily uproot small trees to search for food. These creatures are voracious eaters. They would eat anything...from fruits, vegetables, insects and given the chance, human meat.

There was a time when Ebu gogo were tolerated by the village people. They lived in close proximity and were given food. Although they don't talk to the people they can repeat words said to them. However, these creatures became the concerns of the local people when they started destroying crops and killing animals. The Ebu gogo fled to the caves when the people started to hunt them gogoanime. In retaliation, the dwarf creatures destroyed the crops. They later on became bolder and took a baby. The fuming mad people set the mouth of the cave on fire. Apparently, some Ebu gogo were able to escape as they were last spotted in the late 19th century.

This would make you wonder at the veracity of the folklore as it was said that the small people fled to the Liang Bua caves...the very same cave where the dwarf skeletons were found.

There is a website that describes the Ebu Gogo and numerous other creatures of Cryptozoology in detail.

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Robert W. Benjamin has been in the software business on the internet for over 8 years, and has been producing low-cost software for the past 25+ years. He first released products on the AMIGA and C64 computer systems in the late 1970's-80's.