Tornit
Posted by: Loren Coleman on October 7th, 2012
Inukshuk is the Inuit word for a structure of stacked rocks in human form. Or were these ancient forms of art trying to show something else? This one is from northern Quebec.
New interesting reports are coming in from the Far North.
Here are some clarifications on the local names that have been associated with the large, hairy, mostly biped creatures seen in the northern parts of North America.
The white man’s names are Sasquatch (invented in 1929 in Canada) and Bigfoot (first used in California in 1958). The name True Giants was coined by Mark A. Hall only a few decades ago.
Most First Nations groups, Canadian Natives, American Natives, Inupiat–Yupik, and Inuits have their own names.
For instance, in California, around the area where the 1958 reports started coming in to the white Americans, the Hoopa called it Oh-Mah.
The names from Alaska and the Yukon range from Bushman to Gilyuk.
It is called a Windigo/Wendigo by the Algonquian tribes in the northern United States and eastern Canada, most notably the Ojibwe and Saulteaux, the Cree, the Naskapi and the Innu people.
Inuit people (Inupiat, Inuvialuit, Nunavut, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut, and Kalaallit) have been known to call these creatures Tornit, but also Turnit, Sauman Kar, and Saumen Kar.
This Pitt Lake, British Columbia, giant was seen by two prospectors in June 1965. Credit: Harry Trumbore’s drawing from The Field Guide of Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Tornit = It sounds like Finnish. Because “tornit” is Finnish word “towers”.
It’s good to hear all of the different terminology for the creatures according to language and tribe. In Japan too, even within the same language, different regions have their own names for various creatures, known, unknown, or mythical yokai.
I find these variations fascinating and thank Loren for posting this.
Why do 10 ft or 12 ft hairy hominids can’t be Sasquatches? Maybe they are just taller Sasquatch. The shortest human in record is Chandra Bahadur from Nepal, he is only 54,6cm tall (21.5 in tall) and the tallest human ever was Robert Wadlow from the USA. He measured an staggering 2,72m (8ft11in tall!). If humans can have such different heights and Sasquatch is so closely related to us, we’d expect them to have some variation in size as well. Now, I realize some huge plaster casts of 4 toed hominids exist, suggestng a different species, but a 4 toed hominid must be a hoax. Or else it’s not a hominid.
Most commonly Inuit tales of the Tornit are linked to past Inuit encounters with the Norse Greenlanders…Mowat, etc, etc.