THE GUGWE - bigfoot, sasquatch, dogman, legend

artwork from 

janonomar.blogspot

"Mundos Propios"

Recorded sightings of this creature, the Gugwe, go back to the early 1900s. 

Modern versions describe it as a bigfoot-like creature with a canine-like snout, ranging from 6 to 7 foot tall. Some say it's features are more baboon-like. It is said to be very aggressive and some think that when sighted it has been misidentified as werewolf-like creatures, or the dogman.

Now let's look at the original Native tales.

The Micmac Nation tells us that the Gugwe, or Gougou, is a hideous woman beast. The Micmac near Chaleur Bay in New Brunswick believe it to be a "fearful monster in the shape of a woman as tall as the mast of a ship". She was said to eat Natives and had a great hunting pouch in which she would carry them.

The Northeastern Micmac in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick describe it as having big hands and the hairy face of a bear, but flat and no long snout and no visible ears.

George Eberhart had this to say in his book "Mysterious Creatures" : The gougou is a cannibal giant that lives in eastern Canada. Gougou is a Micmac word with several variants (gugu, gugwe, Kuhkw). It is a female monster taller than a ship and carries a pouch in which she puts humans to be eaten later. She has a shrill whistle.

Samuel de Champlain while exploring the coastal area of the continent heard many stories from the Native peoples about the gugwe and made mention of the "large human like beast". Some believe that he confused some of the stories he heard and lumped all stories of encounters with "beasts" in the forests as stories of the gugwe, failing to tell the difference between the beings and creatures encountered.

This Micmac creature goes by many variant names : Kukwes, Kookwes, Gugwes, Kukwej, Kukwees, Gugwech, Kookwe, Gugwe', Kooways, Kukwess, and probably many more than what I was able to uncover.

The one portion of the legend of the Gugwe that remains consistent is the it appears to be a female, man-eating ogre type creature. She is greedy, hairy and sometimes said to have a bear-like head. She is described as being taller than the highest pine trees which could make her more than 100 feet tall, but most tales speak of heights of 20 to 30 feet.

In my opinion?  The Gugwe is not a bigfoot; is not a sasquatch; is not a dogman; not a werewolf even. I believe that she is a legend; perhaps an evil spirit. 

Nancy

"I'll spark the thought; what you do with it is up to you."