By Brandon Wilde
We’ve all heard the joke: “How do you stop a Mormon from drinking all of your beer while fishing/hunting?” And if you haven’t, well then I’ll let you Google it. But aside from hedging your bets by taking two of them with you, did you know our LDS neighbors allude to the existence of Bigfoot?
Yep.
The most well-known cryptid of North America has a place deep in the heart of Mormon lore. How does Bigfoot fit in with those clean-cut kids who knock on our doors at inopportune times you ask? While there isn’t a pamphlet on this one, it goes directly back to the Bible’s first bad guy—Cain.
We should all be able to recall our Sunday school days when we learned that Cain was jealous of his brother Abel for having nicer things. So much so that he killed him, becoming the first murderer in recorded history. It is what happened next that leads to the legend; God cursed Cain to walk the earth as a fugitive and vagabond.
Not being official church doctrine, the story goes that Cain’s punishment meant he would roam the earth till the end of time without the ability to die. Cain then managed to survive Noah’s flood and presumably stranded himself in North America, becoming Bigfoot.
Ok, where is said tie-in? In 1835, A.O. Smoot, an early Elder (pastor) of the church, recorded the following incident in his journal, published in The Life of David W. Patten, The First Apostolic Martyr: “I suddenly noticed a very strange personage walking beside me. He had walked along beside me for about two miles. His head was about even with my shoulders as I sat in my saddle. He wore no clothing, but was covered with hair. His skin was very dark. I asked him where he dwelt and he replied that he had no home, that he was a wanderer in the earth and traveled to and fro. He said he was a very miserable creature, that he had earnestly sought death during his sojourn upon the earth, but that he could not die.” Smoot also noted that Patten claimed the “personage” introduced himself as “Cain, who murdered his brother, Abel.” This isn’t the only story to exist, there are a few others including one from a later prophet’s son, E. Wesley Smith.
This wasn’t something I learned about during my early youth in church, but it was a fun tidbit from my later life that I’ve held onto. I personally love to think there is more out there, and those beliefs were definitely fostered by the LDS faith’s myriad of cryptids (re: cureloms and cumoms) and other world references. We’re not here to discuss those though, just Bigfoot.
Out in the West where membership numbers are high and chances are you’ve got one or two families in the neighborhood, you’d be surprised to find out they probably haven’t heard this “fun fact.” It isn’t exactly watercooler-talk-doctrine after all, but you should see what they think. The first time I ever heard anything was in another life as a young homesick 20-something deep in Albania’s capital city of Tirana. Without access to family, friends, the internet, or a phone, it was simply an entry in my journal as something to look into upon my return home.
Who knows if he is really out there? As someone who has spent what equates to years in the mountains of Utah and Idaho, I have yet to see him. Nonetheless, tons of tales exist from Native Americans and other early settlers that make me wonder. Do I believe in him? Sure. Maybe it is just a vestige of my earlier life, but I’d like to meet him. Too bad I ended up with a hops allergy or else we’d split a beer.
