
'Hobbits' found on Flores island are not Homo sapiens, but mystery remains - bootload
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-16/hobbits-on-flores-island-not-humans-like-us/7172446
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FiddlerClamp
Fun fact: Noted 'mockbuster' movie production company The Asylum wanted to
profit from the Peter Jackson Hobbit trilogy craze, so they filmed "Age of the
Hobbits," about "a prehistoric struggle between a community of Homo
floresiensis (known as 'hobbits') and their brutal oppressors, Java Man."

Warner Bros. and New Line Cinemas did not find their reasoning persuasive, and
after a trademark lawsuit and injunction, The Asylum changed the title to the
less litigatable "Clash of the Empires."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_the_Empires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_the_Empires)

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_superposition_
I find this facinating. For some background, there have been local legends
about this for years.
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/indonesia/147...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/indonesia/1475280/Villagers-
speak-of-the-small-hairy-Ebu-Gogo.html)

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tim333
That's interesting that there may even be a few left. Maybe another trip to
Flores one day. I guess they could put some cameras out like they do for
tigers.

~~~
jonsen
Footage of a tiger eating the last.

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kristopolous
There's quite a bit of mystery surrounding the possibility of such creatures
from that area. There's also the Orang Pendek and some stories about the
creatures as late as the 1800s(!) from sources that are not known for
fantastic tales.

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Loughla
See, I think things like the Orang Pendek and Sasquatch are just species
memories. We lived alongside these things at one point, and the
stories/legends around them have survived through the years among human
cultures.

In my opinion, the fact that these stories have persisted over tens of
thousands of years is more fascinating than if these things actually still
lived today.

~~~
kristopolous
I think it goes deeper ... there's another group called the Ebu Gogo
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebu_gogo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebu_gogo)

> The Nage people believe that the Ebu Gogo were alive at the time of the
> arrival of Portuguese trading ships in the 17th century, and some hold that
> they survived as recently as the 20th century, but are now no longer seen.
> The Ebu Gogo are believed to have been hunted to extinction by the human
> inhabitants of Flores. They believe that the extermination, which culminated
> around seven generations ago, was undertaken because the Ebu Gogo stole food
> from human dwellings, and kidnapped children.

> An article in New Scientist (Vol. 186, No. 2504) gives the following account
> of folklore on Flores surrounding the Ebu Gogo: The Nage people of central
> Flores tell how, in the 18th century, villagers disposed of the Ebu Gogo by
> tricking them into accepting gifts of palm fiber to make clothes. When the
> Ebu Gogo took the fiber into their cave, the villagers threw in a firebrand
> to set it alight. The story goes that all the occupants were killed except
> perhaps for one pair, who fled into the deepest forest, and whose
> descendants may be living there still.

> There are also legends about the Ebu Gogo kidnapping human children, hoping
> to learn from them how to cook. The children always easily outwit the Ebu
> Gogo in the tales.

Not to "cook the children" but to learn how to prepare food ... that's quite
different from an expected tale of terror. And in these, the children always
got away fairly easily. It doesn't seem to be a traditional la llorona like
story.

The more I've looked into them, the more I see they fall outside mythologies -
no magic or witchcraft. The creatures don't put spells or curses. They don't
do horrible things like disembowel people. In fact, they seem more like the
stories of monkeys as a pest - ruining crops and making agrarian life
difficult; not really the fodder of elaborate mythologies.

