Talk:Ebu gogo

Approach

The approach of the Ebu Gogo article is to fit the the cycle of Ebu Gogo stories into a mythical framework and then discuss their possible relationship to the recent discoveries of homo floresiensis. This article could definitely be enriched if someone could add a couple of Flores Islander stories about the Ebu Gogo; however this is something I don't have to hand.

Note - created by user Firstfox. I just created myself an account after doing this :-D

I got the below quote from (this incredibly snotty site): [Hobbit-sized Humans Called Homo floresiensis Discovered by Australian-Indonesian Archeologists]:

Bert Roberts offers hints of new discoveries just below the research horizon: "When I was back in Flores just three weeks ago, Gert van den Bergh (from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research at Texel, and the team's expert on the fossil elephants) and I headed off to a village in central Flores where we heard the most amazing tales of little hairy people whom they called ebu gogo: ebu meaning "grandmother" and gogo "he who eats anything".

"The ebu gogo were short - about a metre tall - long-haired, potbellied, with ears that stuck out, walking with a slightly awkward gait, and had longish arms and fingers. They murmured at each other and could repeat words parrot-fashion. They could climb slender trees but were never seen holding stone tools, whereas we have lots of sophisticated artefacts associated with Homo floresiensis. That's the only inconsistency with the archaeological evidence.

Gert had heard of these stories 10 years ago and he thought them no better than leprechaun stories - until we unearthed the hobbit."

Could the ebu gogo still be alive? Roberts thinks it is possible.

"The villagers said that the last hobbit was seen just before Dutch colonists settled that part of Flores in the 19th century," he said, adding that searches of the remaining rainforest on Flores, and the caves specifically associated with the ebu gogo stories, could turn up samples of hair or other material, if not living, breathing specimens.

I don't know if this tale of the "grandmother glutton" is copyright, but it'd be nice to work this into the article, wouldn't it?

Pazouzou 07:29, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree - I've worked a few of the facts into the main text, but I think we should also leave your news report here to give the readers some further background. :-D

firstfox 14:53, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

My changes

I thought it was a great article but made some conclusions in advance of the data in the last paragraph. —JerryFriedman 19:51, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There are more fascinating details in the article at Villagers speak of the small, hairy Ebu Gogo. Gotta work these into the article!

Pazouzou 07:41, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sources

This article doesn't quote any sources or references. Doesn't it need them? Hello5959us

Yes it does, it needs to be tagged as containing unsourced statements. I'll look for sources first. if I can't find any reliable ones, I'll tag it.Lisapollison 00:23, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Hoax?

I hate to bring up an inconvenient possibility, but I haven't been able to locate an reference to the "Ebu Gogo" that predates the discovery of the Floresienis fossils. Is it possible that the Ebu Gogo stories were created AFTER the discovery of the fossils? This would also explain the lack of sources for the article. --67.160.74.124 03:50, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, research on obscure native myths is relatively recent, so it will be hard to prove either way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.90.55.168 (talk) 11:05, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the stories come from the fossils of H. floreisensis. 178.76.188.247 (talk) 20:08, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Added Cleanup Tag

This article needs to be sourced with proper references and/or inline citations. In addition, it feels a bit as if we are trying to push a local mythological character into being an artifact of the memory of Homo floresiensis habitation. Now, it could be that this is this case, but the connection appears tenuous at present. please jon me in trying to beef this article up with references and more facts. Feel free to include properly sourced quotes! Plus, it would help if we could find some mentions of this creature that predate the whole Human hobbitt controversy. thanksLisapollison 00:30, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment

Not really a contribution to the page, but I find it significant that the Ebu Gogo seem to be one of the only mythological "little people" that are inferior to humans in every way. Usually they can do something better. Dwarfs are craftsmen, leprechauns can disappear, those Hawaiian menehune(sp?) made all sorts of civic structures. But these guys can't do anything. Does this lesson the Ebu Gogo's chances at simply being a part of the "little people" mythological archetype? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.135.53.147 (talk) 20:01, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

That would be speculation ... but a very good point! I especially find the part about mimmicking speech interesting. Bonobo's, the closest relative to us is capable of understanding speech, writing and many of the things we think are unique to us. They have double the vocabulary in the wild that a 19th century Russian peasant might've had and probably can't learn to speak our languages solely because their vocal chords are 'incorrect'. These Ebu Gogo's if they existed could very well have been a closer 'cousin' of Homo Sapien and therefore had vocal chords capable of mimickry ... and brains possibly even capable of learning out language. However it can be fairly easily deduced that many of our other cousins were wiped out by us so the 'survivors' could well have had similar instincts to big predators when it came to spending enough time around us to learn our language.--Senor Freebie (talk) 09:02, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Well by the sounds of it the hobbits and the ebu gogo were inbred severely, that would explain the ebu gogo seemingly inferior and why in part the hobbits never got past the early paleolithic culture stage (apparently they never buried their dead!). 178.76.188.247 (talk) 20:10, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Awful article. You need to read 'language origins without the semantic urge' by martin sereno, and the article by Roberts (villagers speak of the small, hairy EbuGogo) october 28 2004 daily telegraph uk. This is clearly not in the same class as bigfoot kookiness. skeptics have biased this article so it is crap. I am a skeptic too but this is an awful page.

I found a lot of good sources from an anthropologist called Gregory Forth who was doing research on Flores before H. Floresiensis was found and have integrated some of his findings into the article. I hope it's more credible now. K602 (talk) 02:52, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

"glutton"?

is there a source for glutton as translation of the word? One who eats anything implies more to me an omnivore than a glutton. 142.163.195.114 (talk) 13:58, 15 March 2024 (UTC)