Case file · Folklore / legend
Hairy Man pictographs (Mayak datat)
A rock shelter on the Tule River Reservation holds a large painted figure the Yokuts call Hairy Man (Mayak datat), with a family of smaller figures. It was first linked to Bigfoot in print in the 1970s.
1975 CE · 36.05, -118.82 · status: legend
The account
The paintings are pre-contact and much older than the year shown, which marks the first published Bigfoot link. Yokuts stories of Hairy Man vary: he can be a frightening forest being or a helper, and the lines under his eyes are said to be tears.
The sceptical view
Rock-art researcher David Whitley read the figure as a person in a bear costume; Tule River elders disagreed.