Orang Pendek (
IndonesianIndonesian is the official national language of Indonesia. It is based on a version of Classical Malay of the Riau-Johor Sultanate. It was first declared the official language with the declaration of Indonesian independence in 1945, following the 1928 unifying-language declaration in the...
for "short person") is the most common name given to a
cryptidCryptid is a term which is used in cryptozoology to refer to a creature whose existence has been suggested but lacks scientific support. This includes purported organisms such as Bigfoot, Yeti, and the Loch Ness Monster....
, or cryptozoological animal, that reportedly inhabits remote, mountainous forests on the island of
SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world .-Etymology:Sumatra was known in ancient times by the Sanskrit...
.
The animal has allegedly been seen and documented for at least one hundred years by forest tribes, local villagers,
Dutch colonistsThe Dutch East Indies, or Netherlands East Indies, was the Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II.It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the former Dutch East India Company that came under the administration of the Netherlands in 1800...
, and
WesternThe Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term that can have multiple meanings depending on its context...
scientists and travelers. Consensus among witnesses is that the animal is a ground-dwelling, bipedal
primateA primate is a member of the biological order Primates , the group that contains lemurs, lorisids, galagos, tarsiers, monkeys, and apes, with the last category including great apes. With the exception of humans, who inhabit every continent on Earth, most primates live in tropical or subtropical...
that is covered in short fur and stands between and tall.
While Orang Pendek or similar animals have historically been reported throughout Sumatra and
Southeast AsiaManila
Bangkok
Ho Chi Minh City
Kuala Lumpur
Singapore
Yangon
Bandung
Hanoi
Surabaya
Taichung
Kaohsiung
Medan|-|}...
, recent sightings have occurred largely within the Kerinci regency of central Sumatra and especially within the borders of Taman Nasional Kerinci Seblat (
Kerinci Seblat National ParkKerinci Seblat National Park is the largest national park in Sumatra Indonesia. It has a total area of 13,791 km2, and spans four provinces:* West Sumatra,* Jambi,* Bengkulu and* South Sumatra....
) (TNKS).
Orang Pendek (
IndonesianIndonesian is the official national language of Indonesia. It is based on a version of Classical Malay of the Riau-Johor Sultanate. It was first declared the official language with the declaration of Indonesian independence in 1945, following the 1928 unifying-language declaration in the...
for "short person") is the most common name given to a
cryptidCryptid is a term which is used in cryptozoology to refer to a creature whose existence has been suggested but lacks scientific support. This includes purported organisms such as Bigfoot, Yeti, and the Loch Ness Monster....
, or cryptozoological animal, that reportedly inhabits remote, mountainous forests on the island of
SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world .-Etymology:Sumatra was known in ancient times by the Sanskrit...
.
The animal has allegedly been seen and documented for at least one hundred years by forest tribes, local villagers,
Dutch colonistsThe Dutch East Indies, or Netherlands East Indies, was the Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II.It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the former Dutch East India Company that came under the administration of the Netherlands in 1800...
, and
WesternThe Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term that can have multiple meanings depending on its context...
scientists and travelers. Consensus among witnesses is that the animal is a ground-dwelling, bipedal
primateA primate is a member of the biological order Primates , the group that contains lemurs, lorisids, galagos, tarsiers, monkeys, and apes, with the last category including great apes. With the exception of humans, who inhabit every continent on Earth, most primates live in tropical or subtropical...
that is covered in short fur and stands between and tall.
Location
While Orang Pendek or similar animals have historically been reported throughout Sumatra and
Southeast AsiaManila
Bangkok
Ho Chi Minh City
Kuala Lumpur
Singapore
Yangon
Bandung
Hanoi
Surabaya
Taichung
Kaohsiung
Medan|-|}...
, recent sightings have occurred largely within the Kerinci regency of central Sumatra and especially within the borders of Taman Nasional Kerinci Seblat (
Kerinci Seblat National ParkKerinci Seblat National Park is the largest national park in Sumatra Indonesia. It has a total area of 13,791 km2, and spans four provinces:* West Sumatra,* Jambi,* Bengkulu and* South Sumatra....
) (TNKS). The park, 2° south of the equator, is located within the Bukit Barisan mountain range and features some of the most remote primary rainforest in the world. Habitat types within TNKS include lowland dipterocarp rainforest, montane forests, and volcanic alpine formations on Mt. Kerinci, the second highest peak in Indonesia. Because of its inaccessibility (evidenced by its continued existence despite the rampant
loggingLogging is the process in which certain trees are cut down for forest management and timber.In forestry the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard. In common usage...
occurring throughout Sumatra), the park provides one of the last homes for the endangered
Sumatran TigerThe Sumatran tiger is a subspecies of tiger found on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Recent genetic testing has revealed the presence of unique genetic markers, which isolate Sumatran tigers from all mainland subspecies...
.
The animal
Orang Pendek has yet to be fully documented and no authoritative accounts of its behavior or physical characteristics exist. However, witnesses report some characteristics consistently, so a likely picture of the animal can be conjectured.
Frequently reported
- Ground-dwelling
- Bipedal
- covered in short, grey-to-brown fur
- 80 cm to 150 cm tall
- divergent big toe (i.e. separated from other toes as a thumb is from the other fingers)
- largely herbivorous
Other reports
- blackish-brown, red-brown, golden-brown, yellow, or orange fur
- short-legged with long, powerful arms
- seen in trees
- inverted feet, to hide direction of travel
- Round head with flat top
- Seen underwater
- Known to fly on occasion
From Debbie Martyr
Debbie Martyr, a prominent Orang Pendek researcher who has worked in the area for over 15 years, has interviewed hundreds of witnesses, and alleges to have seen the animal personally on several occasions.
...usually no more than 85 or 90cm in height — although occasionally as large as 1m 20cm. The body is covered in a coat of dark grey or black flecked with grey hair. But it is the sheer physical power of the orang pendek that most
impresses the Kerinci villagers. They speak in awe, of its broad shoulders, huge chest and upper abdomen and powerful aims [sic]. The animal is so strong, the villagers would whisper that it can uproot small trees and even break rattanRattan , is the name for the roughly 600 species of palms in the tribe Calameae, native to tropical regions of Africa, Asia and Australasia. Most rattans differ from other palms in having slender stems, 2–5 cm diameter, with long internodes between the leaves; also, they are not trees but are...
vines. The legs, in comparison, are short and slim, the feet neat and small, usually turned out at an angle of up to 45 degrees. The head slopes back to a distinct crest — similar to the gorilla — and there appears to be a bony ridge above the eyes. But the mouth is small and neat, the eyes are set wide apart and the nose is distinctly humanoid. When frightened, the animal exposes its teeth — revealing oddly broad incisors and prominent, long canine teeth.
Reported dietary habits
Sightings by locals often take place in farmland on the edge of the forest, where Orang Pendek is allegedly seen walking through fields and raiding crops (especially corn, potatoes, and fruit). Locals with experience in the forests claim that Orang Pendek seeks out ginger roots, a plant known locally as "pahur" or "lolo", young shoots, insects in rotting logs, and river crabs.
Names
Orang Pendek and similar cryptids from this area of the world are also referred to as Uhang Pandak (local Kerinci dialect), Sedapa,
BatututThe Batutut or Ujit, sometimes also known as "forest people", is a proposed hominid Cryptid, reputedly similar to the bigfoot, thought to inhabit the Vu Quang nature reserve and other wilderness areas of Vietnam, Laos and northern Borneo. The Vu Quang has been the source of a number of newly...
,
Ebu GogoEbu Gogo is a human-like creature that appears in the mythology of the people of the island of Flores, Indonesia, of similar form to the leprechaun or elf. These "little people" are said to be about one meter tall, their grapefruit-sized head covered in hair, pot-bellied, and with ears that stick...
, Umang, Orang Gugu,
Orang Letjo, Atoe Pandak, Atoe Rimbo, Ijaoe, Sedabo, and Goegoeh.
Sources
Witnesses from many different backgrounds have reported seeing Orang Pendek over the last hundred years.
Suku Anak Dalam
The Suku Anak Dalam (roughly, "Children of the Inner-forest"), also known as Orang Kubu or Orang Rimba, are a group of people who have traditionally lived in the forests of Kerinci and surrounding areas. Orang Pendek have been a part of their world for centuries. As long as outsiders have documented their culture, this tribe has described the animal as a co-inhabitant of the forest. They know the bounds of Orang Pendek territory and will often leave offerings of tobacco to keep them happy.
Local villagers
Local
IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With an estimated population of around 237 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, with the world's largest population of Muslims.Indonesia is a republic, with an...
n villagers provide the largest source of lore and information on Orang Pendek. Hundreds of locals claim to have either seen the animal personally or can relate stories of others who have. While the conjectured physical description listed above is consistently reported by this group, other, less credible characteristics such as inverted feet or magical- or ghost-like behavior are also reported.
Dutch colonists
DutchThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
settlers in the early 20th century provided Westerners with their modern introduction to Orang Pendek-like animals in Sumatra. Two accounts in particular are widely reported:
- Mr. Van Heerwarden, who described an encounter he had while surveying land in 1923:
I discovered a dark and hairy creature on a branch... The sedapa was also hairy on the front of its body; the colour there was a little lighter than on the back. The very dark hair on its head fell to just below the shoulder-blades or even almost to the waist... Had it been standing, its arms would have reached to a little above its knees; they were therefore long, but its legs seemed to me rather short. I did not see its feet, but I did see some toes which were shaped in a very normal manner... There was nothing repulsive or ugly about its face, nor was it at all apelike.
- Mr. Oostingh, who saw a strange creature while walking in the forest:
I saw that he had short hair, cut short, I thought; and I suddenly realized that his neck was oddly leathery and extremely filthy. "That chap's got a very dirty and wrinkled neck!" I said to myself. His body was as large as a medium-sized native's and he had thick square shoulders, not sloping at all... he seemed to be quite as tall as I. Then I saw that it was not a man. It was not an orang-utan. I had seen one of these large apes a short time before. It was more like a monstrously large siamangThe Siamang is a tailless, arboreal, black furred gibbon native to the forests of Malaysia, Thailand, and Sumatra. The largest of the lesser apes, the Siamang can be twice the size of other gibbons, reaching 1 m in height, and weighing up to 14 kg...
, but a siamang has long hair, and there was no doubt that it had short hair.
Western researchers
The most widely-known Western researcher to have attempted to document Orang Pendek is a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
woman named Debbie Martyr. Along with British photographer Jeremy Holden, she engaged in a 15-year project beginning in the early 1990s and funded by Fauna and Flora International. The scope of the project was to systematically document eye-witness accounts of the animal and to obtain photographic proof of its existence via camera-trapping methods. Debbie and Jeremy did not succeed in proving its existence (Martyr has since moved on to head TNKS's Tiger Protection and Conservation Unit), but they collected several foot print casts that appear to be from Orang Pendek and claim to have personally seen the animal on several occasions while working in the forest.
Hairs and casts of a foot print found by Three British men - Adam Davies, Andrew Sanderson and Keith Townley - while traveling in Kerinci were analyzed by scientists from 2001 to 2003. Dr. David Chivers, a primate biologist from the
University of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge , located in the City of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom, is the second oldest university in the English-speaking world and the fourth oldest in Europe...
, compared the cast with those from other known primates and local animals and concluded:
- ...the cast of the footprint taken was definitely an ape
An ape is any member of the Hominoidea superfamily of primates. Due to its ambiguous nature, the term ape is less suitable as a means of describing taxonomic relationships....
with a unique blend of features from gibbonGibbons are apes in the family Hylobatidae . The family is divided into four genera based on their diploid chromosome number: Hylobates , Hoolock , Nomascus , and Symphalangus . The extinct Bunopithecus sericus is a gibbon or gibbon-like ape which, until recently, was thought to be closely related...
, orang-utanThe orangutans are two endangered species of great apes. Known for their intelligence, they live in trees and are the largest living arboreal animal. They have longer arms than other great apes, and their hair is typically reddish-brown, instead of the brown or black hair typical of other great apes...
, chimpanzeeChimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
, and humanHumans are bipedal primates belonging to the species Homo sapiens in Hominidae, the great ape family. They are the only surviving member of the genus Homo. Humans have a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving...
. From further examination the print did not match any known primate speciesIn biology, a species is:* a taxonomic rank or* a unit at that rank ....
and I can conclude that this points towards there being a large unknown primate in the forests of Sumatra.
Dr. Hans Brunner, a hair analysis expert from
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
famous for his involvement in the
Lindy ChamberlainAlice Lynne Chamberlain-Creighton was at the centre of one of Australia's most publicised murder trials, in which she was convicted of killing her baby daughter, Azaria. The conviction was later overturned.-Early life:...
case in 1980, compared the hairs to those of other primates and local animals and concluded that they originated from a previously undocumented species of primate. Dr. Todd Disotell, a biological anthropologist from
New York UniversityNew York University is a private, nonsectarian, research university in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, recently performed DNA analysis on the hairs and found nothing but human
DNADeoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses. The main role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information...
in the sample. He stressed, however, that contamination by people who handled the hairs could have introduced this DNA and that the original DNA could have decomposed.
Currently,
National Geographic is funding a multi-year camera-trapping project led by Dr. Peter Tse of
Dartmouth CollegeDartmouth College is a private, coeducational university located in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA. Incorporated as "Trustees of Dartmouth College," it is a member of the Ivy League and one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution...
and aimed at providing photographic documentation of Orang Pendek. The project began trapping in TNKS in September 2005.
Possible explanations
Three possible explanations of Orang Pendek's identity are prominent: that all sightings can be explained as the mistaken identification of local animals; that witnesses of Orang Pendek are describing a previously undocumented species of primate; and that a species of early hominid still lives in the Sumatran jungle.
Mistaken identity
Many locals say Orang Pendek's feet look like those of a seven-year-old child, evidenced by foot prints they have found while walking through the forest. However, another local animal, the
Sun BearThe Sun Bear is a bear found primarily in the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia.-Description:The Sun Bear stands approximately 1.2 m in length, making it the smallest member in the bear family...
, is a likely source of these sightings.
BearBears are mammals of the family Ursidae. Bears are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans, with the pinnipeds being their closest living relatives. Although there are only eight living species of bear, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern...
s in general are known for having feet that look quite human-like, and the Sun Bear's would match those of a child fairly well. In addition, gibbons populate the forests in this area and are known to occasionally descend to the ground and walk for a few seconds at a time on two legs. Witnesses could possibly be seeing orangutans; however: 1) this species has long been thought to have died out in all but the northern regions of Sumatra and 2) witnesses almost never describe the animal as having orange fur.
Undocumented primate
Orang Pendek's reported physical characteristics differentiate it from any other species of animal known to inhabit the area. All witnesses describe it as an ape- or human-like animal. Its bipedality, fur coloring, and southerly location on the island make orangutans an unlikely explanation, and its bipedality, size, and other physical characteristics make gibbons, the only apes known to inhabit the area, unlikely as well. Many therefore propose that Orang Pendek could represent a new
genusIn biology, a genus is a taxonomic unit used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The term comes from Latin genus "descent, family, type, gender" , cognate with – genos, "race, stock, kin" ..In addition, genus is a taxonomic rank in the hierarchy In biology, a genus (plural:...
of primate or a new species or
subspeciesSubspecies in biological classification, is 1) a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, or 2) a taxonomic unit, a taxon in that rank...
of orangutan or gibbon.
Surviving hominid
As far back as Mr. Van Heerwarden's account of Orang Pendek, people have speculated that the animal may in fact be a "
missing linkThe term Missing link may refer to:* Any transitional fossil, especially one connected with human evolution.**for specific "missing link" fossils, see List of transitional fossils...
" (a
hominidA hominid is any member of the biological family Hominidae , including the extinct and extant humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. This classification has been revised several times in the last few decades...
representing an earlier stage in
human evolutionHuman evolution, or anthropogenesis, is the origin and evolution of Homo sapiens as a distinct species from other hominids, great apes and placental mammals...
). In October 2004, scientists published claims of the discovery of skeletal remains of a new species of
humanHumans are bipedal primates belonging to the species Homo sapiens in Hominidae, the great ape family. They are the only surviving member of the genus Homo. Humans have a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving...
(
Homo floresiensisHomo floresiensis is a possible species in the genus Homo, remarkable for its small body and brain and for its survival until relatively recent times. It was named after the Indonesian island of Flores on which the remains were found...
) in caves on
Flores IslandFlores Island may refer to:*Flores, an island in Indonesia.*Flores Island , an island of the Azores archipelago.*Flores Island lies of the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada....
(another island in the Indonesian
archipelagoAn archipelago is a chain or cluster of islands that are formed tectonically. The word archipelago is directly derived from the Greek arkhon and pelagos...
) dating from 12,000 years ago. The species was described as being roughly one meter tall. The recency of
Homo floresiensis continued existence and the similarities between its physical description and the accounts of Orang Pendek have led to renewed speculation in this respect.
Investigations
National Geographic
expedition to camera-trap for Orang Pendek, July 2006
"Short Man of the Forest: The Search for Orang Pendek" from the Banyak Films
, June 2006
International Monkey Hunter, investigation into the Orang Pendek story
Fortean Times
article
Related
Scientific AmericanScientific American is a popular science magazine published since August 28, 1845, which according to the magazine makes it the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States...