Juutku-naen: The Legends Of The Giant Man-Eating Pikes

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Video: Juutku-naen: The Legends Of The Giant Man-Eating Pikes

Video: Juutku-naen: The Legends Of The Giant Man-Eating Pikes
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Juutku-naen: The Legends Of The Giant Man-Eating Pikes
Juutku-naen: The Legends Of The Giant Man-Eating Pikes
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Juutku-naen: Legends of huge man-eating pikes - fish, pike
Juutku-naen: Legends of huge man-eating pikes - fish, pike

Every fisherman dreams of catching a big, or even better - a giant fish. And some fish dream of catching a fisherman. Such predators live not only in the depths of the sea and tropical rivers, but also in our north.

The vast expanses of Siberia are very convenient to view on a map. This is a solid green spot, which is crossed by thin streams of rivers. It abuts the Kamchatka mountains, the Arctic Ocean and the Kazakh steppes. Everything is compact and clear.

In fact, it is difficult even to imagine a huge taiga and tundra - tens of thousands of kilometers of wilderness, where no man's foot has stepped. Many regions of Siberia are known only thanks to aerial photography, and even geologists study them, mainly moving along river beds. The local population also prefers to settle along the rivers - the Khanty, Mansi and Yakuts in the center of Siberia, and to the east and north - the Chukchi, Dolgans, Nganasans, Yukagirs.

Nobody knows what the taiga jungle hides. Rumor has it that mammoths and giant spirits, similar to primitive people, still live here. There are other mysterious creatures, including giant man-eating pikes.

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Legends say that these fish can be found in large lakes. According to the Selkups, a pike that has reached a hundred years of age specifically looks for a deep reservoir during flooding and remains in it until its death. It is easy to find out the habitat of the monster - such a lake has no source, birds and animals avoid it. The Selkups call these lakes purulto - "lakes of black water", and they will never go fishing or boating here. They are afraid to approach them even in winter, believing that monstrous pikes can break the ice and feast on the traveler.

Similar stories are told by the Yakuts. Soviet ethnographer Aleksey Okladnikov wrote down a story from one hunter of how a pike ate a young man.

“An old man lived with a guy. One hot day, the deer swam away from the old man to the island on the lake. The guy sat down on a birch-bark boat and chased the deer so that they would not go far. The old man is at home at this time. Suddenly the water without wind stirred. A large tail appeared, and a huge pike fish swallowed the guy, overturning the boat in a large wave. This pike also slammed the deer with its mouth. The old man sobbed bitterly, mourning the death of his son. The next morning, he drove around the whole lake on a deer, trying to find at least the bones of the deceased guy.

The old man had an ax in his hands. And suddenly, when he was driving near the shore, the water again, like a hillock, was agitated. A huge pike rushed from the lake to him. The coast was low and gentle. The pike rushed with such tremendous force that it remained on the dry shore, not reaching the old man. The old man jumped up and killed her with an ax. I cut her belly and found bones - they were left of the guy; only splinters remained from the boat. The old man took the jaw of that fish and set it like a gate on the road that leads from this mountain lake to Lake Syalakh. Through these gates everyone, without getting off the deer, passed, the jaw was so high and wide."

The Yakuts and Selkups are separated by many kilometers of impenetrable swamps and thickets. It is unlikely that they could borrow stories about cannibals from each other. It is even more difficult to believe that the Chukchi learned such stories from them. However, they also talk about huge pikes.

In the excellent monograph "Chukchi" by Vladimir Bogoraz, there is a separate chapter devoted to monsters. Pikes are also mentioned there, which the inhabitants of Kolyma call juutku-naen - "biting fish". According to legends, giant fish live in distant tundra lakes and prey on humans, especially bathers. They do not disdain fishermen either.

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The Chukchi have a story about how a pike ate a young man who was surprised at the lake. The ogre was caught in a very original way. The Chukchi lowered four sledges loaded with reindeer meat to the bottom of the lake. When the pike tried to eat the bait, its teeth got stuck in the wreckage of the sled. It took several people to get the fish ashore.

Giant pikes are also known to the Yukagirs living next to the Chukchi. They told a story about a fisherman who went to inspect his nets and in the water - on both sides of the shuttle - he saw two large yellow eyes, the distance between which was equal to two oars. According to the fisherman, it was a huge pike lying motionless in the water.

I heard similar stories from the Yakuts Okladnikov: "We saw a pike on the lake before: its eyes were visible on both sides of a birch-bark boat."

Let's move six thousand kilometers from the Kolyma to the west, to Yamal, where legends go about wheatgrass - a man-eating fish with horns on its head. Valery Chernetsov, who wrote down local legends, believed that huge pikes were the prototype of the monster. A Nenets hunter told him that once three men killed a huge fish in a lake in the Yenisei delta, in whose stomach they found a belt buckle. Sharks are rare in these places. There are no man-eating sharks at all, especially in freshwater lakes. Chernetsov believed that it was a huge pike.

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Now let's go down to the south, into the basin of the great Ob, to the Khanty, who believe that the water spirit of Sart-lung turns into giant pikes. Werewolf fish live in deep pools and lakes and can easily eat a boat.

By the way, the Khanty consider the pike not a fish, but an animal, which the supreme god Torum created headless, apparently fearing his cruelty. But the pike was not taken aback and made a head on its own. She swam along the Ob, swallowing everything that came along the way - an elk, a bear, a woman with a bundle of firewood, a fisherman, a crow. From the eaten, the head turned out.

Having cooked a pike, the Khanty dismantle its skull piece by piece, telling the children who the first pike ate. The bones of a pike head really resemble figurines of people, animals and birds in shape. Thus, the Khanty not only entertain children, but also inspire them how dangerous the water cannibal is.

The Khanty neighbors also know about the existence of monstrous pikes. Mansi told folklorists about the yur-variety - a giant lake pike with a thin body and a large head and about anten-variety - a four-legged horned pike, which on occasion can eat a person.

It is incredible that such different peoples as the Chukchi and the Mansi would have the same legends about the same animal, if there were no good reasons for this. But nevertheless, let's assume that in some incredible way, for example, the Selkups invented stories about man-eating pikes, and all other peoples liked them so much that they began to retell them in their own way. In this case, it is not clear what to do with similar stories that Canadians, Finns and even Kalmyks have.

In the legends of the Canadian Eskimos, it is told how a giant fish ate two fishermen at once. This happened when three men were swimming across a large lake near Saninajok. Two were sitting in kayaks connected to each other, the third was sailing separately and suddenly heard a loud cry for help. This huge fish attacked the fastened kayaks and swallowed them. The Eskimo realized that it would not be possible to save his comrades, and quickly swam to the shore. The monster set off after him. It rushed so fast that it drove waves in front of it, and they pushed the kayak forward. As soon as the boat touched the shore, the man jumped out and ran away.

The Finnish epic "Kalevala" speaks of a pike from the Tuonela River, from the jaws of which large gusli-kantele were made.

The most interesting belief is among the Kalmyks, who believe that in the remote steppe lakes there are very old, moss-covered pikes that swallow people and boats. Moreover, on a full moon, they get out on the shore and crawl through the fields in search of food, attacking calves and cows.

Legends about giant pikes are very widespread. It is noteworthy that they say not just about man-eating fish, but about pikes. This is hardly accidental. In addition to pikes, there are many other monsters in mythology, including cruel water spirits. Why not blame troubles and disasters on their account? Why attribute them to fish, and not taimen or, for example, catfish, namely pikes?

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So the stories have a real foundation? Why are giant pikes not found anywhere except in folklore? The fact of the matter is that they meet. The same ethnographers have repeatedly seen the remains of monstrous pikes.

One of the old, still pre-revolutionary researchers of Siberian nationalities N. Grigorovsky in his work "Essays on the Narym Territory" wrote that giant pikes are actually found "in these remote places where no human foot has yet been." He said that for a long time the lower jaw of a pike, the length of a horse's head, hung nailed to a tree in the forest "near the village of Ketskoye." By the way, according to him, the locals called the jaws of the pike sleds, which also speaks of their considerable size.

The huge remains were also seen by Soviet scientists. Ethnographers Vladislav Kulemzin and Nadezhda Lukina in one of their books mention a pike jaw nailed to the wall of the Khanty hut. The jaw had such teeth that the fishermen hung raincoats and quilted jackets on them.

My great-grandfather, who lived on the Don, during a large flood, saw a huge pike, similar to an old mossy log, in a flood meadow near a haystack. He killed her with a pitchfork and fed her to the pigs.

And the traveler Anatoly Pankov in the "Oymyakonsky Meridian" told about a bulldozer driver who shot a giant pike with a gun. This happened in Yakutia, in the lower reaches of the Indigirka. The fish was old, covered with algae, green-brown, flabby like cotton wool. In length, it reached four meters. In addition, Pankov brought up another curious story.

“An employee of the Silyannyakhsky state farm, whose center is located on a tributary of the Indigirka, a young erudite specialist, having learned about my addiction to water travel, offered himself as a companion.

- Shall we sail along Silyannyakh? I asked half in jest.

- According to Silyannyakh ?! On a canvas kayak? There are such pikes that either the kayak will be proportioned, or they will be pulled out of the boat. How many cases were there when pikes grabbed by the legs. They are of such size - it's scary to think …"

Biologists do not recognize the existence of giant pikes, especially cannibals. The most they are ready for is to admit that they reach two meters in length. However, what can prevent the pike from growing even more - after all, like most fish, it grows throughout its life!

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Records of ethnographers about jaws that go beyond the recognized size of pikes, the legends of various peoples dedicated to pikes, indicate that they can really reach an enormous size.

Why are they unknown to scientists? The answer is really simple. Almost all stories are about lake fish, not river fish. This is not surprising - in the rivers, pikes have serious competitors, they are caught by fishermen and they simply cannot reach a huge size in old age.

In the lakes, no one threatens pikes, especially in the lost taiga reservoirs. People are rarely here, there are almost no large predators. True, there is not much food either. Perhaps this explains the fact that pikes attack humans. If a four-meter predator can drag an elk or a fisherman under the water, why can't she? Especially if she's hungry.

Most of the taiga and tundra lakes, in which such giants can be found, have not been explored. Just as unnecessary. Yes, and there are huge pikes, apparently, rarely. The reason is also simple - in order to grow to a gigantic size, a pike must live for more than a hundred years.

It is doubtful that several monsters lived in one reservoir at once - the ecosystem of even a large lake is unlikely to feed two giants. This means that after the death of a monster, at best, it will take a hundred years until another appears. And most likely, much more time will pass - not every pike will be able to live to such an old age.

Therefore, it is unlikely that a rare beast will soon fall into the hands of scientists. But if you suddenly find yourself in a remote place and start fishing in a dark lake without a source, be careful. Maybe you will see a huge, many-meter pike and want to catch it for the glory of science. True, if I were you, I would have made it to the shore as soon as possible. Perhaps the monster is swimming to eat you. And you still won't be able to catch him. Such a pike is not caught either with a fishing rod or with a spinning rod.

Commentary on the article from the Internet:

- Giant pikes are reality, in my childhood, not in the wilderness, but in the Vologda region. Near Krasavin, in Lake Romanovskoye, a visiting fisherman, having heard about a pike attacking a punt of fishermen, decided to catch it, and ordered a tee in the smithy, fried a chicken, but the tee was only towed along the lake, and the men kept the end of a very thick fishing line on the shore. As soon as the pike grabbed the tee, he dropped the line and quickly got ashore and joined the men.

For me, then all the men were tall, but when the pike was hung on a branch of a tree, the angler reached for the gills of the pike, standing on tiptoe, and about a meter of the tail lay on the ground. The fisherman took the head and tail, and threw the rest on the shore. Lake Romanovskoye all over the place fits those described in the article: four kilometers in length, with three drops, with a double or triple bottom, as divers said, trying to find drowned people in it, but most often to no avail.

This was already when I was not 8 years old, but 12. The narrow one is no more than 20 meters wide, the banks are as if cut with a knife, to get ashore you have to press with force, since it is very difficult to find support even for the toes. But many descriptions lead to a stupor, it is enough to remember that the eyes of the pike are very close on the head, and the mouth of the head itself is much wider than the eyes, and if the eyes shone on both sides of the kayak, then the width of the mouth should be three meters or more. Ocean bridgeodont also has smaller jaws.

But the author does not want to remember that in Yakutia, Siberia and even in the Ryazan region. there are lakes with real prehistoric monsters, whose eyes are located on the side of the head, since they attack their victims, or attacked, from the front, and not from below, as the ambush predator, the pike, does. And many of them have pike heads, and even with their teeth out. Such monsters from Africa bite hippos with one bite. And this is evidenced by an international expedition, which decided to check the message of people living on the shores of the lake that the monster feeds on hippos, transported a family of hippos from a nearby lake, and a few days later found an adult male hippo, bitten in half, in one bite.

And yet … when the pike swims close to the surface, the wave goes ahead of it from the upper fin, but not from the muzzle, I myself saw this from the high bank of the Northern Dvina, and remember well that if the fin of the pike is not visible on the surface, then it is clearly visible like a fin cuts the water, but there is no wave near the head,

And one more feature of the attacking pike and other predators, the sharply open mouth of the predator creates a vacuum, and water, trying to fill this vacuum, itself sucks the prey into the mouth, the mouth slams shut and the water of their mouth is thrown out through the gills, or through not tightly clenched teeth. So one of the details of the attack described above indicates that the attacker has no gills. You may have a different opinion, but the anatomy of the pike rejects some of the details of the description of the predator.

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