The Origins Of The Ebu Gogo

Deep in the Jungles of the shores of Flores, lies a gluttonous creature, ready to devour anything in its path. Look I’m totally building this up to more than it should be… or am I? This week we will be delving into the lesser walked paths of the Flores island of Indonesia.

To be fair, we are not necessarily going to be discussing a monster this week. I’m not going to tell you why now, because duh spoiler alert, but just sit on that for a second.

This week we will be discussing the Ebu Gogo of Indonesia. This cryptid has been circulating the story circles for hundreds, if not thousands of years. And it certainly is worth the lengthily tale.

About This Beastie

The Ebu Gogo is a humanoid creature said to roam the South central jungles of Flores. The name, Ebu Gogo comes from the Nage-Keo language of the tribe. Ebu, means grandmother, whilst Gogo, means ‘eats everything’. So roughly translated, this name means the elderly glutton.

Visual Description

  • Thick eyebrows
  • Sloping foreheads
  • No chin
  • Flat noses
  • Roughly 1 m tall
  • Bipedal
  • Hairy bodies
  • Large mouths
  • Long, pendulous boobs that the female can throw over her shoulder
  • Dark skin

Other things to note about the Ebu Gogo is that this creature was incredibly fast. In local tales, the Ebu Gogo could easily outrun a human. Furthermore, they were known to mumble a distinct language which was unique to them. They also were able to repeat human words, similar to the repetitive speech of a parrot.

The Ebu Gogo And The Locals

To put it lightly, the Ebu Gogo was a dick. Basically, this critter was known to raid villages, stealing food, supplies and babies. Yes, you heard me right. The Ebu Gogo was known to abduct human children and babies.

Now quickly I need to just put a disclaimer in. there was a horrifically misleading doff mockumentary released by Animal Planet in 2015 entitled; The Cannibal In The Jungle.

This follows the story of a pair of researchers heading to Flores in the late 70’s to go study birds.

The pair enlist the help of a local guide and venture off into the jungle. However, only one of the three emerge. One scientist made it out of the jungle, covered in scratches and blood. Later, the remains of his companions were found, completely ripped to pieces and half eaten. Yumo…

The scientist was then jailed, even though he swore it was a tribe of fearsome, cannibalistic pygmies which had attacked him.

He rotted in jail for years until, in the 2000’s, a team discovered the remains of tiny people proving his innocence.

Now everyone this is all utter horse shit. I’m actually quite offended that Animal Planet keeps releasing these mockumentaries of theirs. Like cumaaaaan! I’ve had false hope three times now because of them. Bastards.

Anyways, that’s my disclaimer. The Ebu Gogo, although being a massive glutton, never actually ate people. That’s rubbish.

I’m sure you’re yelling at your phone “then why did they steal babies, Abi?”. Well, human at home, not to eat them.

It was suggested by folklore that the Ebu Gogo would abduct children to learn from them.

According to folklore, one day, the locals had had enough of this tom foolery. As such, they offered the Ebu Gogo materials to fashion clothes. When the Ebu Gogo took the swatches into their cave, the local tribe somehow set fire to the garments within and burned the little people to death.

In other accounts, the locals managed to drive the Ebu Gogo deep into the jungles. The species then really started to disappear in the 17th century when Portuguese and Dutch settlers arrived.

The Homo Floresiensis

Recently, there was a remarkable breakthrough discovery in Flores, in which a team of Scientists from Australia found the remains of a teeeeeeeeeny tiny little person.

To date, there have been samples found from 9 different little people.

This discovery was first made in 2003 and the tiny little person has been extensively studied from then. Initially, scientists believed they had come across the remains of a child, given the stature of the skeleton.

However, the teeth found in the jaw of the skull completely threw them off. The wear and tear on the chompers coupled with the fact that they were in fact adult teeth, led scientists to realize that this little person was actually an adult.

After extensive testing, it was revealed that the skeleton belonged to a female, estimated to be around thirty years old. This baffling find has now been deemed as the Homo Floresiensis. The complete skeleton has been dubbed as Flo. The group of little people have been befittingly named the hobbits. Perhaps Tolkien knew something none of us did.

More shockingly, some of the remains found originally were estimated to date back to only eighteen thousand years ago. Apparently as far as planetology goes, that’s pretty much yesterday.

Furthermore, this suggests that it was possible that this teeny tiny tribe could’ve comfortably existed with modern humans, as we were said to take residency in Flores about fifty thousand years ago.

However apparently scientists couldn’t believe in the magic of the situation and pushed back the date of existence of the Homo Floresiensis to fifty thousand years ago. But boo to you whores because that still makes it possible for us to have co-existed with the Homo Floresiensis.

Issues with the Homo Floresiensis Theory

Just A Deformed Human

Some scientists argue that this was nothing more than a normal human skeleton found which suffered from a growth defect.

However, opposing scientists have conducted studies to disprove this wildly inappropriate theory so waaa you haters.

Location Location Location

Firstly, the argument of location has come into play. The team who found the remains of the Homo Floresiensis were roughly 100 km away from the Nage tribe. Personally I think this is just rubbish. Humans have travelled far wider than 100 clicks in the past. So what if a rugged mountain range and dense jungle pop up along the way? However the issue comes in the fact that the Ebu Gogo was the legend of the Nage tribe. The location of where the Homo Floresiensis was found happens to be the stomping ground of the Manggarai people. Hence, scientists have speculated why then was the Ebu Gogo not one of their myths as opposed to their neighbouring tribe 100 km away.

They’re Not Alone

Another bone the scientific community had to pick between the Homo Floresiensis and the Ebu Gogo is the fact that there are actually quite a few small, human likeforest creatures running about in Indonesia. Many of which have been written off to be nothing more than a macaque monkey, which is a type of old world monkey known to be relatively large and robust. Their arms and legs tend to be the same length, and the largest reported size is 70cm with a weight of 18kg.

So What Does Abi Think This Creature Is?

What do you think. I’m one hundred and fifty billion percent invested in the theory that the Ebu Gogo is the Homo Floresiensis. Whether it still exists or not is debatable. I think it does. However, I do truly in my heart of hearts believe that these little people co-existed with human settlers on the island.

The art of oral history has actually been proved to be incredibly accurate. In cases of communities which haven’t managed to document their lives in other methods, oral stories have been their history books.

So, I do truly believe that the Homo Floresiensis lived with humans, and that the air quote folklore tales were actually accurate accounts of this little guy running about the jungle.

But as always, let me know what your thoughts are on this awesome creature. Hit me up during the week on one of my following channels: