Ebu Gogo held in Captivity

Posted on Thursday 9 December 2004 to unknown


Chief Epiradus Dhoi Lewa standing in front of the Ebulobo volcano

By now, you may have heard the news that "Ebu", the Homo floresiensis skeleton has been kidnapped by Professor Teuku Jacob, Indonesia's "King of Paleontology". Professor Jacob has recently expressed skepticism about whether the skeleton really is a hitherto unknown species or, infact, a pygmy sub-variant of modern human. The head of Ebu is abnormally small, he argues, because this individual was suffering from a congenital disorder called microcephaly.

To prove his case, Professor Jacob obtained the remains from Jakarta's Centre for Archaeology without the permission of its director, Tony Djubiantono who is apparently hopping mad about it. The good Professor has promised to return the skeleton by early January.

Meanwhile, the enterprising villagers of Boawae in Flores, in a determined effort to establish a crypto-zoological tourist industry in their area, are claiming to have captured a living female Ebu Gogo three weeks ago.

Chief Epiradus Dhoi Lewa has a strange tale to tell. Sitting in his bamboo and wooden home at the foot of an active volcano on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, he recalls how people from his village were able to capture a tiny woman with long, pendulous breasts three weeks ago.

"They said she was very little and very pretty," he says, holding his hand at waist height. "Some people saw her very close up."

The villagers of Boawae believe the strange woman came down from a cave on the steaming mountain where short, hairy people they call Ebu Gogo lived long ago.

"Maybe some Ebu Gogo are still there," the 70-year-old chief told the Herald through an interpreter in Boawae last week...

The chief adds that the mysterious little woman in Boawae somehow "escaped" her captors, and the local police said they knew nothing of her existence when he quizzed them.