Bigfoot Encounters


"Devil Woman," a Giant Takwis?

Devil Woman, was she the earliest "capture" report?

Southern California's Shoshonean linguistic Gabrielino Indians inhabited the areas, which eventually became Los Angeles long before the Spanish arrived. To the north of Chino, California between the cities of Pomona, La Verne and parts of Claremont was a place called Toybipet, or translated, “Devil Woman Who Was There

The Devil Woman was said to be very tall with large feet and hands, long toenails and fingernails and "...as fast as a deer." In the early 1900s old Gabrielino Indians told John Harrington that white hunters "very long ago" had trapped the Devil Woman, but later freed her, ostensibly in the 1820s.

Among the Gabrielinos of southern Riverside County, the giant Takwis lived in a cave on Lily Peak west of Palm Springs. Nearby Tahquits Peak got its name from Takwis. A major landmark, Mount San Jacinto, was also considered the home of Takwis. (Reid, Harrington, Guttilla)

Citation:

Reid, Hugo 1926 “The Indians of Los Angeles County” (The Gabrielinos).

Harrington, John Peabody and Bernice E. Johnston, 1964 “California's Gabrielino Indians, interviews by Harrington and Johnston.”

Guttilla, Peter: author, writer “Special Bigfoot File;” personal conversations and correspondence, April 26, 1997.
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