Apemen Mythology and Darwin

When we hear about apemen in Western countries, our thoughts probably first turn to the speculations of Charles Darwin. We know that Darwin did not invent evolution because it was an ancient pagan religion. The concept of apemen, cat-people, and others also predates Darwin.

Orangutan can be translated as "man of the forest"
Credit: RGBStock / Adrian van Leen

There have been myths in many places of odd creatures and people attached them with pagan beliefs. Today we have scientific methods of analysis, but when people tried to categorize these creatures, sightings of orangutans, baboons and such were corrupted into other characters. When people began to be scientific about it, they didn't have much to work with. Then Charles Darwin was influence by these to deny the Creator's work to plug into his version of evolution. The whole thing was a confused mess.

This paper discusses the presence of belief in ape-men, and ape-women, prior to Darwin. Beliefs regarding various mythological creatures with human-like physical form were present in antiquity, but persisted even into the 18th century, and displayed in drawings of various quality. Lack of knowledge was filled in with speculation from mythology and influenced early science. For instance, poor quality drawings of Egyptian baboons became corrupted and modified in 17th and 18th century images, with their subsequent depiction as loose-living forest-dwelling people, sometimes known as satyrs, orang-outangs, or Homo sylvestris.

You can read the rest by clicking on "Orang-outang or Homo sylvestris: ape-men before Darwin".