Gumberoo

Overview

The Gumberoo is a fearsome critter of Pacific Northwest lumberjack folklore — a hairless bear-shaped creature with a hide so tough that bullets bounce off, but which explodes when set on fire.

Details

Origin:

Confined in folklore to the Pacific Northwest of North America — the heavy-timber districts of Oregon, Washington, northern California, and coastal British Columbia.

Regions:

Pacific Northwest, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia

First Reported:

1910

Full Account

The Gumberoo is one of the 'fearsome critters' of North American lumberjack folklore, codified in William T. Cox's 1910 book Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods (Washington, D.C.: Judd & Detweiler), with mock-scientific Latin classifications by U.S. Forest Service chief George B. Sudworth. Cox locates the Gumberoo in the heavy timber of the Pacific Coast — particularly Oregon, Washington and British Columbia — and describes it as a hairless, bear-like creature about the size of a black bear, with a tough, glossy black, leathery hide. The hide is so resilient that bullets and clubs bounce off; the only way to dispatch a Gumberoo is by setting it ablaze, whereupon it explodes loudly. Cox's text includes the famous claim that a man named A. B. Patterson tried to photograph one, after which the photographic plate exploded in the developer. The Gumberoo is a humorous tall-tale figure that circulated in logging camps in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; it is not the subject of any cryptozoological investigation.

Also Known As

• Megalogaster repercussus (Mock Latin)

Etymology

Origin:

American lumberjack slang, late 19th–early 20th century. Cox (1910) gives no formal etymology; the name follows the broader lumberjack pattern of comically mock-Latinate or onomatopoeic critter names (cf. hodag, hidebehind, agropelter, squonk).

Meaning:

Not analytically meaningful; nonsense / playful coinage.

First Use:

William T. Cox, Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods (1910)

Timeline

• 1910 — William T. Cox publishes Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods (Judd & Detweiler, Washington, D.C.) describing the Gumberoo and 19 other lumberwoods critters (Source text for the modern Gumberoo legend)
• 1939 — Henry H. Tryon publishes Fearsome Critters (Idlewild Press), a successor compendium that also features the Gumberoo (Reinforces the Gumberoo as a stock fearsome critter)

Sightings & Evidence

Cultural Significance

Always told as joke or prank; never seriously believed in even in the original logging-camp tradition.

Related Phenomena

• Hodag — Wisconsin fearsome critter (Cox, 1910; promoted by Eugene Shepard from 1893)
• Hidebehind — Pacific Northwest critter that hides behind trees
• Agropelter — Critter that hurls branches at lumberjacks
• Squonk — Pennsylvania fearsome critter that dissolves into tears
• Snallygaster — Maryland tall-tale creature in the same fearsome-critter tradition

Tags

Sources

• Gumberoo — Wikipedia
• Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, with a Few Desert and Mountain Beasts — Judd & Detweiler
• Fearsome Critters — Idlewild Press