This post was written almost four years ago in support for the release of FLIPKA, which is set in the land of giant red-haired cannibals, Northern Nevada.  Other multiple choice questions about the politics and history of that quacky state can be found here

4. The Giant Red Haired Cannibals are not a legend claims:

a. The journal of legendary scout Kit Carson
b. Life Among the Piutes by Sarah Winnemucca
c. Mark Twain’s autobiography
d. Aliens 

The legend of the giant red haired cannibals dates back to a massacre sometime in the early 1800s near the small town of Lovelock Nevada.  The local Indians (the Piutes) claim they attacked a group of ten foot tall men, forcing them to retreat into a cave which they then sealed with brush and set aflame.  The men had red hair and an appetite for flesh, particularly children.

When the Europeans started inhabiting the area, they dismissed the subsequent tales as Indian folklore until the daughter of a well respected chief, Sarah Winnemucca, wrote Life among the Piutes.   In it she claimed that her father had been amongst the braves who committed the massacre. Something about the legend being in print gave it a hint of veracity.  Just a hint but that was all it took.  Soon evidence of those giant humanoids was found by bat guano miners in a cave near Lovelock and documented. Unfortunately the evidence disappeared in an earthquake that sealed the caves but the legend persists, as you can see by clicking the following link: http://whofortedblog.com/2013/07/29/are-the-huge-handprints-found-in-nevadas-lovelock-cave-evidence-of-a-lost-race-of-fabled-giants/

I first heard about the Red Haired Cannibals while camping at Pyramid Lake, a shallow body of salty water approximately thirty miles east of Reno on Piute land.

The Indians don’t camp at the northern end of this lake because of rumors surrounding the  Pinnacles, eerie piles of tufa rock that resemble beehives. My father claimed the large spiders and rattlers on the formations scared the Indians away but…

I can remember laying in a scratchy mummy bag , staring up at the stars and thinking that maybe the giant red-haired cannibals hadn’t been killed off.  Maybe their ancestors hid inside the Pinnacles, sneaking out after dark to grab children from their sleeping bags and drag them home to roast alive on their Weber grills (hey, these are modern day cannibals) while they had a beer and joked about the stupid white man.