Sumatra’s orang pendek stories entered the natural-history literature as a mixture of reported encounters, unusual footprints and hopes of finding an unknown animal. Between 1918 and 1932, writers in De Tropische Natuur debated how much those different kinds of evidence could establish. Their papers preserve more than an unresolved forest legend: they document comparative tests, disagreements between investigators and the examination of a supposed specimen.
This case follows that historical investigation, particularly the Aer Teman footprint examined in 1924 and the Rokan specimen discussed in 1932. It does not treat all Sumatran traditions as descriptions of one proven species. The papers themselves contain major differences in appearance and behaviour, and their authors sometimes changed their opinions. Their colonial vocabulary and assumptions also require care; an observer’s social status is not a substitute for checking the evidence.
Jacobson: a track he saw, and encounters he did not
Edward Jacobson’s 1918 paper, Nog eens de ‘orang pandak’, distinguishes several levels of information. One account reached him through a railway official who repeated a supervisor’s discovery of small humanlike tracks. Jacobson withheld judgement because there were neither measurements nor a drawing. That distinction matters: a statement that someone described a footprint is weaker evidence for its shape than an impression available for examination.
He also described a trace he had personally inspected near Danau Bento on 21 August 1915. His guide and gun-bearer Mat Getoep drew his attention to a short, broad impression in damp clay beside a stream. Jacobson estimated its length at about twelve centimetres. There was one impression on each bank, while firmer ground provided no further usable tracks. Getoep identified the prints as orang pandak. Attempts to make a similar impression with only the front of a human foot did not reproduce the rounded heel as Jacobson understood it.
This was a limited field comparison, not the recovery of an animal. Jacobson did not see what made the tracks. He separately repeated his hunters’ account of a dark, short-haired creature seen near a decaying log in July 1916. When taken to the place, he found disturbed wood but no footprints on the hard ground. By 1918 he explicitly withdrew his earlier readiness to accept an unknown ape. His changing interpretation is part of the original record, rather than a later sceptical addition to an otherwise unanimous account.
Maier’s drawings and the backwards-feet problem
R. Maier, a captain in the topographical service, argued more positively in De orang pandak of orang pendek, published in 1923. He collected reports and footprint drawings supplied by plantation staff and topographers. Among the named contributors were Lambermon, Mohamad Saleh and Raden Kasanredjo. The paper is useful because it names intermediaries and distinguishes locations, instead of presenting a single anonymous forest encounter.
Maier gave a composite description of a short, dark-haired, tailless being associated with several regional names. He reported assertions that its feet faced backwards and that it walked with the heels forward, while admitting that he had no satisfactory explanation. The drawings were not photographs of a creature. Nor had Maier personally witnessed every track represented. His confidence in the contributors’ reliability was an argument for taking the reports seriously, but could not determine their zoological identity.
The Aer Teman impression reaches the museum
K. W. Dammerman’s December 1924 paper, De orang pandak van Sumatra, described a more testable object. Dr A. Steinmann brought back a photograph of a footprint from the Aer Teman estate near Muara Bliti. The impression itself subsequently reached the zoological museum at Buitenzorg. According to the paper, liquid paraffin had been poured into the print to bind the soil; after hardening, the surrounding earth was removed. The museum therefore had preserved material to compare, rather than only a remembered outline.
Dammerman measured the impression at approximately 18.5 centimetres long and ten centimetres wide. He compared its toe arrangement and sole with casts from a human foot and an orangutan’s foot. A bear seemed a closer possibility, but casts from mounted specimens did not settle every question. A particular difficulty was the absence of conspicuous claw marks, which might appear inconsistent with a bear’s long claws.
The arrival of Harmston’s Circus supplied an opportunity to obtain impressions from a living bear. Dammerman specified that the circus animals were an Asian black bear type, not the Malayan bear he was considering as the local explanation. He reported that their claw impressions could be extremely faint, especially in the hind-foot tracks, and that the proportions matched the Aer Teman impression closely. The illustrated comparison supported his bear identification. It was a comparison with a related animal, not a photograph showing the original track-maker.
He also reconsidered Maier’s drawings and cited Van Herwaarden’s reported encounter. The latter’s original account has not been inspected for this article; its discussion here is limited to Dammerman’s response. Dammerman suggested that some stories might concern orangutans and some traces bears. His alternatives were not one universal identification. They addressed particular observations, and he acknowledged that firmer investigation was still needed.
The Rokan specimen claim, 1932
In De nieuw-ontdekte orang pendek, dated 20 July 1932, Dammerman described a supposed breakthrough from the Rokan region. The paper reproduces an administrator’s report containing earlier encounters attributed to Teungkoe Ibrahim, Kalin and Beseleng. It then relates a hunting expedition from Tibawang in the second half of May 1932. The hunters claimed to have encountered an adult and obtained a young animal. The administrator’s report and the zoologist’s conclusions are different parts of the paper and must not be combined into a single scientific endorsement.
Dammerman records that photographs of the prepared skin and skeleton reached the museum on 13 June, a detailed report on 20 June, and the material itself later that month. He says the specimens arrived in soldered containers and matched the earlier photographs. He included that point to answer a rumour that the original material had been stolen and substituted during transport. The article documents his answer to the rumour, rather than independent evidence that a substitution occurred.
What the examination found
The skull and limb proportions resembled those of a young leaf monkey. More damaging to the claim, Dammerman reported filed teeth, with scratches visible under magnification, and a shaved skin on which cut hair bases remained. A small piece of wood had raised the nose. Missing tail and pelvic material complicated the skeleton’s interpretation; he regarded the pattern of alterations as suspicious rather than simply accidental loss during preparation.
His conclusion was that the submitted animal belonged among the leaf monkeys, not humans or an unknown ape. He did not claim an exact species identification: the altered hair covering and the absence of suitably young comparative specimens prevented that. The distinction is important. Rejecting the extraordinary identification did not require him to resolve every ordinary taxonomic detail. His observations concerned the material actually sent to Buitenzorg; they could not demonstrate that every witness, at every Sumatran locality, had encountered the same thing.
Reading the investigation in its historical setting
These papers repeatedly rank testimony by the witness’s ethnicity and colonial position. Those assumptions should not be adopted as an evidential method. The useful distinctions are between a first-hand sighting and a repeated story, a drawing and a preserved impression, and a rumour and material available for examination. The authors’ language about a ‘missing link’ also reflects their period’s evolutionary expectations, rather than an established description of an animal.
The historical outcome is specific: one examined footprint was identified as a bear trace, while a later supposed specimen was identified as an altered young monkey. That leaves a substantial record of how extraordinary claims were investigated without turning the remaining stories into proof. No modern DNA result, recent expedition success or confirmed surviving species is asserted here. The linked original papers allow readers to inspect both the claims and the stated reasons for rejecting particular pieces of evidence.
Location and further reading
The map uses an approximate Pasir Pengaraian town reference at 0.86°N, 100.30°E, based on checked geographical coordinates. Dammerman identifies this as the administrative locality associated with the 1932 Rokan report. The pin does not mark the hunters’ claimed encounter, a cave, the Aer Teman footprint or every tradition across Sumatra. Those places are separate, and no precise historical encounter position has been verified here.
The relevant complete articles by Jacobson, Maier and Dammerman were read in the digitised journal, with the footprint comparison and the 1932 skin-examination passage checked against page images. This is documentary research, not a new examination of the original specimens or private museum correspondence. Related research is available through the Other Mysteries hub and the case directory.