A 79-year-old Paiute Elder called me yesterday morning, Monday, October 23, to tell me about what she saw in Nevada’s Pine Nut Mountains on the Lyon County side at dawn while harvesting the last pine nuts for the season.
“I was beating on the base of a tree, knocking the nuts from the branches, when I heard someone else doing the same thing,” she said. “I thought I was the only person out here, so I went to find whoever was also collecting pine nuts this morning.”
She went on to tell me the knocking was close, and after a couple of minutes, she walked over a slight rise when she saw a Si-Te-Cah. In Anglo circles, the Si-Te-Cah is the Red Haired Giant.
For centuries, Paiutes have spoken of a race of statuesque red-headed cannibals who attacked and ate members of the surrounding tribes. The Paiutes were said to have destroyed them in Lovelock Cave.
But over the last half-century, many Paiute have seen, and some have even interacted with this Si-Te-Cah. Some of the younger members of the tribe believe that the Red Haired Giant is a relative to the crypted Sasquatch.
Not only have Indigenous People witnessed Si-Te-Cah, but non-Native people have as well. The last “official” sighting of this elusive being in Nevada was in February 2005, when hikers spotted a dark figure walking on a snowy mountainside near Winnemucca.
The Old Blog in the Desert 