Japanese “Monkey Men.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19268, 3 January 1931, Page 17 (Supplement)

Japanese “Monkey Men.”

JAPANESE BARNUM claims to have discovered the most sensational family of “freaks’* ever known. In an almost deserted village, Okumura, twenty-five miles west of Taihoji, he reports that a family of “monkeymen” and “monkeywomen” live and flourish. According to the Japanese newspapers on the subject, many years ago a hunter now ninety-five and still alive, killed a monkey, in the woods near the village. Before the monkey died it cast an evil spell on the hunter, as a result of which the tw’O sons and daughters of Jin taro Soronaka, aged seventy-three, son of the hunter, were born dumb, with strange hairy skins. For years they have been kept in their father’s house. The eldest is thirtyeight years old. The villagers dread them, accuse them of “monkey tricks,” including incendiarism. The enterprising showman immediately went to the village, which had not been discovered until 1925, when a census official was visiting that part of the country, and offered to buy the five “human monkeys” for twenty pounds each. The father agreed, and brought them to Kanazawa in a motorcar. They became so violent and threatening, however, that the showman could do nothing with them, and was obliged to let them return to their village, where, it is alleged, they can be seen by curious tourists. (Anglo-American N.S.—Copyright.)