In this kingdom [Lambri, now Jambi Province] are found men with tails, a span in length, like those of the dog, but not covered with hair. The greater number of them are formed in this manner, but they dwell in the mountains, and do not inhabit towns.

Marsden believed that this passage had as its basis a belief among Sumatran natives that two other groups of natives dwelt on the island.  These two tribes--the orang kubu and orang gugu--shun contact with others.  Marsden noted that the Orang Kubu were numerous in the region between Palembang and Jambi, on the southeastern coast.  In fact, the basis--a native tribe called Koeboe by the Dutch--were discovered in that area.

But the Orang Gugu are more problematic.  Were they merely orangutans?  Jacob Bontius remarks that there is a tradition "that these animals can speak but refuse to do so for fear of being put to work."  Similarly-described savages are described elsewhere as orang pendek, orang letjo, atoe pandak, atoe rimbo, sedapa, ijaoe, sedabo or goegoeh.

Traditions hold that the Orang Pendek (only used as a name in southern Sumatra) is a relatively short apelike animal which has a language of sorts, although the Sumatrans cannot understand it. Its skin has a brownish tinge and is usually covered in a short black or brown hair.  Many traditions mention a mane of long, black hair.  The Orang Pendek has no tail, or no visible one, and its arms are not quite as long as an ape's.  It walks on ground more often than climbing in trees, and, although extremely strong, is mainly vegetarian.

But the first mention of the Orang Pendek in a non-folkloric context appears in 1917, in an article by Dr. Edward Jacobson.  He said that in 1916, while he was camped near the base of Boekit Kaba mountain, some scouts told him they had seen an Orang Pendek.   When the animal saw the scouts, it ran away on its hindlegs.  Jacobson also reported that he had seen some footprints at Mt. Kerintji.  They were rather like those of a human, albeit shorter and broader.

In 1918, the Sumatran Governor, L.C. Westenenk, wrote about the Orang Pendek.   Although he, too, was at first inclined to dismiss them as pure folklore, he recorded an event which took place in 1910.

A boy from Padang employed as an overseer by Mr. van H-- had to stake the boundaries of a piece of land for which a long lease had been applied. One day he took several coolies into the virgin forest on the Barissan Mountains near Loeboek Salasik. Suddenly he saw, some 15m away, a large creature, low on its feet, which ran like a man ... it was very hairy and was not an orang-utan; but its face was not like an ordinary man's...

Westenenk also recorded another encounter, this one from 1917.  A Mr. Oostingh, who owned a coffee plantation at Dataran, was in the forests at the base of Boekit Kaba when he saw a figure sitting on the ground about 30 feet away. The figure looked as if he were trying to light a fire.

His body was as large as a medium-sized native's and he had thick square shoulders, not sloping at all. The colour was not brown, but looked like black earth, a sort of dusty black, more grey than black.

He clearly noticed my presence. He did not so much as turn his head, but stood up on his feet: he seemed quite as tall as I (about 1.75m).

Then I saw that it was not a man, and I started back, for I was not armed. The creature took several paces, without the least haste, and then, with his ludicrously long arm, grasped a sapling, which threatened to break under his weight, and quietly sprang into a tree, swinging in great leaps alternately to right and to left...

Westenenk hypothesized that what Oostingh had seen was an enormous gibbon.  In fact, he advanced his theory that the Orang Pendek was an extremely old and large gibbon, shunned from his group for some reason.  Bernard Heuvelmans places stock in Westenenk's theory, cautiously wondering whether it might not be an undiscovered species of gibbon.

Dr. Jacobson, whom we quoted earlier, wrote another article in 1918.  In this article, he reported the account of a Mr. Coomans, a railwayman at Padang.  Mr. Coomans found some supposed footprints of the Orang Pendek near Benkoelen.  Soon after, similar footprints were found near Soungei Klomboek.

Dr. Jacobson also recorded several instances from about 1915.  In these instances, the apemen were seen in rhinoceros pits near Mount Kerintji.  The Orang Pendek were often seen perched on the stomachs of the trapped beasts, eating the flesh.  If true, these reports seem to be the only ones ascribing a carnivorous nature to the ape.

Another Dutchman, this time a surveyor, R. Maier of Benkoelen, had a large collection of footprints.  The footprints in Maier's collection had come from Roepit, Boekit Kaba, and Marga Ambatjung.  The tracks were made in the late 1910s and early 1920.

Another Dutch settler, a Mr. van Herwaarden, began his research into this creature in 1916, but the accounts he gathered were so fantastic that he refused to believe they were descriptions of anything but a mythical animal; his Malay informants told him that the creature had one eye, feet turned backwards and climbed like a gecko lizard.

But in 1918, van Herwaarden began to change his mind.  In that year, he found a series of footprints near Moesi Oeloe.  Later, he talked to a man called Breikers who had found similar tracks.  Van Herwaarden eventually met three Koeboe natives who said they had seen an Orang Pendek; it was about 4.5 feet tall, they said, with a hairy body, long hair on its head, and long canine teeth.

Some years later, van Herwaarden heard that two corpses were found in the forests near Pangkalan Belai.  The bodies were of a female and a child.  The Malay who found the two tried to bring the bodies back to civilization, but he was soon forced to abandon the bodies.  Shortly thereafter, he died.

About the same time, several Malays encountered a live apeman near Sebalik.  The apeman, though, dove under the water and escaped.  Van Herwaarden also wrote of an experience he himself had near the island of Pulau Rimau in October, 1923.  The creature in question was seen sitting in the branch of a tree.

The sedapa was also hairy on the front of its body; the colour there was a little lighter than on the back. The very dark hair on its head fell to just below the shoulder blades or even almost to the waist. It was fairly thick and very shaggy. The lower part of its face seemed to end in more of a point than a man's; this brown face was almost hairless, whilst its forehead seemed to be high rather than low. Its eyebrows were the same colour as its hair and were very bushy. The eyes were frankly moving; they were of the darkest colour, very lively, and like human eyes. The nose was broad with fairly large nostrils... Its lips were quite ordinary, but the width of its mouth was strikingly wide when open... The colour of the teeth was yellowish white. Its chin was somewhat receding... Its hands were slightly hairy on the back... This specimen was of the female sex... When I raised my gun... I heard a plaintive 'hu-hu,' which was at once answered by similar echoes in the forest nearby.