The honka is sometimes referred to as “Hairy Man.” More specifically, it is a hairy, man-eating ogre in Creek mythology. Another Creek term for this creature is kolowa, a term originally used by the Crow people but adopted by the Creeks after their forced removal to Oklahoma. Some recent Creek storytellers have translated kolowa as “gorilla.”

In many ways, the honka or kolowa is the Creeks’ answer to “Bigfoot”—although it is questionable whether Native Americans ever had a “Bigfoot legend” such as white Americans would conceive it.

Honkas are malicious creatures. One story reported by Michelle Smith in Legends, Lore and True Tales of the Chattahoochee (The History Press, 2013) describes how a female kolowa killed and ate the wife of a hunter—and other members of his village—while the hunter was away from home.