thumb|A depiction of the mythical dahu
The dahu () is a legendary creature that resembles a mountain goat and is well known in France and francophone regions of Switzerland and Italy, including the Aosta Valley. The dahu, a quadrupedal mammal, may have been inspired by the chamois, a small, horned goat-antelope once plentiful in European mountainous regions, and also resembles the ibex.
Regional variations on its name include dahut or dairi in Jura, darou in Vosges, daru in Picardy, darhut in Burgundy, daù in Val Camonica; also called a tamarou in Aubrac and Aveyron, and tamarro in Catalonia and Andorra. The dahu cub is called a dahuot.
Description
The dahu's principal distinguishing characteristic is that the legs on one side of its body are shorter than the legs on the opposite side, to facilitate standing on and walking on steep mountain slopes. In practical terms, the dahu's asymmetrical limbs allow it to walk around the circumference of the mountain in only one direction.
Hunting dahu
The "dahu hunt" (), similar to another wildlife-related practical joke, the snipe hunt, is a prank in which pranksters may take a victim out at night with the stated intention of catching a dahu only to abandon the victim on the mountain. In the second half of the 20th century, the supply of naive hunters had dried up, and the dahu hunt enjoyed a second life as a summer camp practical joke.
The dahu today
As of the last decades of the 20th century, the dahu is widely recognized as a tall tale and a source of humor. The Alps Museum in the Bard Fort, Aosta Valley, dedicated a part of its permanent exhibition to Dahu. It has been adopted by other mountainous regions such as the Pyrenees. Recreational "dahu hunts" are sometimes organized as outdoor activities in France and Switzerland. There are dahu websites and dahu aficionados, such as Marcel Jacquat, former director, now retired, of the Natural Science Museum of La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland, who wrote a monograph and opened an exhibition devoted to the animal on 1 April 1995. There have been alleged contemporary witnesses of the Dahu in the Athenian neighborhood of Exarchia. Locals reportedly heard the sounds of its presence emanating from the construction site of the neighborhood's forthcoming subway station.
See also
- Peña Dahua French aircraft design named after the animal
- Sidehill gouger
- Snipe hunt
- Fearsome critters
- Wild haggis