Dahu

Lore & Background

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. This asymmetry allows it to walk around the circumference of the mountain in only one direction. There are two types: the laevogyrous dahu, with shorter legs on its left side, walks counterclockwise; the dextrogyre dahu, with shorter legs on its right side, walks clockwise. Respectively, the terms dahu senestrus and dahu desterus have also been used.

The 'dahu hunt' is a prank similar to the snipe hunt, in which pranksters take a victim out at night with the stated intention of catching a dahu, only to abandon the victim on the mountain. Jokers may also tell a gullible subject that catching a dahu requires two people: one with a bag, and another who imitates dahu sounds. The former stands at the bottom of the slope; when the dahu turns to see the source of the sound, it loses its balance and rolls down to the person with the bag.

The dahu's popularity began to soar toward the end of the 19th century, as the budding tourism industry brought wealthy city dwellers to the mountains. Mountaineers working as hunting guides would lure gullible tourists into the dahu hunt. In the second half of the 20th century, the supply of naive hunters dried up, and the dahu hunt enjoyed a second life as a summer camp practical joke.

Reader's Guide

The dahu is significant as a legendary creature that embodies a long-standing tradition of rural practical jokes and tall tales in French and francophone Alpine regions. Its popularity soared in the late 19th century when mountaineers used the creature to prank naive tourists, reflecting tensions between local knowledge and urban ignorance. By the second half of the 20th century, the dahu hunt evolved into a summer camp joke, demonstrating its adaptability as a cultural meme. The creature has been officially recognized in humorous contexts: on 1 April 1967, the Prefect of Haute-Savoie declared a 'Dahu Sanctuary' in Reignier, and the Alps Museum in the Bard Fort, Aosta Valley, dedicated part of its permanent exhibition to the dahu. Marcel Jacquat, former director of the Natural Science Museum of La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland, wrote a monograph and opened an exhibition on 1 April 1995. The dahu has also been adopted by other mountainous regions such as the Pyrenees. Its legacy persists through recreational dahu hunts, websites, and aficionados, and it has even been allegedly witnessed in the Athenian neighborhood of Exarchia. The creature's name also inspired the Peña Dahu aircraft design.

Did You Know?

• The dahu's legs on one side are shorter than the other, allowing it to walk around a mountain in only one direction.
• There are two types: laevogyrous (counterclockwise) and dextrogyre (clockwise).
• The dahu hunt is a prank similar to the snipe hunt, used to fool tourists and later as a summer camp joke.
• On 1 April 1967, the Prefect of Haute-Savoie officially made the suburbs of Reignier a 'Dahu Sanctuary'.

Anatomy of Asymmetry: The Dahu's Defining Trait

The dahu is described as a four-legged mammal whose overall appearance evokes a mountain goat, with possible real-world inspiration drawn from the chamois—a small, horned goat-antelope that was once common across European highlands—and the ibex. Its most striking and defining trait, however, is a built-in asymmetry: the limbs on one flank of the body are noticeably shorter than those on the other. This uneven leg length is not a flaw but an adaptation, allowing the creature to plant itself securely on precipitous alpine terrain. The practical consequence is that a dahu can circle the base of a mountain in only a single direction, dictated by which side carries the shorter legs. Two distinct varieties are therefore recognized in the lore. The laevogyrous dahu (also termed dahu senestrus) has its shorter legs on the left and traverses the slope counterclockwise. Its counterpart, the dextrogyre or dahu desterus, carries the shorter legs on the right and moves clockwise. A young dahu is referred to as a dahuot, a term that appears in the regional folk vocabulary surrounding the creature.

The Chasse au Dahu: Prank, Tourism, and Survival

The chasse au dahu occupies a peculiar niche in Alpine folklore, functioning much like the snipe hunt in Anglo-American tradition. In its classic form, pranksters lure an unsuspecting companion into the darkened mountains under the pretense of tracking the elusive beast, then simply abandon the victim on a slope after hours of cold trudging. A more elaborate version involves two conspirators: one crouches at the foot of the incline with a capture bag, while the other positions himself behind a dahu and mimics its vocalizations. When the animal pivots to investigate the noise, its asymmetrical gait causes it to lose equilibrium and tumble downhill straight into the waiting bag. The tradition gained momentum in the late nineteenth century, when the emerging tourism industry delivered waves of well-heeled urban visitors to the Alps—people whose limited rural knowledge made them easy marks. Local hunting guides capitalized on this gullibility, pitching the dahu as a rare and valuable prize whose capture demanded a solitary, uncomfortable all-night vigil on a freezing slope. By the latter half of the twentieth century, the pool of credulous hunters had thinned, and the dahu hunt found renewed life as a staple prank at summer camps.

A Name in Every Valley: Regional Identity and Cultural Spread

The dahu's name shifts noticeably from one valley to the next, reflecting the creature's deep roots in local dialect. In the Jura it is called dahut or dairi; in the Vosges, darou; in Picardy, daru; in Burgundy, darhut; and in the Val Camonica of northern Italy, daù. Farther south, the Aubrac and Aveyron regions know it as tamarou, while Catalonia and Andorra use the form tamarro. This linguistic spread mirrors the animal's geographic range, which stretches across France, the French-speaking cantons of Switzerland, and the Italian-speaking Aosta Valley. By the twentieth century, the dahu had become a fixture of popular culture in Lorraine, the Alpine and Jura highlands of eastern France, and francophone Switzerland, where it served both as a running joke among locals and as a convenient trick to bamboozle young children. The legend has since been embraced by other mountainous areas, including the Pyrenees, suggesting that the dahu's appeal transcends any single regional identity and speaks to a broader Alpine and pre-Alpine humor tradition.

From Tall Tale to Institutional Presence: The Dahu in the Modern Era

In recent decades the dahu has settled comfortably into the role of a beloved tall tale, widely acknowledged as fiction yet cherished as a source of humor. The Alps Museum housed in the Bard Fort of the Aosta Valley now devotes a section of its permanent exhibition to the creature, lending it a measure of institutional recognition. Recreational dahu hunts are periodically organized as outdoor group activities across France and Switzerland, keeping the tradition alive in a lighthearted, participatory format. A small community of devoted enthusiasts has emerged, complete with dedicated websites. Perhaps the most notable figure among them is Marcel Jacquat, a retired former director of the Natural Science Museum in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, who authored a monograph on the animal and mounted a dedicated exhibition on April 1, 1995—a date chosen with obvious tongue-in-cheek intent. In 1967, on the same April Fools' date, the Prefect of Haute-Savoie officially designated the mountainous outskirts of the small town of Reignier as a Dahu Sanctuary, where both hunting and photography are prohibited. The legend even crossed the Mediterranean: locals in Athens' Exarchia neighborhood reportedly heard dahu-like sounds emanating from the construction site of their neighborhood's planned subway station.