Death of Eight Finger Eddie

[Perota]

When the 85-year-old, touted as the godfather of Goa's hippie scene, died last week in a beachside village in Goa, the west coast Indian state he had helped put on the travel map for global backpackers and stoners had long since turned its back on him and his kind.

Goa owes much of its success to Eddie and others like him who created the buzz about the serene paradise-like beaches that brought the first wave of Western tourists, travel writer Hugh Gantzer said.

The details of how and why Eddie arrived in India in his 30s are not clear. He was born Yertward Mazmanian in America in 1924 with just three fingers on one hand, helping him earn the nickname "Eight Finger Eddie" in Anjuna, along with his other nickname, "The King of Hippies." Before moving to Anjuna, he lived a few years at another Goan beach village, Colva. "Then a Japanese girl told me about a beautiful beach called Anjuna with just some houses and nobody nearby. We all went there. I was 40 then and the rest of the freaks were 20-year-olds," he said.

When Eddie, seen lately wearing worn slippers and a cheap bag slung over his shoulders, died on Oct. 18 of a heart attack in Anjuna's hospital, the only public mention of it was the next day in a local English newspaper's "death advertisement," signed by "friend and family in Anjuna and all over the world."


It calls him "a guiding light for travelers" and credits him with being the "first foreigner who settled on south Anjuna beach, which became the last station of the hippie trail."



Goa's hippie pioneer dies in India's tourism mecca - Yahoo! News

[taxexile]

i met him in kathmandu in 1984 !!

a cheerful old rogue.

rip eddie.

[genghis61]

..

must be a fair chance he'd met with Lord Lucan then . . . read the book on Lucan's disappearance and life as Jungly Barry a hippie in Goa who dies 1996; turned out he was just plain old Barry Halpin from Liverpool, but made a good story all the same.

I now believe Lord Lucan is a regular poster here on TD.

Lord Lucan? No, the man with the beard was Barry, the busker from St Helens
By Terri Judd
Tuesday, 9 September 2003

The enticing prospect that Lord Lucan ended his days a bearded hippie called "Jungly Barry" evaporated yesterday.

The enticing prospect that Lord Lucan ended his days a bearded hippie called "Jungly Barry" evaporated yesterday.

Barry Halpin, the man "unveiled" as the fugitive aristocrat, was in fact a busker from Lancashire, a close friend said.

The fate of the 7th Earl of Lucan, who vanished in November 1974 after the body of the murdered nanny Sandra Rivett was found at his home, has long been among Britain's most enduring mysteries.

The latest assertions in a book by a former Scotland Yard detective Duncan MacLaughlin [at] have done little to clear it up, with claims being met with swift counter claims.

In Dead Lucky, MacLaughlin insists he unearthed evidence that Mr Halpin who lived in Goa, scraping a living leading jungle trips for tourists before drinking himself to death in 1996 was the peer.

But yesterday Tim Hingston, a friend of Mr Halpin, poured scorn on the disclosure.

[zygote1]

Looks like he could have used a delousing, a bath and beard trim. That facial hair must have stunk something awful and been home to various creepy crawlie bugs. Am I supposed to be care about this guy's death? Plenty of decent wonderful people die everyday. Why's this bum so special? Is it because of his 8 fingers? His living in Goa? Me and millions of other workers don't care.

[Happyman]

A mechanic who worked for me in Thessalonika had 6 fingers on each hand but he was never famous - just a bloody nice mate to have !!!

[Loy Toy]

A mechanic who worked for me in Thessalonika had 6 fingers on each hand but he was never famous - just a bloody nice mate to have !!!

Especially if you needed your back scratched.

[billy the kid]

Looks like he could have used a delousing, a bath and beard trim. That facial hair must have stunk something awful and been home to various creepy crawlie bugs. Am I supposed to be care about this guy's death? Plenty of decent wonderful people die everyday. Why's this bum so special? Is it because of his 8 fingers? His living in Goa? Me and millions of other workers don't care.

who cares about you ,,only you don't make the headlines .
but somehow he single handedly put Goa on the map.
maybe by accident. or by being in the right place at the right time

[Perota]

^ Well said

“When a finger points to the moon, the imbecile looks at the finger”. Chinese Proverbs

[genghis61]

Looks like he could have used a delousing, a bath and beard trim. That facial hair must have stunk something awful and been home to various creepy crawlie bugs

the pics you refer to - beard etc - in my post #3 are of Barry Halpin/Lord Lucan -if you open the link in the OP you'll see Mr Eight-Fingers - as below.
There is a difference.

[Eggroll]

From wiki..."Yertward Mazmanian , 85, Armenian-born American hippie ." nothing else is listed there.




Back in the states, we used to fear Three-fingered Willy. He was a one of those characters that the older kids would bring up to scare the little kids.

[withnallstoke]

Did he invent mittens?