The Yeti, aka Abominable Snowman, is a mysterious, ape-like creature who is said to inhabit the Himalayan mountain range in Asia. Over the years numerous stories have been told, articles written, and sightings have been claimed all attempting to prove the existence of these elusive creatures. There have even been plaster castings made of alleged footprints. Are they real? Is the legend of the Yeti just a myth? Or are there really hominid-like creatures walking among us? Read on and decide for yourself. Happy Samhain!
First the Stats…
Scientific name: Ursus arctos isabellinus
Weight: Up to 400 lbs.
Length: Up to 15 feet
Lifespan: Unknown
Now on to the Facts!
1.) The Yeti is often compared to Bigfoot of North America, since the 2 often have similar physical characteristics.
2.) It is presumed that the Yeti is potentially just a creation that derived from Sherpa legends or even misidentification of other creatures such as the yak or bear.
3.) Yetis are often described as being large, bipedal (walking on 2 feet), creatures that are covered in thick brown, black, or even white fur, and that have oversized canine teeth.
4.) Per Tibetan lore, there are actually 3 species of Yeti: the Rang Shim Bombo, that has reddish-brown fur and is only between 3 – 5 feet tall; the Chuti, that stands around 8 feet tall and dwells at approximately 8,000 – 10,000 feet above sea level; and the Nyalmo, that has black fur and is the biggest and fiercest, standing around 15 feet tall.
5.) According to Russian folklore, the Chuchuna is a being that is said to dwell in Siberia. It has been described as 6 – 7 feet tall and covered with darker colored hair.
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6.) Per the accounts of the nomadic Tungus and Yakut tribes, it is a sturdily built, Neanderthal-like creature that wears pelts and bears a white patch of fur on its forearms. This creature is said to even consume human flesh.
7.) According to H. Siiger, the Yeti was a part of the pre-Buddhist beliefs of numerous Himalayan peoples. He was told that the Lepcha people worshipped a “Glacier Being” as a God of the Hunt.
Did you know…?
The name Abominable Snowman was actually started in 1921, the same year that Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Howard-Bury led the 1921 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition.
8.) In the book Mount Everest The Reconnaissance, 1921, Howard-Bury tells of an account of crossing the Lhagpa La at 21,000 feet where he found footprints that he believed “were likely caused by a large ‘loping’ grey wolf, that formed double tracks much like those of a bare-footed man”.
9.) He continued that his Sherpa guides “…volunteered that the tracks must be those of ‘The Wild Man of the Snows’, to which they offered the name ‘metoh-kangmi'”. “Metoh” translates into “man-bear” and “kang-mi” is translated to “snowman”.
10.) The use of the term “Abominable Snowman” started when Henry Newman, a longtime contributor to The Statesman in Calcutta, interviewed the porters of the “Everest Reconnaissance expedition” upon their return to Darjeeling. Newman then mistranslated the word “metoh” as “filthy”, substituting instead the term “abominable”, possibly out of artistic creation.
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11.) The Yeti was adopted into Tibetan Buddhism, where it is considered to be a nonhuman animal (tiragyoni) that is human enough to even be able to follow Dharma.
12.) Numerous stories feature Yetis developing into helpers and disciples to various religious figures.
Did you know…?
In Tibet, images of Yetis are displayed and sometimes even worshipped as guardians against evil spirits.
13.) These creatures sometimes even serve as enforcers of Dharma, where hearing or seeing 1 is typically considered a bad omen, in which the witness must accumulate merit (a beneficial and protective force which compiles as a result of good acts, deeds, or thoughts) to appease.
14.) In 1832, James Prinsep’s Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal published trekker B. H. Hodgson’s recollection of his experiences in northern Nepal. His local guides spied a tall, bipedal creature covered with long dark hair, that seemed to flee in fear at being spotted. It was later concluded that this creature was likely an orangutan.
15.) In 1899, a record of reported footprints appeared in Laurence Waddell’s “Among the Himalayas”. Waddell recollected his guide’s description of a large, apelike creature that left prints, which Waddell believed were made by a bear.
But wait, still there’s a little more on the Yeti!
16.) Waddell heard numerous stories of bipedal, apelike creatures in any case wrote that “None, however, of the many Tibetans I have interrogated on this subject could ever give me an authentic case”. Basically all of the accounts were hear-say.
17.) In 1925, N. A. Tombazi, a photographer and member of the Royal Geographical Society, wrote that he saw a creature at about 15,000 feet near Zemu Glacier. He later wrote that he saw the creature from about 200 – 300 yards, for about a minute. “Unquestionably, the figure was exactly like a human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to tug at some dwarf rhododendron bushes”.
Did you know…?
In 1983, Himalayan conservationist Daniel C. Taylor & Himalayan natural historian Robert L. Fleming Jr. led a Yeti expedition into Nepal’s Barun Valley. They discovered large footprints, large nests in trees, and detailed reports from local villagers.
18.) Tombazi and his companions later descended the mountain and saw the creature’s prints, which were described as “similar in shape to those of a man, but only 6 – 7 inches long by 4 inches wide; but definitely made by a biped.
19.) In 1948, Peter Byrne reported finding a Yeti footprint, in northern Sikkim, India near the Zemu Glacier, while he was on vacation from a Royal Air Force assignment in India.
20.) While trying to scale Mount Everest in 1951, Eric Shipton took several photos of a number of large prints in the snow, at about 20,000 feet above sea level. Shipton took 3 pictures, 1 showing the track, and the other 2 of 1 print in particular which was size compared by a boot and a pickaxe.
But wait, still there’s a tad more on the Yeti!
21.) In 2016, on a Discovery TV show – Expedition Unknown: Hunt for the Yeti, American television presenter Joshua Gates presented hair samples with a forensic analyst and coming to the conclusion that the hair contained an unknown DNA sequence.
22.) On July 25, 2008, the BBC reported that hairs collected in the remote Garo Hills region of North-East India by Dipu Marak were analyzed at Oxford Brookes University in the UK by primatologist Anna Nekaris and microscopy expert Jon Wells. The initial tests were inconclusive. After reanalysis, it was later determined that the hair samples were actually from a Himalayan goral.
23.) A Yeti was supposedly captured in Russia in December of 2011. Originally, the story claimed that a hunter reported having seen a bear-like creature trying to kill 1 of his sheep but, after he fired his weapon, the creature ran into a forest on 2 legs. The story later claimed that border patrol soldiers captured a hairy, 2-legged female creature similar to a gorilla that was an omnivore (eats plant and animal matter). This was later revealed as false and/or potentially a publicity stunt for charity.
24.) In 2017, Daniel C. Taylor published a detailed analysis of the century-long Yeti information, providing added evidence to the Yeti explanation, adding onto the initial Barun Valley discoveries. This book provided a very detailed explanation for the famous Yeti footprint photographed by Eric Shipton in 1950, the 1972 Cronin-McNeely footprint, as well as all the other unexplained Yeti footprints.
25.) Is the Yeti real or just a figment of our imagination? Will we ever find out for sure? You be the judge.
Now a Short Yeti Video!
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Some source material acquired from: Wikipedia
Photo credit: Explorer’s Web
