Yeren, Almas, and Yeti: Cryptid Hominoids in Asia
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Nearly everyone in the English-speaking world has heard stories of Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, and most have heard of the Yeti as well. But there are many ancient traditions of wild hominoids in Asia that are little known in Western culture, supported by hundreds of recorded sightings. These encounters have made their mark in Asian culture, and spurred a number of scientific expeditions. But despite the efforts of some of history’s greatest scientists and explorers, there is still a shortage of physical evidence for the creatures’ existence, and their true nature remains a mystery.
The Hominoids
A hominoid is any tailless ape or monkey, though the term is also used to refer more generally to any bipedal creature that resembles a human.(1) A Cryptid Hominoid is any hominoid whose existence has been postulated, but not proven. Many in the scientific community use the term, “relict hominoid,” assuming the beings to be survivors of a species commonly thought to be extinct.(2) Witnesses in Asia, however, tend to use terms specific to their region, or refer to the beings as “wild men,” or “wild women,” or simply as animals, beasts, or creatures.
People see different hominoids in different parts of Asia, but descriptions converge on a few defining characteristics. The creatures are usually entirely covered in hair, though some have bare patches on their faces and hands. They are most frequently described as being black, brown, reddish, or yellowish in colour. Some are as short as a meter tall, while others exceed 3 meters, or 10 feet in height. Sightings occur across the continent, but they are most commonly reported along mountain ranges, or in remote locations and densely forested areas. The hominoids are said to make a range of noises, from grunts to screeching sounds, but they’re never heard to speak a human language.(3)
There are several distinct traditions of wild hominoids in the area currently occupied by Russia. The Kabardian people of the northwest caucasus call these beings almasty, which translates to “forest-man” or “wild man.”(4) The almasty are described as being smaller than the average person. They eat plants, fruits, and small animals, and are known to steal foods from local people.(5) The Teleut of southern Siberia speak of the almys, variously translated as “hairy people” or “evil spirits.”(6) In Mongolia, people call these beings almas, a word translated as “demon” or “witch” in other contexts.(7) The almas is said to be a large human-looking creature between one-and-a-half to two meters tall, covered almost entirely in thick red, brown, black, or yellowish hair, and with a face similar to a human’s, but with more ape-like features.(8) Like the American Bigfoot, the almas is said to have a very foul odor. According to Russian hominologist Boris Porshnev, the almas are primarily found in the Gobi Desert and the western province of Khovd.(9)
In China, people call the hominoids they see, yeren, which translates to “wild person,” or maoren, meaning “hairy men.”(10) A large proportion of sightings occur in the dense Shennongjia Forest in Hubei province.(11) Yeren range in height from 2 to 2.5 meters with footprints that are 30 to 40 cm in length. They are usually described as having reddish-brown hair, but are sometimes described as being grey, black, brownish-yellow, and in a few cases, at least, even white.(12)
The earliest inhabitants of the Himalayas, the Lepchā, speak of encounters with an ape-like creature they call chu mung, which translates to “glacier spirit.” They consider this spirit to be the god of hunting and “lord of all forest beasts.”(13) Though known by many names, the hominoids seen in the Tibetan Himalayas are most commonly known as yeti, in English, a name derived from the Tibetan words for “rocky place,” or “cliff,” and “bear.” Contrary to popular belief, yetis are typically seen to be covered in long brown, grey, black, or reddish hair, but not in white hair, as they’re frequently depicted. There are many regional variations of the creature across the Himalayas: the people of Bhutan alone describe at least two or three different types of beasts of differing size and color.(14)
In India, locals know these hominoids as the mande burung or “forest man.” The creature is said to be nearly three meters tall, and to share many similarities with the yeti. There are reports of hominoids in the South Pacific, too. Indonesia’s Nage tribespeople on the island of Flores speak about ebu gogo, an upright walking ape, just short of a meter, or three feet tall. The ebu gogo are said to live in caves, and steal food and children from neighboring peoples.(15)
Similar traditions of wild hominoids can be found on every inhabited continent but Antarctica. The Indigenous Australians call these beings the yowie.(16) The indigenous Amazonian people of the state of Mato Grosso in Brazil call them the mapinguari, meaning “thick bushes.”(17) Despite minimal to no contact between these cultures for most of human history, the hominoids that people describe from Canada to Mongolia share a number of commonalities, like hairy bodies, foul odor, and a swift gait.(18)
Historical Records
The evidence for cryptid hominoids on the Asian continent dates back thousands of years. The 3800-year-old Mesopotamian odyssey, The Epic of Gilgamesh, features a character named Enkidu, a hairy, beast-like wild man. Enkidu first lives among the animals before slowly adjusting to city life. Russian hominoid researcher, Marie-Jeanne Koffman, identified several references to hairy hominoids in the bible, sometimes translated as “satyrs,” for the woodland deities from classical mythology.(19) Two Phoenician bowls dated to the 6th to 8th centuries BCE portray the hunting and killing of a large hominoid covered in hair.(20) A mirror from the north Caucasus region dated to the 6th or 7th century BCE depicts two hairy bipeds among the local animals, though there are no such apes in the area.(21)
In the late 4th century BCE, a Macedonian admiral under the command of Alexander the Great was travelling the Indus River when he saw a shore lined with huts, and 600 beast-like people that were fully covered in hair. He claimed that the people had nails like claws, and wielded primitive wooden spears.(22) A historian from the Chinese Tang dynasty was among the first of many commentators to claim that the forests of Hubei province were home to a group of “wildmen.”(23) A record from the 17th-century makes passing mention of “hairy men as tall as three meters” in the caves of the mountains of Fangxian County, stating that they often came down to the villages below to hunt chickens and dogs.(24) The Tibetan Mani Kabum, a twelfth-century chronicle, claims that Buddhist deities mated and created human-monkey hybrids. Images of hair-covered hominoids appear in Buddhist scrolls, manuscripts, and murals dating back to the eighteenth century.(25)
Around the year 1400, a German traveler named Johann Schiltberger was captured by Turkish forces and held prisoner in Mongolia, where he learned of wild people living in the mountains there. He later wrote that they were almost completely covered in hair, with only their faces and hands exposed. They ate “anything” they could find, and acted like “wild beasts.” Schiltberger claimed that a male and female were captured and gifted to the Mongol Prince, although it’s not clear that Schlitberger ever saw the beings, and there is no other record of their captivity.(26)
In the late 19th century, the Russian Explorer Nikolay Przewalski investigated reports of a large, black, bipedal animal, which the Mongols called kung-guressu, or “man-beast.” In 1872, Przewalski’s Tibetan guides showed him a pelt that they said was one of the animals’, but he was sure it was a bear’s. The next year, however, Przewalski saw a creature from a distance in Qinghai province, China, that his guides identified as a kung-guressu. Though Przewalski insisted that it was just a bear, he admitted that it had an “unusual long body” and a “hump” on its back.(27)
Scientific Searches
In 1921, explorers on the British Everest Reconnaissance Expedition found human-like footprints in the snow at 6400 meters altitude, which Charles Howard-Bury believed were left by a “loping” grey wolf. His Sherpa guides, however, believed that they were left by a human-like beast they called the metoh-kangmi. The find led to a surge of media interest in the yeti, and inspired further expeditions. In the initial push to get the story out, a british reporter mistranslated the Tibetan word, “metoh” as “filthy,” and creatively dubbed the creature the “abominable snowman,” a name that still persists in popular culture.(28)
By the 1950s, the global effort to reach the summit of Mount Everest brought more experienced mountaineers to the Himalayas, and helped unearth more evidence of the Yeti. On an expedition in 1951, English mountaineer, Eric Shipton, and his team found large footprints in the snow when they were nearly 100 km from Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal. Each print was roughly 30 cm long, and the tracks continued for over 1.5 kilometers.(29) Shipton’s photos of the prints were widely published, and they sparked another wave of interest in the Yeti. Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay found prints on Mount Everest in 1953, and there have been many more prints, scalps, and other samples found since. DNA analysis has shown many of these samples to belong to known animals like bears, or even humans.(30) Other alleged evidence, like prints and hairs found in the wild, cannot be identified at all.(31)
In 1959, Marie-Jeanne Koffmann and some russian colleagues began documenting sightings of almasties in the Caucasus, and by the fall of the Soviet Union, they had collected over 500 eyewitness reports.(32) One involved a former Soviet officer who related an encounter with a female almasty near the end of the Second World War. He claimed that he and his men came upon the creature in a hemp field, and saw her chewing on the ends of the plant’s stems. He estimated her to be 1.80 m tall, or 5 ft 11, and said she was wearing a tattered Kabardian kaftan, a kind of robe. She was covered in long reddish hair, similar to that of a buffalo, and had large breasts that hung to her belly. She immediately fled when she noticed the soldiers.(33)
Interest in the yeren intensified after a famous sighting in China on the 14th of May, 1976. Just before sunrise, six managers of the Shennongjia Forest Service in Hubei province were driving along a road through the forest when a hairy reddish hominoid crossed their headlights. They reported their encounter to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which prompted several scientific expeditions that eventually collected more than 400 sightings from the Shennongjia forest. They also found some footprints, hair, and feces that could not be identified by laboratory analysis.(34) In 1982, Hu Hongxing of Wuhan University, along with two Ohio State University anthropologists, collected witness reports in the Shennongjia, and found tracks, hair, and scat, as well as several dens with bamboo nests that hinted at the presence of a large mammal. Analysis of the scat showed it to be largely the same as alleged yeren samples collected in previous expeditions, and indicated a diet of plants and insects.(35)
In October 1994, the Chinese government established the Committee for the Search for Strange and Rare Creatures. At the time, members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences thought that the yeren was an unknown species of primate, but by 1999, most had declared their firm belief that such a being did not exist.(36) Despite the limitations of the evidence collected, there is still strong interest in the search for cryptid hominoids in Asia. In 2009, city officials in Kemerovo in southern central Russia assembled a team of scientists to search for evidence of undiscovered hominoids. Their efforts turned up two identical hominoid footprints, made thousands of years apart.(37) Richard Freeman, director of the Center for Fortean Zoology, continues to make regular expeditions to various regions of Asia.(38) His teams have collected bones and bone fragments, patches of hair, and a number of first-hand accounts of the almasty and other hominoids.(39)
Debate
Claims of cryptid hominoids in Asia have attracted limited interest among mainstream anthropologists and ethnobiologists. Academics point to the meagre body of physical evidence, especially the shortage of clearly anomalous furs and hides, as an indication that the hominoids that people see are either mistaken bears and other animals, or outright fabrications. Most of the physical samples collected in Asia have been lost, or were proven to have belonged to known animals.(40) Despite a hundred years of expeditions, no one has managed to find even a single full corpse or skeleton. Still, there are a few academics who have spoken encouragingly of research on cryptid hominoids. A notable example is the English primatologist, Jane Goodall, who spoke to Native Americans who had seen and heard the Sasquatch. In 2002, she stated that she is certain that this creature exists, like other similar creatures around the world.(41)
Most cryptozoologists, or those who study cryptids specifically, take the view that the mysterious hominoids are undiscovered apes. Since the year 2000, we have identified 93 new species and subspecies of primates, four of which are apes, and scientists estimate there are likely around 300 species of mammals left to be discovered.(42) The incredibly rare Tapanuli orangutan, for example, was only first reported in 1939, and not formally identified until 2017.(43) Homo Luzonensis, an archaic human from the modern Philippines, was only recognized as a distinct species in 2019, based on bones not found until 2007.(44) Other cryptozoologists argue that the creatures are descendents of hominids thought to be extinct, like neanderthal, homo erectus, or Gigantopithecus.(45) Skeptics reject this possibility and point out that there is no fossil or skeletal evidence to support this kind of an evolutionary progression to the current day.(46) It’s possible that some of the alleged hominoids that people see are actually just bears, which are known to walk on their hind legs in rare instances. It’s also possible that some alleged “wild men” are just human beings with genetic conditions that cause excessive hair growth.(47)
Other historical encounters with Asian hominoids may in fact have been contacts with other subspecies of homo sapiens, or people of races unfamiliar to the witnesses. One possible example is the Abkhazian legend of Zana, an alleged “wild woman” said to have been domesticated in the late 19th century, who lived until as late as the 1890s. Beginning in the early 1960s, zoologist Alexander Mashkovtsev, and later, historian Boris Porshnev, investigated the case, and spoke to a few of the then-elderly people who had lived alongside Zana and seen her first-hand. The witnesses said that Zana had been captured in the wild and was eventually sold to a nobleman in the village of Tkhina. Her skin was black or grey, and she was covered in tousled reddish-black hair, with a thick mane hanging down her back. Though ferocious and wild, at first, she was eventually taught to obey her master, and perform simple tasks, though she never learned to speak. Zana produced several offspring by local men, four of which survived into adulthood and had children of their own. The youngest of these, a man named Khwit, died in 1954. In 2013, Geneticist Bryan Sykes tested Khwit’s skull and other bones, as well as the DNA of Zana’s living descendents. His analysis revealed that Zana’s DNA was 100% homo sapien, but completely anomalous to the region: Sykes believed that her ancestors must have migrated from Africa over 100,000 years ago. Still, the theory that Zana was human does not explain the accounts of her beast-like nature and appearance, though it’s possible that these details were merely inventions, or distortions in memory.(48)
Several researchers have argued that there is a connection between cryptid hominoids and other anomalous phenomena. Lisa Shiel and Jack Kewaunee Lapseritis have explored the connections between Bigfoot, UFOs, and other anomalous phenomena. Like a lot of anomalies, the hominoids tend to play the mythological role of the trickster, in that they frequently confuse, frustrate, or bewilder their witnesses. Cryptid hominoids have also been said to vanish on the spot, communicate telepathically, and cause periods of missing time: all hallmarks of UFO encounters.(49) The folklorist, Dionizjusz Czubala, has published accounts of people being abducted by hair-covered hominoids in Mongolia, and in some cases, producing hybrid offspring.(50) It may be significant that UFOs are associated with humanity’s future in space, while cryptid hominoids are associated with our past on earth, in that they seem to represent an earlier stage of our evolution from other apes. However, accounts containing explicitly paranormal or UFO-related elements are only a small fraction of all reported sightings of hominoids in Asia, and around the world.
The suggestion of a paranormal connection has proven to be contentious in cryptozoology, and many researchers reject it outright.(51) They argue that the hominoids in question are flesh-and-blood creatures, and that the search for them is most likely to succeed if it is organized under a physicalist rubric, and focused on physical proofs, as in any other branch of zoology.
Conclusion
Stories of hairy apes and “wild men” are by no means confined to North America, or the Himalayan mountains. They occur all around the world, but there is a particular diversity of sightings and traditions in Asia. The fact that people all across that continent and all around the world see such similar beings speaks to the reality of the phenomenon. But whether these elusive beings are flesh-and-blood animals, supernatural entities, or mental fabrications, is still hotly debated.
Notes:
1) Gene/Jean Brown, “Difference Between Hominids and Hominoids,” DifferenceBetween.net, January 6, 2020, http://differencebetween.net/science/difference-between-hominids-and-hominoids.
2) Dmitri Bayanov, “Historical Evidence for the Existence of Relict Hominoids,” The Relict Hominoid Inquiry, 1 (2012): 23, https://isu.edu/media/libraries/rhi/essays/Bayanov_rev.pdf.Bayanov.
3) Daniel S. Capper, “The Friendly Yeti,” Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture 6:1 (2012): 76, https://aquila.usm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=16181&context=fac_pubs, sources Myra Shackley, Still Living?: Yeti, Sasquatch, and the Neanderthal Enigma (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1983), 62, and René de Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Where the Gods are Mountains (trans. Michael Bullock, New York: Reynal and Company, 1957), 160; Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, “L’Almasty, Yé du Caucase / The Almasty, Yeti of the Caucasus,” Archéologia, no. 269 (June 1991): 24-43, translation by Malcolm Smith, https://malcolmscryptids.blogspot.com/2012/03/creatures-of-caucasus-1-background.html, one witness describes almasty as making an audible “mumble” when eating. A popular North American encounter where unusual sounds were recorded in 1972 is known as the “Sierra Sounds.”
4) See commentary by Smith regarding Koffmann, “L’Almasty, Yé du Caucase.”
5) For more on almasty diet see Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, “L’Almasty du Caucase - Mode de vie d’un humanoide,” Archéologia, no. 276 (February 1992), 52-65, English: “The Almasty of the Caucasus – Life Style of a Hominoid,” The Relict Hominoid Inquiry 4 (2015): 106-123, translation by Edward Winn, https://isu.edu/media/libraries/rhi/research-papers/Koffmann_2.pdf.
6) Sabira Ståhlberg and Ingvar Svanberg, “Wildmen in Central Asia,” Anthropos: International Review of Anthropology and Linguistics 112 (July 2017): 6,
https://researchgate.net/publication/318563173_Wildmen_in_Central_Asia.
7) Ståhlberg and Svanberg, “Wildmen in Central Asia,” 3.
8) Nathan Wenzel, "The Legend of the Almas: A Comparative and Critical Analysis," Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection 801 (2009), 9, https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/801.
9) Ståhlberg and Svanberg, “Wildmen in Central Asia,” 3, sources Boris Porshnev, “The Troglodytidae and the Hominidae in the Taxonomy and Evolution of Higher Primates,” Current Anthropology 15/4 (1974): 449-450, http://alamas.ru/eng/publicat/Porshnev_Trog.htm; Ivor Montagu, “The Wild Man of the Gobi,” Animals 5/3 (1964): 84-92.
10) Ståhlberg and Svanberg, 8, authors give translation of “wild person.” Guoxing Zhou, "The Status of the Wildman Research in China," Cryptozoology 1 (1982): 13-23, http://bigfootencounters.com/biology/zhou.htm.
11) Guoxing Zhou, “Fifty Years of Tracking the Chinese Wildman,” The Relict Hominoid Inquiry 1 (2012): 118, https://isu.edu/media/libraries/rhi/research-papers/Zhou__Tracking-the-Chinese-Wildman.pdf.
12) Nick Redfern, The Bigfoot Book: The Encyclopedia of Sasquatch, Yeti and Cryptid Primates (Detroit, MI, USA: Visible Ink Press, 2016), 334 - 37; Jeff Meldrum and Guoxing Zhou, “Footprint evidence of the Chinese Yeren,” The Relict Hominoid Inquiry 1 (2012): 58, https://isu.edu/media/libraries/rhi/brief-communications/Footprint-Evidence-of-Chinese-Yeren.pdf.
13) Anna Sawerthal and Davide Torri, "Imagining the Wild Man: Yeti Sightings in Folktales and Newspapers of the Darjeeling and Kalimpong Hills," in Transcultural Encounters in the Himalayan Borderlands: Kalimpong as a “Contact Zone,” Editor Markus Viehbeck (Heidelberg University Publishing, 2017), 128, https://researchgate.net/publication/322519965_Imagining_the_Wild_Man_Yeti_Sightings_in_Folktales_and_Newspapers_of_the_Darjeeling_and_Kalimpong_Hills, who cites Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Where the Gods Are Mountains, 136; “Lepchā,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://britannica.com/topic/Lepcha.
14) Odette Tchernine, In Pursuit of the Abominable Snowman (New York, NY, USA: Taplinger Publishing Company, 1971), 63 - 65, describes 3 types; Capper, “The Friendly Yeti,” identifies 4 types; Sawerthal and Torri, "Imagining the Wild Man,” 125, state that Sherpa identify 3 types and Himalayan identify 2 broad types; Jean-Paul Debenat, The Asian Wild Man: Yeti, Yeren & Almasty Cultural Aspects and Evidence of Reality, ebook edition (Hancock House Publishers, 2014), 26, discusses Tom Slick identifying 2 types.
15) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 119 - 21, It’s noteworthy that in 2003 several skeletal remains of “hobbits” were discovered in a cave and dubbed homo floresiensis, Gregory Forth, “Hominids, hairy hominoids and the science of humanity,” Anthropology Today 21(3) (June 2005), 13,
https://deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/hominids-hairy-hominoids-and-the-science-of-humanity-l0XtXPkJrQ.
16) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 22 - 25, 338 - 40, First descriptions of the creature appeared in 1842 in the Australian and New Zealand Monthly Magazine.
17) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 171 - 74, sources Randy Merill “Mapinguari: Legendary Man-Eating Cryptid of the Amazon Rainforest,” https://demonhunterscompendium.blogspot.com/2013, and Bernard Heuvelmans On the Track of Unknown Animals (London, UK: Routledge, 1995). Ornithologist David Oren has theorized the mapinguari to be surviving giant sloths, possibly Mylodons, which are thought extinct.
18) Debenat, Asian Wild Man, 136, sources Frank E. Poirier and colleagues who note the similarities in the bigfoot/sasquatch of North America and China despite minimal cultural contact, Frank E. Poirier, Hu Hongxing, and Chung-min Chen, “The Evidence for Wildman in Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China,” Cryptozoology 2 (Winter 1983): 25.
19) “Epic of Gilgamesh,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://britannica.com/topic/Epic-of-Gilgamesh; Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, “Les Hominoides reliques de l’antiquité / Relic Humanoids in Antiquity,” Archéologia 307 (December 1994): 38-42, https://sasquatchcanada.com/uploads/9/4/5/1/945132/307.pdf; Debenat, Asian Wild Man, 114 - 17, sources info from Koffmann and interpretation by Robert Silverberg’s Gilgamesh the King (Arbor House Publishers, NY: 1984).
20) Debenat, Asian Wild Man, 114, the Phoenician cup was discovered in Cyprus between 1865 and 1876; Marie-Jeanne Koffmann discusses it in detail in “Les Hominoides reliques de l’antiquité,” 34 - 42.
21) Discovered in 1903 in Keremes of the North Caucasus region, Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, “Les Hominoides reliques de l’antiquité;” Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, “Relic Humanoids in Antiquity,” Archéologia / Archaeologia 308 (January 1995): 57-66, https://sasquatchcanada.com/uploads/9/4/5/1/945132/308.pdf.
22) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 5 - 7, Redfern sources the Greek historian, Arrian, born in 86 CE, who chronicled much of Alexander the Great’s life in Anabasis Alexandri (English title: The Anabis of Alexander) E. Iliff Robson translation, Arrian, with an English Translation by E. Iliff Robson. Anabasis Alexandri (Books I-IV). Vol. 1 (Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press, 1967), Chapter 23 of Book VIII contains the encounter of Admiral Nearchus with the hairy natives, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/arrian-bookVIII-India.asp.
23) Guoxing Zhou, “Zhou Guoxing on the Chinese Wildman or Yeren, Yeh-ren: A.D. 618 - 907,” http://bigfootencounters.com/articles/zhou.htm.
24) Sources reference newspaper articles published in Beijing/Peking, Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 335; Christopher S. Wren, “On the trail of the wild man of China,” The New York Times, June 5, 1984, https://nytimes.com/1984/06/05/science/on-the-trail-of-the-wild-man-of-china.html; Zhou, “The Status of the Wildman Research in China.”
25) Documentary, Yeti: Hunt for the Wildman (Icon Films, 2001), director Harry Marshall, (https://youtu.be/k5UC6mhRlyU, Richard's Room 101, September 1, 2019) at 5:30 shows an 18th-century Tibetian/Bhuanese medical recipe which is also discussed by Koffmann, “Relic Humanoids in Antiquity,” Archéologia / Archaeologia, no. 308 (January 1995): 59 - 60; Translations and discussion of illustrations by Emanuel Vlček, “Diagnosis of the 'Wild Man' According to Buddhist Literary Sources from Tibet, Mongolia and China,” Man 60 (October 1960): 153-155, https://jstor.org/stable/2797059 and http://bigfootencounters.com/biology/Emanuel-Vlcek.htm; Capper, Daniel S. “The Friendly Yeti,” 6 - 8, 11, sources R. A. Stein, Tibetan Civilization, trans. J. E. Stapleton Driver (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972), 46 and Larry G. Peters, The Yeti: Spirit of Himalayan Forest Shamans (Delhi: Nirala Publications, 2004), 30 - 31; Tchernine, In Pursuit of the Abominable Snowman, 64.
26) Johann Schiltberger, The bondage and travels of Johann Schiltberger, a native of Bavaria, in Europe, Asia, and Africa, 1396-1427, trans. J. Buchan Telfer (London: Hakluyt Society, 1879), https://archive.org/details/bondagetravelsof00schirich, iv, 35, 139, the Russian researcher and translator, Professor P. Bruun, provides the note; Ståhlberg and Svanberg, “Wildmen in Central Asia,” 2; Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 10 - 11, Redfern cites David Hatcher Childress’s Yetis, Sasquatch & Hairy Giants (Kemptom, Ill: Adventures Unlimited Press, 2010) who translated Schiltberger’s record and points to the Tian Shan Mountains; “Johann Schiltberger: German Noble,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://britannica.com/biography/Johann-Schiltberger.
27) Przhevalski, Nikolaĭ Mikhaĭlovich, Mongolia, the Tangut Country, And the Solitudes of Northern Tibet, Being a Narrative of Three Years’ Travel In Eastern High Asia, volume II, trans. Morgan, E. Delmar (London: S. Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1876), 249 - 251. https://archive.org/details/mongoliatangutco02przh/mode/2up.
28) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 337-38; Sawerthal and Torri, "Imagining the Wild Man,” 127.
29) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 254 - 56, The details of the expedition are summarized in the Peter Steele title Eric Shipton: Everest & Beyond (Seattle, WA: Mountaineers Books, 1998).
30) Debenat, Asian Wild Man, 24 - 26, 31 - 33; Thumb and finger analysis: “Yeti finger mystery solved by Edinburgh scientists,” BBC.com, December 27, 2011, https://bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-16316397; Michelle Starr, “Latest DNA Analysis Shows The Yeti Are Actually Just a Bunch of Bears,” ScienceAlert.com, November 29, 2017, https://sciencealert.com/dna-analysis-yeti-samples-asian-bears-no-proof-of-cryptids; “Was It a Yeti? Bigfoot? Hair DNA Reveals Monsters' True Identity,” NBCnews.com, July 2, 2014, https://nbcnews.com/science/weird-science/was-it-yeti-bigfoot-hair-dna-reveals-monsters-true-identity-n144986; Bryan C. Sykes et al., “Genetic analysis of hair samples attributed to yeti, bigfoot and other anomalous primates,” Proceedings Biological Sciences 281(1789), August 22, 2014, https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4100498.
31) Hair samples discovered by Joshua Gates in 2009 in Bhutan which underwent forensic analyst concluded that the hair contained an unknown DNA sequence, Veenu Sandal, “Mystery behind yetis and their existence,” SundayGuardianLive.com, May 4, 2019, https://sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/mystery-behind-yetis-existence; more on Gates’ evidence in “Ketchum Bigfoot DNA Study 2011 - 2013 Timeline of Bigfoot DNA Events,” OregonBigfoot.com, February 13, 2013, https://oregonbigfoot.com/melba-ketchum-Bigfoot-DNA-study_2011.php; Lee Rannals, “Bigfoot Is Real, And We Have DNA To Prove It: Researchers,” tsemrinpoche.com, September 17, 2012, https://tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/yeti-bigfoot-sasquatch/bigfoot-is-real-and-we-have-dna-to-prove-it-researchers.html; April Flowers, “Researcher Says Bigfoot DNA Analysis Reveals Human Hybrid … Seriously?” tsemrinpoche.com, January 17, 2013, https://tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/yeti-bigfoot-sasquatch/researcher-says-bigfoot-dna-analysis-reveals-human-hybrid-…-seriously.html.
32) See commentary by Smith regarding Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, “L’Almasty, Yé du Caucase.”
33) This encounter was recorded when the witness, Koshokoev Erzhib, was 70 years old in Koffmann, “L’Almasty, Yé du Caucase,” appears in Part 2, in “Lovers of Hemp Seed and Water Melons.”
34) Zhou, “Fifty Years,” 118; Katy Byron, “Chinese researchers to relaunch 'Bigfoot' search,” CNN, October 10, 2010, http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/10/09/china.bigfoot.search/index.html; Debenat, Asian Wild Man, 133 - 34, sources British archaeologist and traveler Shackley’s Still Living?, 83; Myra Shackley, “The Chinese Yeti,” in Wildmen: Yeti, Sasquatch and the Neanderthal Enigma (Thames & Hudson, 1983), http://bigfootencounters.com/creatures/yeti.htm; Wren, “On the trail of the wild man of China”; Interview with witness in “Is China's 'Bigfoot' real? - Finding the yeren,” South China Morning Post, August 25, 2018, https://youtu.be/vRk8mvZAwAg, 3:25.
35) Debenat, Asian Wild Man, 137, sources Frank E. Poirier, Hu Hongxing, and Chung-min Chen, “The Evidence for Wildman in Hubei Province, People's Republic of China.”
36) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 336 - 37, sources Brad Steiger’s Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts from the Darkside (Canton, MI: Visible Ink Press, 2011), 229.
37) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 12; Alex Naumov, “Russian scientists use Google maps to find yeti,” Pravda, March 25, 2009, https://pravdareport.com/society/107296-google_yeti.
38) Zoological journalist and director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, Richard Freeman, has participated in several Asian expeditions in the 21st century, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Freeman_(cryptozoologist); Indian army mountaineers in Nepal Himalayas discover footprints in April 2019, “Indian Army Spots Evidence of Yeti,” May 1, 2019,
https://tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/one-minute-story/indian-army-spots-evidence-of-yeti.
39) Nick Redfern, “Russia 2008: Search for the Wildman,” https://almasty.blogspot.com, according to team-member Adam Davies.
40) Ståhlberg and Svanberg, “Wildmen in Central Asia,” 1 - 8; Zhou, “Fifty Years,” 118 - 128. Recent DNA analysis results, Sarah Zhang, “DNA Reveals the Yeti Is Actually a Bunch of Bears,” TheAtlantic.com, November 28, 2017, https://theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/yeti-dna-sequencing/546806.
41) David Gerlach, “Why Jane Goodall Believes in Bigfoot (Video),” March 28, 2015, https://livescience.com/50295-video-why-jane-goodall-believes-in-bigfoot.html.
42) Russell A. Mittermeier and Anthony B. Rylands, “New primates described from 1 January 1990 to 1 February 2020,” IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group, http://primate-sg.org/new_species; Beth Gavrilles, “Scientists predict number of undiscovered mammal species,” Phys.org, May 16, 2018, https://phys.org/news/2018-05-scientists-undiscovered-mammal-species.html.
43) “Tapanuli Orangutan Pongo tapanuliensis,” SpeciesOnTheBrink.org, https://speciesonthebrink.org/species/tapanuli-orangutan; Stephen Leahy, “Hydroelectric dam threatens to wipe out world's rarest ape,” NationalGeographic.com, March 4, 2019, https://nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/08/tapanuli-orangutan-rarest-ape-threatened-dam-news.
44) Michael Greshko and Maya Wei-haas, “New species of ancient human discovered in the Philippines,” NationalGeographic.com, April 10, 2019, https://nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/04/new-species-ancient-human-discovered-luzon-philippines-homo-luzonensis.
45) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 87 - 90; Bayanov, “Historical Evidence,” 23, states that researcher Porshnev felt they were relicts of Neanderthals.
46) Ståhlberg and Svanberg, “Wildmen in Central Asia,” 5 - 6; Suzanne Cachel professor of anthropology at Rutgers University makes the claim of the absence of a skeletal or fossil record in “Book Reviews” in Cryptozoology 4 (1985): 95.
47) Genetic conditions include ambras syndrome, a type of hypertrichosis, Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 115; Jon Johnson, “What is hypertrichosis?” Medical News Today, November 16, 2017, https://medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320048.
48) The first records of Zana were by Boris Porshnev, “The Struggle for Troglodytes,” reprinted in The Relict Hominoid Inquiry 6 (2017): 148 - 52. https://isu.edu/media/libraries/rhi/essays/PORSHNEV-FORMATTED.pdf; Igor Bourtsev/Burtsev, “A Skeleton Still Buried and a Skull Unearthed: The Story of Zana,” from Dmitri Bayanov’s In the footsteps of the Russian Snowman, http://bigfootencounters.com/articles/zana.htm; Debenat, Asian Wild Man, 101 - 02; “Was Russian 'Bigfoot' actually an African slave?” Channel 4, November 1, 2013, https://channel4.com/press/news/was-russian-bigfoot-actually-african-slave; Jennifer Newton and Jay Akbar, “Was 19th Century apewoman a yeti?” DailyMail.com, April 4, 2015, https://dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3025466/Was-19th-Century-Siberian-apewoman-yeti-6ft-6in-Russian-serf-outrun-horse-not-human-according-DNA-tests.html.
49) Some Bhutanese believe that yetis possess a small talisman called a dipshing which can turn them invisible, Capper, Daniel S. “The Friendly Yeti,” 6, sources Kunsang Choden, Bhutanese Tales of the Yeti (Bangkok: White Lotus Company, 1997), x-xi; Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 84 - 85, 195 - 97; Lisa A. Shiel’s, Forbidden Bigfoot: Exposing the Controversial Truth about Sasquatch, Stick Signs, UFOs, Human Origins, and the Strange Phenomena in Our Own Backyards (Lake Linden, Michigan: Jacobsville Books, 2013) and Jack Kewaunee Lapseritis, The Sasquatch People and Their Interdimensional Connection (Comanche Spirit Publishing, 2011) and Lapseritis, The Psychic Sasquatch: And their UFO Connection (Blue Water Publishing, 1998).
50) Dionizjusz Czubala collected many almas abduction/kidnapping accounts and discusses them in his article, “Mongolian Contemporary Legends: Field Research Report, Part Three, Legends about Almas, the Abominable Snowman,” Foaftale News, 31 (1993): 1-4, http://folklore.ee/FOAFtale/ftn31.pdf; Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 253 - 54, Redfern discusses Loren Coleman’s research into Bigfoot sex and abductions detailed in her book, Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America (NY, USA: Paraview-Pocket Books, 2003).
51) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 262, 265, Redfern states that unlike during the 1970s, “Today, the vast majority of Bigfoot investigators are intolerant of the idea that there might be a link between cryptid apes and aliens.”
Sources:
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Think Anomalous is created by Jason Charbonneau. Research by Clark Murphy. Illustrations by V. R. Laurence. Music by Josh Chamberland. Animation by Brendan Barr. Sound design by Will Mountain and Josh Chamberland.
Nearly everyone in the English-speaking world has heard stories of Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, and most have heard of the Yeti as well. But there are many ancient traditions of wild hominoids in Asia that are little known in Western culture, supported by hundreds of recorded sightings. These encounters have made their mark in Asian culture, and spurred a number of scientific expeditions. But despite the efforts of some of history’s greatest scientists and explorers, there is still a shortage of physical evidence for the creatures’ existence, and their true nature remains a mystery.
The Hominoids
A hominoid is any tailless ape or monkey, though the term is also used to refer more generally to any bipedal creature that resembles a human.(1) A Cryptid Hominoid is any hominoid whose existence has been postulated, but not proven. Many in the scientific community use the term, “relict hominoid,” assuming the beings to be survivors of a species commonly thought to be extinct.(2) Witnesses in Asia, however, tend to use terms specific to their region, or refer to the beings as “wild men,” or “wild women,” or simply as animals, beasts, or creatures.
People see different hominoids in different parts of Asia, but descriptions converge on a few defining characteristics. The creatures are usually entirely covered in hair, though some have bare patches on their faces and hands. They are most frequently described as being black, brown, reddish, or yellowish in colour. Some are as short as a meter tall, while others exceed 3 meters, or 10 feet in height. Sightings occur across the continent, but they are most commonly reported along mountain ranges, or in remote locations and densely forested areas. The hominoids are said to make a range of noises, from grunts to screeching sounds, but they’re never heard to speak a human language.(3)
There are several distinct traditions of wild hominoids in the area currently occupied by Russia. The Kabardian people of the northwest caucasus call these beings almasty, which translates to “forest-man” or “wild man.”(4) The almasty are described as being smaller than the average person. They eat plants, fruits, and small animals, and are known to steal foods from local people.(5) The Teleut of southern Siberia speak of the almys, variously translated as “hairy people” or “evil spirits.”(6) In Mongolia, people call these beings almas, a word translated as “demon” or “witch” in other contexts.(7) The almas is said to be a large human-looking creature between one-and-a-half to two meters tall, covered almost entirely in thick red, brown, black, or yellowish hair, and with a face similar to a human’s, but with more ape-like features.(8) Like the American Bigfoot, the almas is said to have a very foul odor. According to Russian hominologist Boris Porshnev, the almas are primarily found in the Gobi Desert and the western province of Khovd.(9)
In China, people call the hominoids they see, yeren, which translates to “wild person,” or maoren, meaning “hairy men.”(10) A large proportion of sightings occur in the dense Shennongjia Forest in Hubei province.(11) Yeren range in height from 2 to 2.5 meters with footprints that are 30 to 40 cm in length. They are usually described as having reddish-brown hair, but are sometimes described as being grey, black, brownish-yellow, and in a few cases, at least, even white.(12)
The earliest inhabitants of the Himalayas, the Lepchā, speak of encounters with an ape-like creature they call chu mung, which translates to “glacier spirit.” They consider this spirit to be the god of hunting and “lord of all forest beasts.”(13) Though known by many names, the hominoids seen in the Tibetan Himalayas are most commonly known as yeti, in English, a name derived from the Tibetan words for “rocky place,” or “cliff,” and “bear.” Contrary to popular belief, yetis are typically seen to be covered in long brown, grey, black, or reddish hair, but not in white hair, as they’re frequently depicted. There are many regional variations of the creature across the Himalayas: the people of Bhutan alone describe at least two or three different types of beasts of differing size and color.(14)
In India, locals know these hominoids as the mande burung or “forest man.” The creature is said to be nearly three meters tall, and to share many similarities with the yeti. There are reports of hominoids in the South Pacific, too. Indonesia’s Nage tribespeople on the island of Flores speak about ebu gogo, an upright walking ape, just short of a meter, or three feet tall. The ebu gogo are said to live in caves, and steal food and children from neighboring peoples.(15)
Similar traditions of wild hominoids can be found on every inhabited continent but Antarctica. The Indigenous Australians call these beings the yowie.(16) The indigenous Amazonian people of the state of Mato Grosso in Brazil call them the mapinguari, meaning “thick bushes.”(17) Despite minimal to no contact between these cultures for most of human history, the hominoids that people describe from Canada to Mongolia share a number of commonalities, like hairy bodies, foul odor, and a swift gait.(18)
Historical Records
The evidence for cryptid hominoids on the Asian continent dates back thousands of years. The 3800-year-old Mesopotamian odyssey, The Epic of Gilgamesh, features a character named Enkidu, a hairy, beast-like wild man. Enkidu first lives among the animals before slowly adjusting to city life. Russian hominoid researcher, Marie-Jeanne Koffman, identified several references to hairy hominoids in the bible, sometimes translated as “satyrs,” for the woodland deities from classical mythology.(19) Two Phoenician bowls dated to the 6th to 8th centuries BCE portray the hunting and killing of a large hominoid covered in hair.(20) A mirror from the north Caucasus region dated to the 6th or 7th century BCE depicts two hairy bipeds among the local animals, though there are no such apes in the area.(21)
In the late 4th century BCE, a Macedonian admiral under the command of Alexander the Great was travelling the Indus River when he saw a shore lined with huts, and 600 beast-like people that were fully covered in hair. He claimed that the people had nails like claws, and wielded primitive wooden spears.(22) A historian from the Chinese Tang dynasty was among the first of many commentators to claim that the forests of Hubei province were home to a group of “wildmen.”(23) A record from the 17th-century makes passing mention of “hairy men as tall as three meters” in the caves of the mountains of Fangxian County, stating that they often came down to the villages below to hunt chickens and dogs.(24) The Tibetan Mani Kabum, a twelfth-century chronicle, claims that Buddhist deities mated and created human-monkey hybrids. Images of hair-covered hominoids appear in Buddhist scrolls, manuscripts, and murals dating back to the eighteenth century.(25)
Around the year 1400, a German traveler named Johann Schiltberger was captured by Turkish forces and held prisoner in Mongolia, where he learned of wild people living in the mountains there. He later wrote that they were almost completely covered in hair, with only their faces and hands exposed. They ate “anything” they could find, and acted like “wild beasts.” Schiltberger claimed that a male and female were captured and gifted to the Mongol Prince, although it’s not clear that Schlitberger ever saw the beings, and there is no other record of their captivity.(26)
In the late 19th century, the Russian Explorer Nikolay Przewalski investigated reports of a large, black, bipedal animal, which the Mongols called kung-guressu, or “man-beast.” In 1872, Przewalski’s Tibetan guides showed him a pelt that they said was one of the animals’, but he was sure it was a bear’s. The next year, however, Przewalski saw a creature from a distance in Qinghai province, China, that his guides identified as a kung-guressu. Though Przewalski insisted that it was just a bear, he admitted that it had an “unusual long body” and a “hump” on its back.(27)
Scientific Searches
In 1921, explorers on the British Everest Reconnaissance Expedition found human-like footprints in the snow at 6400 meters altitude, which Charles Howard-Bury believed were left by a “loping” grey wolf. His Sherpa guides, however, believed that they were left by a human-like beast they called the metoh-kangmi. The find led to a surge of media interest in the yeti, and inspired further expeditions. In the initial push to get the story out, a british reporter mistranslated the Tibetan word, “metoh” as “filthy,” and creatively dubbed the creature the “abominable snowman,” a name that still persists in popular culture.(28)
By the 1950s, the global effort to reach the summit of Mount Everest brought more experienced mountaineers to the Himalayas, and helped unearth more evidence of the Yeti. On an expedition in 1951, English mountaineer, Eric Shipton, and his team found large footprints in the snow when they were nearly 100 km from Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal. Each print was roughly 30 cm long, and the tracks continued for over 1.5 kilometers.(29) Shipton’s photos of the prints were widely published, and they sparked another wave of interest in the Yeti. Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay found prints on Mount Everest in 1953, and there have been many more prints, scalps, and other samples found since. DNA analysis has shown many of these samples to belong to known animals like bears, or even humans.(30) Other alleged evidence, like prints and hairs found in the wild, cannot be identified at all.(31)
In 1959, Marie-Jeanne Koffmann and some russian colleagues began documenting sightings of almasties in the Caucasus, and by the fall of the Soviet Union, they had collected over 500 eyewitness reports.(32) One involved a former Soviet officer who related an encounter with a female almasty near the end of the Second World War. He claimed that he and his men came upon the creature in a hemp field, and saw her chewing on the ends of the plant’s stems. He estimated her to be 1.80 m tall, or 5 ft 11, and said she was wearing a tattered Kabardian kaftan, a kind of robe. She was covered in long reddish hair, similar to that of a buffalo, and had large breasts that hung to her belly. She immediately fled when she noticed the soldiers.(33)
Interest in the yeren intensified after a famous sighting in China on the 14th of May, 1976. Just before sunrise, six managers of the Shennongjia Forest Service in Hubei province were driving along a road through the forest when a hairy reddish hominoid crossed their headlights. They reported their encounter to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which prompted several scientific expeditions that eventually collected more than 400 sightings from the Shennongjia forest. They also found some footprints, hair, and feces that could not be identified by laboratory analysis.(34) In 1982, Hu Hongxing of Wuhan University, along with two Ohio State University anthropologists, collected witness reports in the Shennongjia, and found tracks, hair, and scat, as well as several dens with bamboo nests that hinted at the presence of a large mammal. Analysis of the scat showed it to be largely the same as alleged yeren samples collected in previous expeditions, and indicated a diet of plants and insects.(35)
In October 1994, the Chinese government established the Committee for the Search for Strange and Rare Creatures. At the time, members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences thought that the yeren was an unknown species of primate, but by 1999, most had declared their firm belief that such a being did not exist.(36) Despite the limitations of the evidence collected, there is still strong interest in the search for cryptid hominoids in Asia. In 2009, city officials in Kemerovo in southern central Russia assembled a team of scientists to search for evidence of undiscovered hominoids. Their efforts turned up two identical hominoid footprints, made thousands of years apart.(37) Richard Freeman, director of the Center for Fortean Zoology, continues to make regular expeditions to various regions of Asia.(38) His teams have collected bones and bone fragments, patches of hair, and a number of first-hand accounts of the almasty and other hominoids.(39)
Debate
Claims of cryptid hominoids in Asia have attracted limited interest among mainstream anthropologists and ethnobiologists. Academics point to the meagre body of physical evidence, especially the shortage of clearly anomalous furs and hides, as an indication that the hominoids that people see are either mistaken bears and other animals, or outright fabrications. Most of the physical samples collected in Asia have been lost, or were proven to have belonged to known animals.(40) Despite a hundred years of expeditions, no one has managed to find even a single full corpse or skeleton. Still, there are a few academics who have spoken encouragingly of research on cryptid hominoids. A notable example is the English primatologist, Jane Goodall, who spoke to Native Americans who had seen and heard the Sasquatch. In 2002, she stated that she is certain that this creature exists, like other similar creatures around the world.(41)
Most cryptozoologists, or those who study cryptids specifically, take the view that the mysterious hominoids are undiscovered apes. Since the year 2000, we have identified 93 new species and subspecies of primates, four of which are apes, and scientists estimate there are likely around 300 species of mammals left to be discovered.(42) The incredibly rare Tapanuli orangutan, for example, was only first reported in 1939, and not formally identified until 2017.(43) Homo Luzonensis, an archaic human from the modern Philippines, was only recognized as a distinct species in 2019, based on bones not found until 2007.(44) Other cryptozoologists argue that the creatures are descendents of hominids thought to be extinct, like neanderthal, homo erectus, or Gigantopithecus.(45) Skeptics reject this possibility and point out that there is no fossil or skeletal evidence to support this kind of an evolutionary progression to the current day.(46) It’s possible that some of the alleged hominoids that people see are actually just bears, which are known to walk on their hind legs in rare instances. It’s also possible that some alleged “wild men” are just human beings with genetic conditions that cause excessive hair growth.(47)
Other historical encounters with Asian hominoids may in fact have been contacts with other subspecies of homo sapiens, or people of races unfamiliar to the witnesses. One possible example is the Abkhazian legend of Zana, an alleged “wild woman” said to have been domesticated in the late 19th century, who lived until as late as the 1890s. Beginning in the early 1960s, zoologist Alexander Mashkovtsev, and later, historian Boris Porshnev, investigated the case, and spoke to a few of the then-elderly people who had lived alongside Zana and seen her first-hand. The witnesses said that Zana had been captured in the wild and was eventually sold to a nobleman in the village of Tkhina. Her skin was black or grey, and she was covered in tousled reddish-black hair, with a thick mane hanging down her back. Though ferocious and wild, at first, she was eventually taught to obey her master, and perform simple tasks, though she never learned to speak. Zana produced several offspring by local men, four of which survived into adulthood and had children of their own. The youngest of these, a man named Khwit, died in 1954. In 2013, Geneticist Bryan Sykes tested Khwit’s skull and other bones, as well as the DNA of Zana’s living descendents. His analysis revealed that Zana’s DNA was 100% homo sapien, but completely anomalous to the region: Sykes believed that her ancestors must have migrated from Africa over 100,000 years ago. Still, the theory that Zana was human does not explain the accounts of her beast-like nature and appearance, though it’s possible that these details were merely inventions, or distortions in memory.(48)
Several researchers have argued that there is a connection between cryptid hominoids and other anomalous phenomena. Lisa Shiel and Jack Kewaunee Lapseritis have explored the connections between Bigfoot, UFOs, and other anomalous phenomena. Like a lot of anomalies, the hominoids tend to play the mythological role of the trickster, in that they frequently confuse, frustrate, or bewilder their witnesses. Cryptid hominoids have also been said to vanish on the spot, communicate telepathically, and cause periods of missing time: all hallmarks of UFO encounters.(49) The folklorist, Dionizjusz Czubala, has published accounts of people being abducted by hair-covered hominoids in Mongolia, and in some cases, producing hybrid offspring.(50) It may be significant that UFOs are associated with humanity’s future in space, while cryptid hominoids are associated with our past on earth, in that they seem to represent an earlier stage of our evolution from other apes. However, accounts containing explicitly paranormal or UFO-related elements are only a small fraction of all reported sightings of hominoids in Asia, and around the world.
The suggestion of a paranormal connection has proven to be contentious in cryptozoology, and many researchers reject it outright.(51) They argue that the hominoids in question are flesh-and-blood creatures, and that the search for them is most likely to succeed if it is organized under a physicalist rubric, and focused on physical proofs, as in any other branch of zoology.
Conclusion
Stories of hairy apes and “wild men” are by no means confined to North America, or the Himalayan mountains. They occur all around the world, but there is a particular diversity of sightings and traditions in Asia. The fact that people all across that continent and all around the world see such similar beings speaks to the reality of the phenomenon. But whether these elusive beings are flesh-and-blood animals, supernatural entities, or mental fabrications, is still hotly debated.
Notes:
1) Gene/Jean Brown, “Difference Between Hominids and Hominoids,” DifferenceBetween.net, January 6, 2020, http://differencebetween.net/science/difference-between-hominids-and-hominoids.
2) Dmitri Bayanov, “Historical Evidence for the Existence of Relict Hominoids,” The Relict Hominoid Inquiry, 1 (2012): 23, https://isu.edu/media/libraries/rhi/essays/Bayanov_rev.pdf.Bayanov.
3) Daniel S. Capper, “The Friendly Yeti,” Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture 6:1 (2012): 76, https://aquila.usm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=16181&context=fac_pubs, sources Myra Shackley, Still Living?: Yeti, Sasquatch, and the Neanderthal Enigma (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1983), 62, and René de Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Where the Gods are Mountains (trans. Michael Bullock, New York: Reynal and Company, 1957), 160; Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, “L’Almasty, Yé du Caucase / The Almasty, Yeti of the Caucasus,” Archéologia, no. 269 (June 1991): 24-43, translation by Malcolm Smith, https://malcolmscryptids.blogspot.com/2012/03/creatures-of-caucasus-1-background.html, one witness describes almasty as making an audible “mumble” when eating. A popular North American encounter where unusual sounds were recorded in 1972 is known as the “Sierra Sounds.”
4) See commentary by Smith regarding Koffmann, “L’Almasty, Yé du Caucase.”
5) For more on almasty diet see Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, “L’Almasty du Caucase - Mode de vie d’un humanoide,” Archéologia, no. 276 (February 1992), 52-65, English: “The Almasty of the Caucasus – Life Style of a Hominoid,” The Relict Hominoid Inquiry 4 (2015): 106-123, translation by Edward Winn, https://isu.edu/media/libraries/rhi/research-papers/Koffmann_2.pdf.
6) Sabira Ståhlberg and Ingvar Svanberg, “Wildmen in Central Asia,” Anthropos: International Review of Anthropology and Linguistics 112 (July 2017): 6,
https://researchgate.net/publication/318563173_Wildmen_in_Central_Asia.
7) Ståhlberg and Svanberg, “Wildmen in Central Asia,” 3.
8) Nathan Wenzel, "The Legend of the Almas: A Comparative and Critical Analysis," Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection 801 (2009), 9, https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/801.
9) Ståhlberg and Svanberg, “Wildmen in Central Asia,” 3, sources Boris Porshnev, “The Troglodytidae and the Hominidae in the Taxonomy and Evolution of Higher Primates,” Current Anthropology 15/4 (1974): 449-450, http://alamas.ru/eng/publicat/Porshnev_Trog.htm; Ivor Montagu, “The Wild Man of the Gobi,” Animals 5/3 (1964): 84-92.
10) Ståhlberg and Svanberg, 8, authors give translation of “wild person.” Guoxing Zhou, "The Status of the Wildman Research in China," Cryptozoology 1 (1982): 13-23, http://bigfootencounters.com/biology/zhou.htm.
11) Guoxing Zhou, “Fifty Years of Tracking the Chinese Wildman,” The Relict Hominoid Inquiry 1 (2012): 118, https://isu.edu/media/libraries/rhi/research-papers/Zhou__Tracking-the-Chinese-Wildman.pdf.
12) Nick Redfern, The Bigfoot Book: The Encyclopedia of Sasquatch, Yeti and Cryptid Primates (Detroit, MI, USA: Visible Ink Press, 2016), 334 - 37; Jeff Meldrum and Guoxing Zhou, “Footprint evidence of the Chinese Yeren,” The Relict Hominoid Inquiry 1 (2012): 58, https://isu.edu/media/libraries/rhi/brief-communications/Footprint-Evidence-of-Chinese-Yeren.pdf.
13) Anna Sawerthal and Davide Torri, "Imagining the Wild Man: Yeti Sightings in Folktales and Newspapers of the Darjeeling and Kalimpong Hills," in Transcultural Encounters in the Himalayan Borderlands: Kalimpong as a “Contact Zone,” Editor Markus Viehbeck (Heidelberg University Publishing, 2017), 128, https://researchgate.net/publication/322519965_Imagining_the_Wild_Man_Yeti_Sightings_in_Folktales_and_Newspapers_of_the_Darjeeling_and_Kalimpong_Hills, who cites Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Where the Gods Are Mountains, 136; “Lepchā,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://britannica.com/topic/Lepcha.
14) Odette Tchernine, In Pursuit of the Abominable Snowman (New York, NY, USA: Taplinger Publishing Company, 1971), 63 - 65, describes 3 types; Capper, “The Friendly Yeti,” identifies 4 types; Sawerthal and Torri, "Imagining the Wild Man,” 125, state that Sherpa identify 3 types and Himalayan identify 2 broad types; Jean-Paul Debenat, The Asian Wild Man: Yeti, Yeren & Almasty Cultural Aspects and Evidence of Reality, ebook edition (Hancock House Publishers, 2014), 26, discusses Tom Slick identifying 2 types.
15) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 119 - 21, It’s noteworthy that in 2003 several skeletal remains of “hobbits” were discovered in a cave and dubbed homo floresiensis, Gregory Forth, “Hominids, hairy hominoids and the science of humanity,” Anthropology Today 21(3) (June 2005), 13,
https://deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/hominids-hairy-hominoids-and-the-science-of-humanity-l0XtXPkJrQ.
16) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 22 - 25, 338 - 40, First descriptions of the creature appeared in 1842 in the Australian and New Zealand Monthly Magazine.
17) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 171 - 74, sources Randy Merill “Mapinguari: Legendary Man-Eating Cryptid of the Amazon Rainforest,” https://demonhunterscompendium.blogspot.com/2013, and Bernard Heuvelmans On the Track of Unknown Animals (London, UK: Routledge, 1995). Ornithologist David Oren has theorized the mapinguari to be surviving giant sloths, possibly Mylodons, which are thought extinct.
18) Debenat, Asian Wild Man, 136, sources Frank E. Poirier and colleagues who note the similarities in the bigfoot/sasquatch of North America and China despite minimal cultural contact, Frank E. Poirier, Hu Hongxing, and Chung-min Chen, “The Evidence for Wildman in Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China,” Cryptozoology 2 (Winter 1983): 25.
19) “Epic of Gilgamesh,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://britannica.com/topic/Epic-of-Gilgamesh; Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, “Les Hominoides reliques de l’antiquité / Relic Humanoids in Antiquity,” Archéologia 307 (December 1994): 38-42, https://sasquatchcanada.com/uploads/9/4/5/1/945132/307.pdf; Debenat, Asian Wild Man, 114 - 17, sources info from Koffmann and interpretation by Robert Silverberg’s Gilgamesh the King (Arbor House Publishers, NY: 1984).
20) Debenat, Asian Wild Man, 114, the Phoenician cup was discovered in Cyprus between 1865 and 1876; Marie-Jeanne Koffmann discusses it in detail in “Les Hominoides reliques de l’antiquité,” 34 - 42.
21) Discovered in 1903 in Keremes of the North Caucasus region, Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, “Les Hominoides reliques de l’antiquité;” Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, “Relic Humanoids in Antiquity,” Archéologia / Archaeologia 308 (January 1995): 57-66, https://sasquatchcanada.com/uploads/9/4/5/1/945132/308.pdf.
22) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 5 - 7, Redfern sources the Greek historian, Arrian, born in 86 CE, who chronicled much of Alexander the Great’s life in Anabasis Alexandri (English title: The Anabis of Alexander) E. Iliff Robson translation, Arrian, with an English Translation by E. Iliff Robson. Anabasis Alexandri (Books I-IV). Vol. 1 (Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press, 1967), Chapter 23 of Book VIII contains the encounter of Admiral Nearchus with the hairy natives, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/arrian-bookVIII-India.asp.
23) Guoxing Zhou, “Zhou Guoxing on the Chinese Wildman or Yeren, Yeh-ren: A.D. 618 - 907,” http://bigfootencounters.com/articles/zhou.htm.
24) Sources reference newspaper articles published in Beijing/Peking, Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 335; Christopher S. Wren, “On the trail of the wild man of China,” The New York Times, June 5, 1984, https://nytimes.com/1984/06/05/science/on-the-trail-of-the-wild-man-of-china.html; Zhou, “The Status of the Wildman Research in China.”
25) Documentary, Yeti: Hunt for the Wildman (Icon Films, 2001), director Harry Marshall, (https://youtu.be/k5UC6mhRlyU, Richard's Room 101, September 1, 2019) at 5:30 shows an 18th-century Tibetian/Bhuanese medical recipe which is also discussed by Koffmann, “Relic Humanoids in Antiquity,” Archéologia / Archaeologia, no. 308 (January 1995): 59 - 60; Translations and discussion of illustrations by Emanuel Vlček, “Diagnosis of the 'Wild Man' According to Buddhist Literary Sources from Tibet, Mongolia and China,” Man 60 (October 1960): 153-155, https://jstor.org/stable/2797059 and http://bigfootencounters.com/biology/Emanuel-Vlcek.htm; Capper, Daniel S. “The Friendly Yeti,” 6 - 8, 11, sources R. A. Stein, Tibetan Civilization, trans. J. E. Stapleton Driver (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972), 46 and Larry G. Peters, The Yeti: Spirit of Himalayan Forest Shamans (Delhi: Nirala Publications, 2004), 30 - 31; Tchernine, In Pursuit of the Abominable Snowman, 64.
26) Johann Schiltberger, The bondage and travels of Johann Schiltberger, a native of Bavaria, in Europe, Asia, and Africa, 1396-1427, trans. J. Buchan Telfer (London: Hakluyt Society, 1879), https://archive.org/details/bondagetravelsof00schirich, iv, 35, 139, the Russian researcher and translator, Professor P. Bruun, provides the note; Ståhlberg and Svanberg, “Wildmen in Central Asia,” 2; Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 10 - 11, Redfern cites David Hatcher Childress’s Yetis, Sasquatch & Hairy Giants (Kemptom, Ill: Adventures Unlimited Press, 2010) who translated Schiltberger’s record and points to the Tian Shan Mountains; “Johann Schiltberger: German Noble,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://britannica.com/biography/Johann-Schiltberger.
27) Przhevalski, Nikolaĭ Mikhaĭlovich, Mongolia, the Tangut Country, And the Solitudes of Northern Tibet, Being a Narrative of Three Years’ Travel In Eastern High Asia, volume II, trans. Morgan, E. Delmar (London: S. Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1876), 249 - 251. https://archive.org/details/mongoliatangutco02przh/mode/2up.
28) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 337-38; Sawerthal and Torri, "Imagining the Wild Man,” 127.
29) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 254 - 56, The details of the expedition are summarized in the Peter Steele title Eric Shipton: Everest & Beyond (Seattle, WA: Mountaineers Books, 1998).
30) Debenat, Asian Wild Man, 24 - 26, 31 - 33; Thumb and finger analysis: “Yeti finger mystery solved by Edinburgh scientists,” BBC.com, December 27, 2011, https://bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-16316397; Michelle Starr, “Latest DNA Analysis Shows The Yeti Are Actually Just a Bunch of Bears,” ScienceAlert.com, November 29, 2017, https://sciencealert.com/dna-analysis-yeti-samples-asian-bears-no-proof-of-cryptids; “Was It a Yeti? Bigfoot? Hair DNA Reveals Monsters' True Identity,” NBCnews.com, July 2, 2014, https://nbcnews.com/science/weird-science/was-it-yeti-bigfoot-hair-dna-reveals-monsters-true-identity-n144986; Bryan C. Sykes et al., “Genetic analysis of hair samples attributed to yeti, bigfoot and other anomalous primates,” Proceedings Biological Sciences 281(1789), August 22, 2014, https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4100498.
31) Hair samples discovered by Joshua Gates in 2009 in Bhutan which underwent forensic analyst concluded that the hair contained an unknown DNA sequence, Veenu Sandal, “Mystery behind yetis and their existence,” SundayGuardianLive.com, May 4, 2019, https://sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/mystery-behind-yetis-existence; more on Gates’ evidence in “Ketchum Bigfoot DNA Study 2011 - 2013 Timeline of Bigfoot DNA Events,” OregonBigfoot.com, February 13, 2013, https://oregonbigfoot.com/melba-ketchum-Bigfoot-DNA-study_2011.php; Lee Rannals, “Bigfoot Is Real, And We Have DNA To Prove It: Researchers,” tsemrinpoche.com, September 17, 2012, https://tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/yeti-bigfoot-sasquatch/bigfoot-is-real-and-we-have-dna-to-prove-it-researchers.html; April Flowers, “Researcher Says Bigfoot DNA Analysis Reveals Human Hybrid … Seriously?” tsemrinpoche.com, January 17, 2013, https://tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/yeti-bigfoot-sasquatch/researcher-says-bigfoot-dna-analysis-reveals-human-hybrid-…-seriously.html.
32) See commentary by Smith regarding Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, “L’Almasty, Yé du Caucase.”
33) This encounter was recorded when the witness, Koshokoev Erzhib, was 70 years old in Koffmann, “L’Almasty, Yé du Caucase,” appears in Part 2, in “Lovers of Hemp Seed and Water Melons.”
34) Zhou, “Fifty Years,” 118; Katy Byron, “Chinese researchers to relaunch 'Bigfoot' search,” CNN, October 10, 2010, http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/10/09/china.bigfoot.search/index.html; Debenat, Asian Wild Man, 133 - 34, sources British archaeologist and traveler Shackley’s Still Living?, 83; Myra Shackley, “The Chinese Yeti,” in Wildmen: Yeti, Sasquatch and the Neanderthal Enigma (Thames & Hudson, 1983), http://bigfootencounters.com/creatures/yeti.htm; Wren, “On the trail of the wild man of China”; Interview with witness in “Is China's 'Bigfoot' real? - Finding the yeren,” South China Morning Post, August 25, 2018, https://youtu.be/vRk8mvZAwAg, 3:25.
35) Debenat, Asian Wild Man, 137, sources Frank E. Poirier, Hu Hongxing, and Chung-min Chen, “The Evidence for Wildman in Hubei Province, People's Republic of China.”
36) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 336 - 37, sources Brad Steiger’s Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts from the Darkside (Canton, MI: Visible Ink Press, 2011), 229.
37) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 12; Alex Naumov, “Russian scientists use Google maps to find yeti,” Pravda, March 25, 2009, https://pravdareport.com/society/107296-google_yeti.
38) Zoological journalist and director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, Richard Freeman, has participated in several Asian expeditions in the 21st century, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Freeman_(cryptozoologist); Indian army mountaineers in Nepal Himalayas discover footprints in April 2019, “Indian Army Spots Evidence of Yeti,” May 1, 2019,
https://tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/one-minute-story/indian-army-spots-evidence-of-yeti.
39) Nick Redfern, “Russia 2008: Search for the Wildman,” https://almasty.blogspot.com, according to team-member Adam Davies.
40) Ståhlberg and Svanberg, “Wildmen in Central Asia,” 1 - 8; Zhou, “Fifty Years,” 118 - 128. Recent DNA analysis results, Sarah Zhang, “DNA Reveals the Yeti Is Actually a Bunch of Bears,” TheAtlantic.com, November 28, 2017, https://theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/yeti-dna-sequencing/546806.
41) David Gerlach, “Why Jane Goodall Believes in Bigfoot (Video),” March 28, 2015, https://livescience.com/50295-video-why-jane-goodall-believes-in-bigfoot.html.
42) Russell A. Mittermeier and Anthony B. Rylands, “New primates described from 1 January 1990 to 1 February 2020,” IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group, http://primate-sg.org/new_species; Beth Gavrilles, “Scientists predict number of undiscovered mammal species,” Phys.org, May 16, 2018, https://phys.org/news/2018-05-scientists-undiscovered-mammal-species.html.
43) “Tapanuli Orangutan Pongo tapanuliensis,” SpeciesOnTheBrink.org, https://speciesonthebrink.org/species/tapanuli-orangutan; Stephen Leahy, “Hydroelectric dam threatens to wipe out world's rarest ape,” NationalGeographic.com, March 4, 2019, https://nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/08/tapanuli-orangutan-rarest-ape-threatened-dam-news.
44) Michael Greshko and Maya Wei-haas, “New species of ancient human discovered in the Philippines,” NationalGeographic.com, April 10, 2019, https://nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/04/new-species-ancient-human-discovered-luzon-philippines-homo-luzonensis.
45) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 87 - 90; Bayanov, “Historical Evidence,” 23, states that researcher Porshnev felt they were relicts of Neanderthals.
46) Ståhlberg and Svanberg, “Wildmen in Central Asia,” 5 - 6; Suzanne Cachel professor of anthropology at Rutgers University makes the claim of the absence of a skeletal or fossil record in “Book Reviews” in Cryptozoology 4 (1985): 95.
47) Genetic conditions include ambras syndrome, a type of hypertrichosis, Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 115; Jon Johnson, “What is hypertrichosis?” Medical News Today, November 16, 2017, https://medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320048.
48) The first records of Zana were by Boris Porshnev, “The Struggle for Troglodytes,” reprinted in The Relict Hominoid Inquiry 6 (2017): 148 - 52. https://isu.edu/media/libraries/rhi/essays/PORSHNEV-FORMATTED.pdf; Igor Bourtsev/Burtsev, “A Skeleton Still Buried and a Skull Unearthed: The Story of Zana,” from Dmitri Bayanov’s In the footsteps of the Russian Snowman, http://bigfootencounters.com/articles/zana.htm; Debenat, Asian Wild Man, 101 - 02; “Was Russian 'Bigfoot' actually an African slave?” Channel 4, November 1, 2013, https://channel4.com/press/news/was-russian-bigfoot-actually-african-slave; Jennifer Newton and Jay Akbar, “Was 19th Century apewoman a yeti?” DailyMail.com, April 4, 2015, https://dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3025466/Was-19th-Century-Siberian-apewoman-yeti-6ft-6in-Russian-serf-outrun-horse-not-human-according-DNA-tests.html.
49) Some Bhutanese believe that yetis possess a small talisman called a dipshing which can turn them invisible, Capper, Daniel S. “The Friendly Yeti,” 6, sources Kunsang Choden, Bhutanese Tales of the Yeti (Bangkok: White Lotus Company, 1997), x-xi; Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 84 - 85, 195 - 97; Lisa A. Shiel’s, Forbidden Bigfoot: Exposing the Controversial Truth about Sasquatch, Stick Signs, UFOs, Human Origins, and the Strange Phenomena in Our Own Backyards (Lake Linden, Michigan: Jacobsville Books, 2013) and Jack Kewaunee Lapseritis, The Sasquatch People and Their Interdimensional Connection (Comanche Spirit Publishing, 2011) and Lapseritis, The Psychic Sasquatch: And their UFO Connection (Blue Water Publishing, 1998).
50) Dionizjusz Czubala collected many almas abduction/kidnapping accounts and discusses them in his article, “Mongolian Contemporary Legends: Field Research Report, Part Three, Legends about Almas, the Abominable Snowman,” Foaftale News, 31 (1993): 1-4, http://folklore.ee/FOAFtale/ftn31.pdf; Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 253 - 54, Redfern discusses Loren Coleman’s research into Bigfoot sex and abductions detailed in her book, Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America (NY, USA: Paraview-Pocket Books, 2003).
51) Redfern, Bigfoot Book, 262, 265, Redfern states that unlike during the 1970s, “Today, the vast majority of Bigfoot investigators are intolerant of the idea that there might be a link between cryptid apes and aliens.”
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