YETI: THE myth THE Legend or Reality

Yeti

In Himalayan folklore, the Yeti is one of the monstrous creatures. The entity would later come to be referred as the Abominable Snowman in western popular culture. The names yeti and Meh-Teh commonly used by the people indigenous to the region, and are part of their folk beliefs.

Story line of Yeti was first appeared as a side of Western popular culture in the 19th century. The scientific community has commonly considered the Yeti as the result of complex of entangled folk beliefs rather than a large, ape-like creature.

⮚ History

Pre-19^th century:

According to H. Siiger, the Yeti was a part of the pre-Buddhist beliefs of Himalayan people.

19^th century:

In 1832, James Prinsep’s Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal published which accounted of his experiences in northern Nepal. They spotted a tall monstrous creature covered with long dark hair, which seemed to flee in fear. Hodgson concluded it was an orangutan (specie of great apes native to Indonesia and Malaysia).

Yeti’s record of reported footprints was first appeared in 1899 in Laurence Waddell’s among the Himalayas.

20th century:

The reports of footprints was increased with time during the early 20th century when Westerns began making determined attempts to scale many mountains in the area and occasionally reported seeing odd creatures and strange tracks.

In 1952, N. A. Tombazi, a photographer and member of royal Geographical Society, wrote that he saw a creature about 15,000 ft. (4,600 m) near Zemu Glacier (largest glacier in Eastern Himalayan).

He later wrote that he observed the creature from 200 to 300 yd. (180 to 270 m), for about a minute. “Unquestionably, the figure that he saw was exactly like a human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to pull at some dwarf rhododendron bushes. It looked dark against the snow, and as far as I could make out, wore no clothes.” After two hours later, Tombazi and his companions descended the mountain and saw the monstrous creature Yeti’s footprints, described as “similar in shape to those of a man, but only some inches different from early one… The prints were undoubtedly those of a biped.”

Yeti became popular those days and well known persons took interest in it as Western interest in the Yeti peaked dramatically in the 1950s. While attempting the scale of Mount Everest in 1951, Eric Shipton took photographs of a number of large prints in the snow, at about 6,000 m (20,000 ft.) above sea-level. Those photos were the clear evidence of Yeti’s existence.

On 19 March 1954, the Daily Mail published an article in which they described expedition teams getting hair specimens from Yeti’s scalp found in the Pangboche (a village in, Nepal) monastery. The hairs were black to dark brown in color, and fox red in sunlight. The hair was analyzed by Professor Fredric Wood Jones. He made some hair samples and match with the different animals like, bears and orangutans but hair sample did not match with them. He suggested that the hairs sample showed that if they were from the shoulder of a coarse-haired hoofed animal.

21st century:

At a 2011 conference in Russia, participating scientists and aficionado (a person who is very knowledgeable about an activity) declared that they have 95% evidence of the Yeti’s existence. Later, this claim was disputed; American anthropologist and anatomist, Jeffery Meldrum, who was present during the Russian expedition, claimed the evidence found was simply an attempt by local officials to drum up publicity.

A Yeti was captured in Russia in December 2011. In the start, storyline formed that a hunter reported that he saw a bear-like creature, who tried to kill one of his sheep, but as he fired his gun, the creature ran into a forest having two legs. After this a storyline claimed that border patrol soldiers captured a hairy two-legged female creature similar to a gorilla that ate meat and vegetation. Later this was exposed as a publicity stunt for charity.

In April 2019, an Indian army mountaineering expedition team asserted to have spotted mysterious ‘Yeti’ footprints, measuring 81 by 38 centimeters (32 by 15 in), near the Makalu (5th highest mountain) base camp.

⮚ Possible explanations

In 2017, Daniel C. Taylor printed an inclusive analysis of the century-long Yeti literature, giving added evidence to the explanation building on the initial Barun Valley (Himalayan valley situated at the base of Mt. Makalu, Nepal) discoveries. To complete this explanation, Taylor also located a never-before published photograph in the archives of the Royal Geographical Society taken in 1950s by Eric Shipton, that included scratches that are clearly bear nail marks he explained in his book.

⮚ In popular culture

The Yeti has regularly been represented in films, literature, music, and video games.

Films and televisions:

● The Snow Creature (1954), film directed by W. Lee Wilder

● Half Human, or Beast Man Snow Man (1955), film directed by Ishiro Honda

● Man Beast (1956), film directed by Jerry Warren

● e.t.c.

Literature:

● Alternative History, author Harry Turtledove has written stories like “Visitors from the East” (May 2016), “Peace is Better” (May 2016), “Typecasting” (June 2016) and “Three Men and a Sasquatch” (2019) where Yetis, Sasquatch and other related cryptids are real.

Video games:

● In the video game Mr. Nutz, the title character of the game goes through a series of levels before meeting his nemesis Mr. Blizzard who was a Yeti creature

● In the 2006 video game named Titan Quest, Yetis appeared as beast enemies in Act-III (Orient).

Others:

● Walt Disney World’s attraction, Expedition Everest at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, is themed around the folklore of the Yeti and features a 25-foot-tall (7.6 m) audio-animatronic Yeti which appears during the ride.