YETI -The abominable Snowman

There are plenty of anecdotes and stories of Yeti sightings by village people of the Himalayan regions of Tibet, Nepal and Sikkim. Yeti has also been sighted occasionally in the Pamirs and in the high mountains of Mongolia. Yogi Narharinath, a Nepalese historian, claims he saw the Himalayan “Abominable Snowman” in July 1968 while returning from a pilgrimage to the Mansarovar Lake in western Tibet.
Sensational news came from a small Sherpa village, Machermo, two days’ walk from Namche Bazaar, in July 1974. A 18 years old Sherpa girl, named Lakpa Doma said she had been attacked by a Yeti. The beast killed five of Lakpa Doma’s yaks by twisting their heads by the horns. The girl told that her attacker was darker in color, had shrunken eyes and black-brown hair covering its body. The police also investigated the case and found some footprints measuring 10.1 cm by 30.4 cm nearby. This is the only case of someone actually seeing a supposed Yeti in full view.
“I have one more ambition and it is to find the Snowman” said Sir Edmund Hillary in an address to Yeti-fans in New York after he made the first successful ascent in Mt. Everest. In 1960, he led an extensive search in Khumbu (the Everest region) and Arun Valley of northeastern Nepal for the Yeti. He returned with a scalp of a so called Yeti from the Khumjung monastery and took it to Chicago, London and Paris for laboratory testing. The scalp turned out to be nothing more than a 200-year-old artifact made from the hide of a Himalayan goat. Again, in the early 1970s another scalp from Pangboche monastery was examined in laboratories of Europe. Some examiners declared it a fake, but others, including a parapsychologist, said it was genuine.
The 1950s were the golden age for Yeti legends. Michael Peissel, the archaeologist and explorer, pointed out in 1961 that it was during the 1950s that special licenses (at Pound 400 per Yeti) were introduced by the Government of Nepal for Yeti hunters. An official tourist brochure of the period proclaimed that Nepal was the “land of Mount Everest and the Yeti.”
On April 28, 1988 just below base camp at 4585, John Paul Davidson, the BBC director, saw some tracks on the hillside above the Menlung Valley. He climbed up through the sonw to reach them and, as he got there, became conscious of a figure behind a rock above him. It was cloudy with flurries of snow, so he was unable to fully identify the figure, but reports that the creature he saw was very big indeed. It was a strange and frightening experience, and remains unexplained.
The Yeti was once designated as one of the protected mammals of Nepal. It was also included in the map of Nepalese mammals published by UNICEF and the Wildlife Conservation Section of the Nepal Government. In Kathmandu many hotels, restaurants, travel agents and numerous commercial establishments have adopted the legendary name of Yeti. It serves as the mascot of the Kingdom’s national airlines, Royal Nepal Airlines.
After so many years of searching and investigation, scientists have deduced a few hypotheses on the Yeti’s suspicious existence. One is that it might be the long-extinct giant orangutan of the Himalayan foothills, which survived by taking refuge in the once-remote reaches. If so, it is now probably on the verge of extinction. Another theory says that the animal could be a direct descendant of Peking man or Gigantopithecus of one million years BC. This ape-man could have evolved in obscurity in inhospitable habitats. Some hopeful Yeti advocates think of the Yeti in terms of “a missing link” in anthropology; others say that there is no fast evidence to substantiate a beast as the Yeti, and that the so-called Yeti footprints found in the snow are either of the Himalayan bear or the Tibetan Giant Panda. They staunchly claim that this seemingly elusive creature is the product of fantastic myth and fanciful legend.
Man has conquered the moon, but there are many mysteries on our earth still to be explored and explained. Among them Yeti, the snowman, is one. Ape, subhuman, wild snowman or demon – the myth of the Yeti, lives on. Perhaps someday the Yeti will be found as was the Spiny Babler of Nepal, the Cavemen of Kerala or China’s Giant Panda. Enthusiastic believers have not yet given up their hope of finding the Yeti.