Yeti, Sasquatch & Hairy Giants

by David Hatcher Childress

  While Rawicz’s story seems to provide more evidence of the reality of the yeti, and it happened in the vicinity of Kanchenjunga, it is now often thought of as a hoax story. Rawicz may have been capitalizing on the fame of the Eric Shipton footprint of 1951. Perhaps his publishers had desired an abominable snowman episode for Rawicz’s book in order for it to become the bestseller that it did indeed become. Shipton, Peter Fleming, the Tibetanologist Hugh Richardson and others have doubted the book’s accuracy.

  Rawicz’s book is exciting enough without any embellishment, and still remains a classic among stories of astonishing survival and bizarre epic journeys. Perhaps, the discrediting of the story was a function of the times. As we have seen in the case of Edmund Hillary and others, while it was fashionable to believe in the yeti in the 1950s and 60s, it became unfashionable to believe in them in the late 70s and 80s; former believers and witnesses changed their stories so as not to appear gullible or dimwitted.

  In a bizarre twist to the amazing tale of The Long Walk, Wikipedia reports that in May of 2009, Witold Ginski, a Polish veteran of WWII living in the UK, made the claim to the press that the story was true but that it was actually his story, and not that of Rawicz. Apparently none of the men mentioned in the story were ever contacted, if they could have been, and the tale seems to be a mixture of fact and fiction.

  In the 1950s, other strange yeti stories came from the area. The British anthropologist Myra Shakley relates that in 1958, Tibetan villagers from Tharbaleh, near the Rongbuk Glacier came upon a drowned yeti. They described the creature as being like a small man with a pointed head and covered with reddish-brown fur.13

  Shakley also mentions that in May of 1957, the Kathmandu Commoner carried a story about a yeti head that had been kept for 25 years in the village of Chilunka, about 50 miles northeast of Kathmandu. The head reportedly had been severed from the corpse of a yeti slain by Nepali soldiers, who had hunted down the creature after it had killed many of their comrades. She then makes a curious note about another specimen, relating that Chemed Rigdzin Dorje, a Tibetan lama, spoke of the existence of a complete mummified yeti.13

  Wow! Not just a hand, foot or scalp, but an entire mummified yeti! Pretty exciting, and, as pointed out earlier, the DNA from mummified parts of genuine yetis could be used to clone a living, but captive yeti—shades of Mighty Joe Young! Somehow scientists would probably not let such an experiment as this pass by if they were given a chance to obtain DNA from a mummified yeti. Perhaps it has happened already.

  That some remote monastery somewhere in the vast reaches of Tibet has a mummified yeti does not seem especially strange. If yetis are real, then their interaction with humans in Tibet and elsewhere must have been going on for many thousands of years. There should be dead yetis, mummified yeti parts, yeti paintings, stories and such. And, indeed there are. An entire mummified yeti has so far not surfaced, but a careful search for the possible location, starting with lama Chemed Rigdzin Dorje and where he lived, might ultimately produce the extremely valuable artifact.

  The Yeti Lonely Hearts Club

  Nepali authors dimonstrate that there is a great deal of lore associated with the yeti, recounting many tales. The yeti is said to sometimes invade monasteries or remote mountain villages. Monks at Thyangboche Monastery, near Mount Everest, claim that a creature, described as a yeti, came out of the forest and loitered around the wall of the monastery. Monks threw food at it, and it became something of a begging nuisance. Finally, the Head Lama ordered it driven away, so the monks got out their cymbals, gongs and horns, and drove the creature back into the forests.

  Yetis, with their great strength and somewhat curious behavior, are believed to be quite dangerous, though they generally avoid humans. Many Sherpas and Tibetans feel that it is extremely bad luck to meet a yeti, and that just to look at one can mean death. Veteran cryptozoologist John Keel reports that, in 1949, newspapers in India carried a story of a Sherpa herdsman named Lakhpa Tensing who was said to have been torn apart by a yeti in the bleak pass of Nangpala near Nanga Parbat. This is one of the highest mountain passes in the world, far beyond the reach of most animals and rarely visited by humans.54

  One might imagine the life of a yeti to be a lonely one. As might be expected, there are a number of tales of lonely and amorous yetis kidnapping humans to be their mates. Such tales are also told of bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and Canada.

  One well publicized tale was told in 1968 by an old Buddhist nun named Noma Dima. This story was published in Nepali newspapers of the time and retold in such books as On the Yeti Trail.2 All direct quotes in the following paragraphs are taken from the book.

  Noma Dima was from a Sherpa family who lived at a remote monastery named Tang-Burje in the Khumbu Himal near Mount Everest. According to Noma Dima’s story, her father had died within a week of her birth and her mother had brought her at a young age to the monastery at Tang-Burje (apparently in the early part of the 20th century).

  At 17, she was fetching water from a stream for the monastery when she was abducted by a male yeti. “Just when I got ready to return a fifth time with my load, somebody at my back lifted me up bodily. I felt hard, rough hair grazing my neck and cheeks. As I cast a glance behind, I was dumbfounded at the sight of a ghastly monster. It was a blood-curdling experience. I lost my power to speak or cry aloud. Within moments, I fell unconscious and I can hardly recollect how long I remained in a stupor.”

  I Married a Yeti

  The yeti eventually took her to a cave that was hidden by thick bushes. The cave was small and natural with the bones of various animals and a strong stench. The yeti warmed her at night by sleeping beside her and fed her small frogs he had collected plus some wild fruits.

  “I barely had an appetite due to nervousness and fear,” said Noma, “Nevertheless, I ate a few fruits. Apparently, this cheered my captor. He did not go out. Throughout the day and the following night, he kept pressing me against his hard, hairy chest. By the next dawn, I had become the unwed wife of my abductor, who was a yeti.”

  In describing the creature, part animal and part man, she is quoted as saying, “The creature was exceptionally tall, taller than any man I have ever seen. He walked on two legs that were shorter in proportion to his huge frame. His feet were not too large and his toes grew far apart. The hands were abnormally long and they touched his knees when he stood erect. His head was unusually small as compared to his huge frame, and rose like a coconut shell from the middle of the forehead (in other words, a pointed scalp). But for his face and palms, hands and feet, his entire body was covered with a long, thick overgrowth of hair. With his sharp and long nails, big teeth set on a sturdy jaw, he could tear animals asunder in no time. While walking, he stood erect on two legs like a human being, but while climbing a steep rock or a snow covered mountain, he used all fours like a monkey. He could climb steep rocks with unimaginable ease and speed. He could leap very high, very wide.”

  During the winter, the Yeti would turn over huge boulders in the frozen streams and collect frogs. He took Noma on excursions by carrying her piggyback and leaping with ease from rock to rock. Once he spied a bull yak roaming below them on ranges that were relatively free of snow, and had her witness his match of strength with the bull.

  “As he stood close to the bull, the creature gave a shrill, yelling cry. Before the bull could get ready, the yeti clutched both his horns. The bull and yeti were engaged in a duel for a few minutes. Whenever the bull tried to raise its head, the yeti forced it down with intense pressure. After a few minutes of trial of strength between the two, the yeti pulled the beast towards a big rock standing behind him. Pulling the bull near its chest, he gave a violent jerk which repulsed it several yards back. Its horns now freed, the bull paused a while and the next moment made a terrible charge at the yeti. For a split second, the creature stood motionless till the bull reached within a yard of his arms. He now swiftly stepped aside with the result that the bull’s head was dashed
against the rock. The bull was dead in no time. The yeti now asked me to come down. When I reached the bull, I found its head cracked into two pieces. Both of us shared a meal of its brain and left the rest for other creatures.”

  After about a year she had morning sickness, as she was now pregnant with a half-human, half-yeti child. She ate little and craved fried bread. One day the yeti left and was gone all night. She sat up in the cave all night out of fright. “Next morning I saw two figures in the distant snowscape taking big strides toward the cave. When both came close, I saw two yetis, but the stranger who came was totally different from my captor. The visitor had long breasts loosely dangling over her nape. It was an aged she-yeti. She spent nearly half an hour examining my body before she went back. When my captor returned after seeing off the visitor, he brought along a few bunches of berries. I relished their sour taste.”

  In the afternoon the yeti bade her to follow him. “After a three-hour walk, I realized that my village was near at hand. I could recognize it from the colorful banners fluttering on poles around the monastery.”

  The yeti gestured that he wanted her to return to her village and that he would visit her. Noma found her mother cooking dinner when she entered her home. “She was stunned to see me attired in deerskin. I narrated to her the entire sequence of my bizarre adventures with the grotesque biped of the snowland.”

  Noma says she gave birth to a boy some six months later. Long hair covered his entire body and though he looked a great deal like a human he had the face of a monkey. Along with his broad chest he had short legs and long arms. “During this entire period,” says Noma, “its father repeatedly called on me, exercising utmost caution to escape the notice of villagers. He would sneak in whenever my mother was away. With his strong sense of hearing, he perceived the sound of footsteps of the approaching person and fled before anyone could enter our home.”

  World Weekly News headline.

  She warned her yeti “husband” not to come to the village, but he continued to make the trips. He would bring fruit for Noma and his son but was afraid of fire and lamps.

  After some time it became known that her son was part yeti and that Noma had been kidnapped by one of the fearsome creatures. The Head Lama of the monastery, where Noma continued to work, had no objection to her employment and recalled several instances of childbirth from the yeti’s union with human females. Also, he was aware of the popular superstition that an untimely end awaited anyone who saw a yeti.

  This 1968 retelling of an event many decades before (I will guess that this happened around 1910) underlines that the superstition of “bad luck” being associated with a yeti was a genuine custom in the Himalayas. Apparently, contact with half man-half yetis was also bad luck.

  A few years went by and the young yeti-manchild would sometimes have problems with other children. The villagers feared that the presence of the young half-yeti would bring calamity on the village, and indeed, the crops for the last three years had been poor. The father yeti was seen by a Sherpa one night which sent a panic through the high mountain village.

  Noma tried to warn the yeti not to return, but nevertheless he returned one night. She told him to leave but he refused to depart before holding his son as he always did. He had already been spotted by the villagers and soon an angry mob, weapons in hand and torches lit, cornered him near Noma’s house.

  Though he was not afraid of their weapons, the torches frightened him and he sustained heavy injuries as the villagers flung spears and kukri knives at him. In a bid to escape he jumped into a crevasse on the edge of town, falling down a virtual cliff from a great height. The villagers were now reassured that the yeti must have died in such a fall.

  Noma believed that her yeti-husband must be dead but he returned to her two weeks later, dropping silently into the room which she shared with the boy. He caressed her face and kissed the sleeping child. He had been cut and burned by the villagers, plus one of his legs was now crippled from his leap into the crevasse.

  Noma relates the sad ending to her story: the yeti had wanted to take his son with him but Noma refused to release him to the life of a yeti. The yeti remained sitting for some time and then got up to leave. He kissed her and picked the boy up in his arms. Suddenly he tore the boy into bits, leaving a small heap of flesh and bones.

  “Before I could utter a word, he rushed out. I had lost both my son and husband. The following morning brought the news that the charred, dead body of a yeti bearing many marks of burns and stab injuries had been found in the stream below the village.”2

  Yeti Sightings of the 1970s

  Yetis hit newspapers around the world in July of 1974 when the Nepalese and Indian newspapers carried stories about a yeti that had attacked and killed some yaks between the in the Khumjung area of Nepal (near Mount Everest and the Arun Valley).

  The story was eventually carried in the lnternational Herald Tribune on July 23, 1974. The entire report read as follows: “A 19-year old Sherpa woman says she encountered the Abominable Snowman while she was tending a herd of yaks in the Himalayan district of Khumbu. RSS, the Nepalese news agency, said that the woman, whose name was not given, was knocked unconscious by the creature, said to be one and half meters tall and hairy. It then killed three yaks.”

  The Sherpani’s name was actually known: she was Lhakpa Dolma, aged 19, of Khumjung village near Everest, who was tending yaks alone in a remote pasture named Machermo, near Gokyo, when she heard the sound of coughing. Looking around she suddenly saw a huge monkey-like creature.

  According to Lhakpa Dolma, the yeti was about one and half meters tall (five feet) and incredibly strong, with a dark complexion, deep-set eyes, a wrinkled forehead and thick, stout fingers and long nails. While the upper part of the body was covered with brown hair, the lower half had a darker tinge. The yeti walked on two feet and on all fours, though it was slower when walking on all fours.

  The creature seized her and carried her to a nearby stream where he dumped her in a steep depression along the banks. She was shocked but not hurt.

  A Buddhist lama holds the Pangboche yeti scalp and hand, circa 1960.

  For the next half hour, she watched in horror as the yeti attacked the yaks, punching them and twisting their horns to break their necks. The yeti killed and ate the brains of three yaks, taking away a portion of one of the yaks. Some of the other yaks were also injured. Other people arrived from Khumjung the next morning and found the dead yaks and stunned girl. The Sherpas put rocks over footprints to preserve them.

  The police from Namche Bazaar came to investigate the incident, making it the first yeti story that was officially investigated by the Nepalese government. Inspector Ramji Bahadur Khatri of Namche Bazaar sent officer-detective Chatra Man Rai to investigate the incident. Rai arrived five days after the incident and was shown the footprints surrounded by stones and took photographs and sketches of the prints. The footprints were approximately 31 centimeters long and 10 centimeters wide.

  No firm conclusion was reached by the Nepalese authorities although, according to Kesar Lall, it was reported in the Nepal Conservation Society newsletter, that “the people involved have no ulterior motive in creating a hoax. In fact, if the Yeti is a living creature the prima facie evidence from the incident at Machermo would constitute ample proof of its presence there on July 11, 1974.”

  On March 27, 1975 The Rising Nepal reported that a trekker from Poland had encountered a yeti in February. Polish trekker Janus Tomaszczuk was with two friends on the Everest trail going up to the highest, most remote yak huts and small lodges. His knee had become swollen and his friends had gone on ahead of him to the Everest camp of Lobuche.

  He tried to make it to the high camp of Lobuche, but his swollen knee was disturbing him so he decided to turn back to the small settlement of Pheriche back down the trail. However, his knee became worse and it was beginning to get dark. A cold wind was blowing and he collapsed onto the trail in exhaustion, climbing into his sleeping bag and sleepi
ng among the boulders along the trail.

  At about 7:30 that evening it was quite dark, except for the gleam of the snow high up on the mountains around him. Then, for a few fleeting moments, he thought he saw a man moving swiftly about 50 meters away. Without thinking, he called out, “Hello! Can you help me? I am here.”

  There was no answer. The creature swiftly walked away, swinging its long arms. It then occurred to Janus that it might be a yeti and he felt a chill down his spine. But he was too exhausted to flee so he lay there in his sleeping bag wondering if he would be attacked later by an abominable snowman.

  The morning came and Tomaszczuk returned down the trail to Pheriche where no one knew of any persons passing that way the night before, which confirmed his suspicions. He returned to Kathmandu where his yeti sighting was published in the newspaper and other publications, thereby joining the lengthy history of yeti lore.1

  The 1986 Yeti Photo

  One of the only known photos of a yeti was taken by a man named Anthony B. Wooldridge in 1986 while trekking in the Arun Valley area of eastern Nepal. Wooldridge told newspaper reporters he had photographed a yeti and provided them with a picture that briefly made news around the world.

  Wooldridge claimed that in March of 1986, he arrived at a steep snowfield shortly after an avalanche had swept along the field and wiped out the trail in front of him. He then spotted the dark figure of a yeti in the distance. He took the photo across the snowfield. Wooldridge later concluded, after much ridicule that it was “probably a rock.”24