Several stories and Myths surrounding Himalayan Yeti: If your an Indian, then there is a 90 percent probability that you might have heard about the picture of ‘Yeti’. We have heard many different theories of what that animal might be, some say they are extinct, and some say they are secretly hiding and planning to take over the world( Ridiculous right! I Know!!) and there other who claim it to be a god of ancient Indian mythology. Surprisingly most of these overwhelming theories come from people who never even went to Himalayas even once.
Yeti also starred in several of Hollywood blockbusters, from Scooby Doo to Doctor Who, Tintin and Monsters, Inc., the “Abominable Snowman”. He even guest rolled in several video games too.
In a popular opinion, a Yeti is an enormous, shaggy ape-man with huge feet and aggressive sabre-like teeth. Its fur is either grey or white. It is often depicted roaming the snowy mountains alone, a feral throwback to our violent evolutionary past.
But what is Yeti? Does it really exist? or just a figment of our imagination. Research shows that the Yeti figure has its origins in folklore. Yeti is one of several supposed “ape-men”. The character is an ancient and important part of the legends and history of the Sherpa, the communities that live at an average altitude of 12,000 feet in eastern Nepal.
Researcher Shiva Dhakal collected 12 traditional stories in his book Folk Tales of Sherpa and Yeti. Notably yet was depicted as a figure of danger in all most all the stories.
Shiva Dhakal collected 12 traditional stories in his book Folk Tales of Sherpa and Yeti. In the stories, the animal is always a figure of danger.
in one story, “The Annihilation of the Yeti” is about Sherpas seeking revenge on a tormenting group of Yetis. They make a show of drinking alcohol and fighting to encourage the Yetis to follow suit and destroy each other. Instead, the surviving Yetis declare revenge and move up high into the mountains to continue their depredations.
In another story, a local girl is raped by a Yeti and loses her health soon after. In a third, the Yeti grows taller and bigger as the sun rises and the human that sees him loses consciousness and energy.
Intellects around the world believe that perhaps, folktales of Yeti were used as a warning or, likely, for morality, so that kids wouldn’t wander far away and they would be always close and safe within their community.
But when Western mountaineers started traveling to the Himalayas, the myth evolved into something even more monstrous and sensational.
The evolution of the myth (Source : BBC)
In 1921 the explorer and politician Charles Howard-Bury led a British expedition to Mount Everest. He spotted some large footprints and was told that they belonged to “metoh-kangmi”. This means something like “man-bear snow-man”. When the expedition returned, a journalist interviewed some of the members. Unfortunately, Henry Newman was not the most accurate reporter. He first mistranslated “metoh” as “filthy”, then decided that “abominable” was even better.
In that moment, a legend was born. Accounts of sightings by locals continued to be translated by Western visitors and the story of a mysterious ape-like snow-man took off. By the 1950s, interest ran high. Various mountaineers launched expeditions to find the creature.
Even the Hollywood film star James Stewart supposedly got in on the act, by storing a Yeti finger in his luggage. In 2011, DNA testing revealed that the finger was human.
Ever since, there have been footprints in snow, DIY-style films, grainy photographs and eyewitness accounts from mountaineers. Putative Yeti skulls have been found, as well as bone fragments and hair samples. But on inspection, they’ve usually been attributed to other wildlife, such as bears, antelopes and monkeys.
Despite any concrete proof, people still go looking for Yetis in the Himalayas. Yetis are an example of cryptozoology: the search for creatures that cannot be said to exist because of a lack of evidence.
The mountaineer Reinhold Messner is perhaps the most famous Yeti-hunter of all. He claims to have seen one in the Himalayas in the 1980s, and returned dozens of times to get to the bottom of the mystery. Messner has a simple theory to explain all the sightings: the Yeti is a bear.
Messner might be true, he might not be. Yeti might even be a misinterpreted depiction of god too, experts claim that the stories of Yeti originating from ancient mythology is a very poor interpretations. they claim that both are two different things. But despite the advances in modern technology, there are still no solid facts. Yeti still remains a mystery to the world.
