Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [425]
It is interesting to note that science has recognized the existence of many fossil species on the strength of their footprints alone. Heuvelmans (1982, p. 3) stated: “The hypotheses and reconstructions of cryptozoology (regarding animals actually alive) are no more daring, questionable, fantastic, or illegitimate than those upon which paleontology has based its reconstructions of the fauna of past ages. . . . It seemed perfectly legitimate to give the scientific name Chirotherium to a fossil genus known only by its tracks, found in Germany, England, France, Spain, Italy, and the United States, and of which some 20 species have been described. Yet, at the same time, it seemed ridiculous, premature, and absurd to describe scientifically the Himalayan Yeti, known not only by many tracks not identifiable with any known animal, but also by morphology and behavior as related by numerous eyewitnesses.”
In 1986, Marc E. Miller and William Caccioli, of the New World Explorers Society, retraced the route of Hillary’s 1960 Yeti expedition, visiting the Buddhist monasteries at Khumjung, Thyangboche, and Pangboche. At Khumjung, Miller and Caccioli interviewed Khonjo Khumbi, the village elder who accompanied Hillary to the United States with the famous Yeti scalp. Khonjo told Miller and Caccioli that in the course of his travels through Tibet he had seen whole Yeti furs. The High Lama of the Thyangboche monastery also said he had seen such furs in the homes of great hunters.
Miller and Caccioli (1986, p. 82) reported that they received possible Yeti chest hairs from an elderly woman of Khumjung village in Tibet: “We were told that her son was carrying potatoes along a trail in 1978, and was allegedly attacked by a Yeti. The Yeti was described as a large male, nearly 7 feet tall, and covered with dark and reddish hair. During the course of the attack, the young man took his potato hoe and struck the Yeti across the chest. The Yeti fled into the higher mountain region. The young man struggled back to Khumjung village to his mother, and described his encounter with the Yeti. His wounds were serious, and he later died.”
Figure 10.1. Areas where Yetis have been sighted in Central Asia and the Himalayas are shaded with vertical black bars (after Shackley 1983, pp. 78–79).
Figure 10.2. Drawing of a Mongolian Almas from a 19th-century Tibetan book (Shackley 1983, p. 97).
10.8 The Almas of Central Asia
The Sasquatch and the Yeti, from the descriptions available, are large and very apelike. But there is another wildman, the Almas, which seems smaller and more human. Reports of the Almas are concentrated in an area extending from Mongolia in the north, south through the Pamirs, and then westward into the Caucasus region. Similar reports come from Siberia and the far northeast parts of the Russian republic.
Early in the fifteenth century, Hans Schiltenberger was captured by the Turks and sent to the court of Tamerlane, who placed him in the retinue of a Mongol prince named Egidi. After returning to Europe in 1427, Schiltenberger wrote about his experiences. In his book, he described some mountains, apparently the Tien Shan range in Mongolia: “The inhabitants say that beyond the mountains is the beginning of a wasteland which lies at the edge of the earth. No one can survive there because the desert is populated by so many snakes and tigers. In the mountains themselves live