January’s feature cryptid is the Yeti. Abominable Snowman is the old term. It was the first westernized name used for these Bigfoot-type creatures that are said to live throughout the Nepal and Tibet region of the Himalayan Mountains. The more precise term is Yeti.
Lieutenant Colonel S. K. Howard-Bury was the first Westerner who claimed to have seen the Yeti in 1921. According to him, the Sherpas said the nearby footprints belonged to metoh-kangmi. Kang-mi means snow creature. Metoh is not a correct translation. It should have been met-teh, which translates “man-sized.” A newspaper reporter then changed metoh to metch, which means “abominable” and the new nickname—metch-kangmi or abominable snowman—was born. Yeti means: “That There Thing.”
There are three different sizes and types of Yeti.
- Dzu-teh Yeti or “Big Thing” is animal-like. Quadruped and biped, it’s shoulders slope down to a powerful chest. Three times the size of a barefooted man, the animal now identified as the Himalayan Brown bear, has clawed footprints that double on top of one another, giving the illusion of a large single print.
- Meh-teh Yeti or “Man-sized Thing” is stocky and ape-like in shape with arms like anthropoid apes which reach down to their knees. The shape of the head is conical with a pointed crown. It has no tail.
- Teh-lma Yeti or “Little Thing.” This is the smallest of all the Yeti’s, they have hunched shoulders and a pointy head that slopes back from the forehead, and it’s facial features are more human-like than the other two. The-lma has been found in the tropical valleys of Nepal and Sikkim in the Himalayas.
There is so much more to say about the Yeti. This is only a fraction of the information out there. Check out Mysterious Universe if you’d like to read more. They have several great articles by some well-researched cryptozoologists.
If you’d like to see more of Mel Cabre’s creature designs, check out her webpage or instagram.