RU | EN
Submenu

Albedil M. Himalayan Yeti: Real Creature or Folklore Character?

Margarita Albedil
Peter the great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the RAS
Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0002-8805-2184
E-mail: albedil@inbox.ru

 

  Download  |  Go to Issue #3. 2025

 

ABSTRACT. The topic of the article is the mysterious Himalayan Yeti; it is also known under the names of the Abominable Snowman, Bigfoot, Sasquatch, etc. Its name has long been firmly rooted in the lexicon of the local population, who preserve legends about the Yeti; its image is actively used for advertising purposes to attract tourists eager for exoticism. In the West,  the Yeti  became known in the middle of the last century, when Nepal, until then  a forbidden kingdom, opened its borders to foreigners. The descriptions of the Yeti they received in the highland country corresponded to the ideas of that period about prehistoric man or a relict hominoid; therefore, expeditions were repeatedly sent out to search for it. However, it was never possible to meet or even see the Yeti, and its tracks and other signs of existence were recognized as a fake. Scientific research findings have not confirmed the actual existence of the Yeti. It seems justified and appropriate to interpret the Yeti as a folklore character related to the sphere of folk demonology. But at present there is no representative database of Nepalese folklore and no scientific and theoretical classification of this folklore has been developed either in Nepal itself or in the West, so now, as a first approximation, one can identify the Yeti as a spirit or guardian of a natural locus that lives in the mountains and mountain forests. It is noteworthy that in recent decades the image of the Himalayan Yeti, having transformed, has entered Western and Russian popular culture, where it has gained great popularity.

 

KEYWORDS: Yeti, Bigfoot, relict hominoid, folklore character, transformations of folklore image

 

FOR CITATION:  Albedil  M.  Himalayan  Yeti:  Real  Creature  or  Folklore   Character?   Kunstkamera. 2025. 3 (29): 96–104. (In Russian). DOI: 10.31250/2618-8619-2025-3(29)-96-104

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-8619-2025-3(29)-96-104
UDC 7.046

 

REFERENCES

  • Al’bedil’ M. F. Nepal: lyudi, bogi, zveri [Nepal: people, gods, animals] St. Petersburg: Peterburgskoe vostokovedenie Publ., 2019, 158 p. (In Russian).
  • Hunt Dzh. Voskhozhdenie na Everest [Climbing Everest]. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Inostrannoy literatury Publ., 1956, 400 p. (In Russian).
  • Izzard R. Po sledam snezhnogo cheloveka [In the footsteps of the yeti]. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo geograficheskoy literatury (Georafgiz) Publ., 1959, 229 p. (In Russian).
  • Neklyudov S. Yu. [The neanderthal resurrection and the abominable snowman legend]. Shagi/Steps, 2022, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 25–50. (In Russian).
  • Obruchev S. V. [Modern state of the  question  about  yeti].  Priroda  [Nature],  1959,  no.  10,  pp.  60–66. (In Russian).
  • Porshnev B. F. Zagadka “snezhnogo cheloveka”. Sovremennoe sostoyanie voprosa o reliktovyh hominoidah [The mystery of the “Bigfoot”. The current state of the question of relict hominoids]. Moscow: Eksmo Publ.; Algoritm Publ., 2012, 560 p. (In Russian).
  • Potapov L. P. [Mountain cult in Altai]. Sovetskaia Etnografia, 1946, no. 2, pp. 145–160. (In Russian).
  • Rozova K. E. [Spirits of the mountains in the tradition of the Southern Siberian tyurkovs: pragmatic characteristics of myth and ritual]. Vestnik RGGU. Seriya “Istoriya. Filologiya. Kul’turologiya. Vostokovedenie” [Bulletin of the Russian State University for the Humanities. Series “History. Philology. Cultural Studies. Oriental Studies”], 2014, no. 6 (128), pp. 194–211. (In Russian).
  • Sagan K. Mir,  polnyy demonov. Nauka — kak svecha vo t’me [A world full of demons. Science as a candle  in the dark]. Moscow: Al’pina non-fikshn Publ., 2023, 668 p. (In Russian).
  • Sawerthal A., Torri D. Imagining the wild man: Yeti sightings in folktales and newspapers of the Darjeeling and Kalimpong Hills. Transcultural encounters in the Himalayan borderlands: Kalimpong as a “contact zone”. Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2017, vol. 3, pp. 121–143. (In English).
  • Shrestha K. P. Mify i legendy Nepala (Pereskaz iz raznyh istochnikov [Myths and legends of Nepal (Retold from various sources)]. Moscow: Institut vostokovedeniya RAN Publ., 2019, 696 p. (In Russian).
  • Smirnova E. V. [Plot and motive organization of texts of urban legends about the yeti in the modern Internet space]. Dergachevskie chteniya — 2011. Russkaya literatura: nacional’noe razvitie i regional’nye osobennosti: materialy X Vserossiyskoy nauchnoy konferentsii [Dergachev Readings — 2011. Russian literature: national development and regional peculiarities: proceedings of the 10th all-Russian scientific conference]. Ekaterinburg: Ural’kiy federal’nyy universitet imeni B. N. El’tsina Publ., 2012, vol. 3, pp. 166–178. (In Russian).
  • Stonor Ch. Sherpy i snezhnyy chelovek [Sherpas and the Yeti]. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Inostrannoy literatury Publ., 1958, 240 p. (In Russian).
  • Waddel L. A. Among the Himalayas. New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House, 2021, 476 p. (In English).