Photo by Monika Deupala
Do you believe in urban legends? In Nepal, a mythical creature is believed to inhabit the Himalayan range. Its name is Yeti. Yeti is a big ape-like animal with white fur and two-legged, similar to Bigfoot except for its color. Its name has a meaning of "abominable snowman" in Nepali. Across cultures and folklore, there are many versions of the Yeti's origin story. In the modern day, folklorists traced that the origin of the Yeti was a combination of folklore from an ethnic group in Tibet named Sherpa and a misidentified wild animal.
The first sighting of Yeti existence was found when Charles Howard-Bury, a British explorer, did an expedition in the Himalayan range in 1921 and found big footprints. He mentioned it in his book and described the footprints as human-like footprints. Later on, Bury was told by the locals about the legend of a mythical race living in the wildest and most inaccessible mountains.
Years later, there were many explorers, hunters, and researchers claimed that they found shreds of evidence of the mythical creature's existence. Unfortunately, none of them were authenticated as real proof of Yeti. Although, Yeti has become one of the famous figures in pop culture. Yeti has been adopted in many movies as their main or side character. Some of them are The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Abominable Snowman, Missing Link, Hotel Transylvania, and many others. It was also chosen as the mascot for Visit Nepal in 2020.
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