In North Caucasian and Turkic folklore, an almas, alma or almasty, is a

cryptid Cryptids are animals or other beings whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated by science. Cryptozoology, the study of cryptids, is a pseudoscience claiming that such beings may exist somewhere in the wild; it has been widely cri ...

folk creature said to inhabit the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

Tian Shan The Tian Shan, also known as the Tengri Tagh or Tengir-Too, meaning the "Mountains of God/Heaven", is a large system of mountain ranges in Central Asia. The highest peak is Jengish Chokusu at high and located in Kyrgyzstan. Its lowest point is ...

and

Pamir Mountains The Pamir Mountains are a Mountain range, range of mountains between Central Asia and South Asia. They are located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun Mountains, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and the Himalaya ...

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

and the

Altai Mountains The Altai Mountains (), also spelled Altay Mountains, are a mountain range in Central Asia, Central and East Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan converge, and where the rivers Irtysh and Ob River, Ob have their headwaters. The ...

of western

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

Etymology

The term "almas" and numerous variants thereof appear in

Mongolian Mongolian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Mongolia, a country in Asia * Mongolian people, or Mongols * Bogd Khanate of Mongolia, the government of Mongolia, 1911–1919 and 1921–1924 * Mongolian language * Mongolian alphabet * ...

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...

and

Iranian languages The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian langu ...

. (), and (). Scholar P. R. Rinčen (aka

Byambyn Rinchen Byambyn Rinchen (; 21 November 1905 – 4 March 1977), also known as Rinchen Bimbayev (), was a Mongolian scholar and writer. He was a researcher of Mongolia's language, literature, and history, and a recorder and preserver of the country's cult ...

) in a 1964 paper also referred to the creature as "wild man" (

: , cf. "kung-guressu" of Przhevalsky below), and commented that "the origin of the old name lmasis quite unknown … and it does not lend itself for translation in other languages". The name is connected to a variety of place names (

toponyms Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage, and types. ''Toponym'' is the general term for a proper nam ...

) in southwestern Mongolia, including Almasyn Dobo ('the Hills of Almases'), Almasyn Ulan Oula ('the Red Mountains of Almases') and ('the Red Rocks of Almases'). Folk belief in the almas in Oburkhangai and

Bayankhongor Bayankhongor () is the capital of the Bayankhongor Province (aimag) in Mongolia. The administration of the Bayankhongor Sum (district) is also located in the same place. The city is at an elevation of 1859 m above sea level, and has a populatio ...

has resulted in a name-avoidance

taboo A taboo is a social group's ban, prohibition or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, offensive, sacred or allowed only for certain people.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...

there, wherein the entities may be referred to as , meaning 'uncle-brother'. The folk traditions of

Darkhad The Darkhad ( ) are a subgroup of the Mongols living mainly in northern Mongolia; particularly in the Bayanzürkh, Ulaan-Uul, Renchinlkhümbe, Tsagaannuur Districts of Khövsgöl Province. They speak a regional variant of Mongolian known as ...

include the deity , meaning 'Almas the Black God' and associated with highland prairies and mountain forests. According to Rinčen, the god may be offered edible wild roots and wild animal meat.

Description

Nikolay Przhevalsky Nikolay Mikhaylovich Przhevalsky (or Prjevalsky;; , . – ) was a Russian geographer and a renowned explorer of Central and East Asia. Although he never reached his ultimate goal, the city of Lhasa in Tibet, he still travelled through regio ...

described the almas in 1876, as related to him under the name ''kung-guressu'' ("man-beast"), as follows:

"We were told that it had a flat face like that of a human being, and that it often walked on two legs, that its body was covered with a thick black fur, and its feet armed with enormous claws; that its strength was terrible, and that not only were hunters afraid of attacking it, but that the inhabitants removed their habitations from those parts of the country which it visited".

Heaney suggests that the almas should be identified with the

Arimaspi The Arimaspi (also Arimaspians, Arimaspos, and Arimaspoi; , ) were a legendary tribe of one-eyed people of northern Scythia who lived in the foothills of the Riphean Mountains, variously identified with the Ural Mountains or the Carpathians. All ...

, a group of legendary humanoid creatures said to inhabit the

Riphean Mountains In Greco-Roman geography, the Riphean Mountains (also Riphaean; ; '; Latin: ''Rhipaei'' or ''Riphaei montes'') were a supposed mountain range located in the far north of Eurasia. The name of the mountains is probably derived from ("wind gust") ...

. Scholar has provided the following description in 1981:

Almases, according to the stories of witnesses, appear half animal, half human, with reddish black hair. The face is hairless, the stomach covered with sparse growth. The head seems pointed at the occiput, the forehead flattened back with projecting brow ridges, and prominent cheekbones. They are the height of an average person. The almas walks with half-bent knees, is round-shouldered and pigeon-toed. It has broad shoulders and long arms. The women have long breasts. Almases are timid, suspicious, but not aggressive, and lead a nocturnal way of life. No-one has heard their speech.

Heaney suggests that the almas should be identified with the

, a group of legendary humanoid creatures said to inhabit the

... They feed on roots and plants."

In science

In 1964, a Soviet scientist from the

Soviet Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991. It united the country's leading scientists and was subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (un ...

proposed that the Almasti could be a

relict A relict is a surviving remnant of a natural phenomenon. Biology A relict (or relic) is an organism that at an earlier time was abundant in a large area but now occurs at only one or a few small areas. Geology and geomorphology In geology, a r ...

population of

Neanderthals Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...

still living in Siberia. In 1992, a group of scientists went on an expedition to search for the almas in the

Caucasus Mountains The Caucasus Mountains * * Azerbaijani: , * * * * * * * * * * * is a mountain range at the intersection of Asia and Europe. Stretching between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, they are surrounded by the Caucasus region ...

. A 2014 study by Bryan Sykes ''et al.'' matched the genetic fingerprints of eight hair samples of the "almasty" all from Russia, and matched them to the

Eurasian brown bear The Eurasian brown bear (''Ursus arctos arctos'') is one of the most common subspecies of the brown bear, and is found in much of Eurasia. It is also called the European brown bear, common brown bear, common bear, European bear, and colloquial ...

(''Ursus arctos''),

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 mi ...

(''Equus caballus'') and

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates widely kept as livestock. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Mature female cattle are calle ...

(''Bos taurus'').
html
zookeys.pensoft.net) Bryan Sykes ''et al.'' also produced the controversial result that the golden-brown "yeti" sample from

Ladakh Ladakh () is a region administered by India as a union territory and constitutes an eastern portion of the larger Kashmir region that has been the subject of a Kashmir#Kashmir dispute, dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947 and India an ...

and the "yeti/migyhur" sample from Bhutan were a 100% match with a museum-held Pleistocene fossil

polar bear The polar bear (''Ursus maritimus'') is a large bear native to the Arctic and nearby areas. It is closely related to the brown bear, and the two species can Hybrid (biology), interbreed. The polar bear is the largest extant species of bear ...

, but not with any modern specimen. This finding (on the 2 hair samples) was refuted by Eliécer Gutiérrez and Ronald H. Pine in 2015, who concluded there was no reason to regarde these as anything but

brown bear The brown bear (''Ursus arctos'') is a large bear native to Eurasia and North America. Of the land carnivorans, it is rivaled in size only by its closest relative, the polar bear, which is much less variable in size and slightly bigger on av ...

. In 2014 Ceiridwen J. Edwards and Ross Barnett also refuted the polar bear claim, and concluded the degradation of brown bear DNA to be the likely explanation.
html
zookeys.pensoft.net)

Explanatory notes

References

Sources

* Heaney's , pp. 53–66. * *