Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology

europaea), that prevent the liver from
excreting bilirubin effectively.
Sources: Strabo, The Geography, xi. 2.19;
Claude Rimington and A. M. Stewart, “A
Pigment Present in the Sweat and Urine of
Certain Sheep,” Proceedings of the Royal Society,
ser. B, 110 (1932): 75–91; J. M. M. Brown,
Barbara Sawyer, et al., “Studies on Biliary
Excretion in the Rabbit II,” Proceedings of the
Royal Society, ser. B, 157 (1963): 473–491; M.
L. Ryder and J. W. Hedges, “Ancient Scythian
Wool from the Crimea,” Nature 242 (1973):
480; G. J. Smith, “Jason’s Golden Fleece
Explained?” Nature 327 (1987): 561; Patrick
Moyna and Horacio Heinzen, “Why Was the
Fleece Golden?” Nature 330 (1987): 28; Karl
Shuker, “The Search for the Real Golden
Fleece,” Fate 42 (September 1989): 46–52;
Maria Rosario Belgiorno, “Il vero significato
del mito del vello d’oro e del viaggio degli
Argonauti,” Studi Micenei, 2000, on line at
http://www.area.fi.cnr.it/r&f/n17/belgiorno1.
htm.
Golub-Yavan
Wildm an of Central Asia.
Etymology: Tajik (Persian), “wild man.”
Variant names: Galub-yavan, Ghool-biaban,
Gul-biavan, Gul’bi-yavan, Guli-b’yabon,
Gulibyavan, Khaivan-akvan, Voita. See also Gul.
Physical description: Height, 5 feet–6 feet 6
inches. Covered in reddish-gray or black hair.
Older individuals are grayer. Head-hair is thick
and matted. Slanting forehead. Brows and
cheekbones are prominent. Face is bare. Glowing
eyes. Wide, flat nose. Ears stick out. Lower
jaw is massive. Large teeth. Short neck. Thick
hair on chest and hips, close-cropped and thick
on the belly. Long arms. Buttocks are relatively
hairless. Knees are calloused. Feet and palms are
hairless. Feet are wider and shorter than a man’s.
Behavior: Call is a mewing or whistling
sound. Strong odor. Food includes berries.
Searches for marmots under rocks, making piles
of rocks in the process. Uses caves as shelters.
Uses sticks as weapons. Said to attack humans.
Tracks: Humanlike but shorter and broader.
The four smaller toes are wider than a human’s.
212 GOLUB-YAVAN
Distribution: Pamir and Tian Shan Mountains,
Kyrgyzstan; eastern Tajikistan. Possibly
extends into the Kunlun Mountains of western
China south of Taxkorgan, the Karakoram
Range in northern India, and the Hindu Kush
of eastern Afghanistan.
Significant sightings: Maj. Gen. Mikhail Topilski,
head of a scouting party in the fall of 1925,
ran across a group of Golub-yavan during a skirmish
with White Russian guerrillas in the
Vanch District, Tajikistan; the guerrillas had
taken refuge in an ice cave that the creatures apparently
used as a shelter. One wildman was
shot and inspected by the party’s physician. The
dead creature was 5 feet 6 inches tall and looked
much more human than apelike, though it was
covered with dense hair except for its face,
palms, soles, knees, and buttocks. It had heavy
browridges, a flat nose, and a massive lower jaw.
The foot was noticeably wider than a human’s.
The soldiers could not take the body with them,
so they buried it under a heap of stones.
A resident of Imeni Kalinina, Tajikistan, was
attacked by a Gul-biavan while hunting in
1939. He wrestled it to the ground but lost consciousness.
Villagers found him later, along with
evidence of a struggle.
Hunters in the mountains around Vanch,
Tajikistan, call the wildman a Voita and say it is
taller than a man and covered with short, black
hair.
Alexander G. Pronin saw a Golub-yavan on a
cliff in the Balyandkiik Valley, Tajikistan, on
August 12, 1957. It walked out of a cave and
was visible for several minutes before it disappeared
from view.
Possible explanation: A surviving early hominid.
Artifacts and Homo erectus–like remains,
dated at 125,000 years ago, have been found at
Selungur Cave, Kyrgyzstan. Early Paleolithic
stone flakes and cores about 850,000 years old
were discovered at Kuldara, Tajikistan. A Neanderthal
burial and grave goods have been found
in the Teshik-Tash Cave in Uzbekistan.
Sources: Kirill V. Staniukovich, “Golub-
Javan: Svendeniia o ‘snezhnom cheloveke’ na
Pamire,” Geograficheskoe Obshchestvo SSSR
Izvestia, 1957, no. 4, pp. 343–345, and 1957,
no. 5, p. 89; “Vstrecha so ‘Snezhnom