There have been many tales
about living Mammoths. This is in part due I am sure to the fact that
some frozen specimens found look as if they died recently as they are so
fresh. With scientists talking about regenerating a mammoth clone ala Jurassic Park,
I thought I would dig up dome of the living mammoth stories.
In the
1580's the Stroganoff family sent a band of Cossacks to hunt down a
group of bandits in Siberia that had been stealing from their mines there. The leader of the expedition, Yermak Timofeyevitch, reported that beyond the Ural Mountains he met a "large, hairy elephant." The natives told him that the Kingdom of Sibir considered the giant animals a part of its wealth; they were valued as food and called "mountains of meat."
In 1873 an article appeared in the Zoologist containing an interview with Cheriton
Batchmatchnik, a Russian convict who escaped from Siberia who claimed
to have encountered living Mammoths in a valley of the Aldan
mountains.Batchmatchnik had been convicted of smuggling and had been to
the mines of Nartchinsk Siberia. He escaped and travelled southwards
heading for the Amur river in the hope of reaching China. He ran into a band of Cossacks so he turned north and got to the gorges of the Aldan mountains when winter arrived. Following herds
of migrating animals he hoped to find shelter. Instead he claimed he
found a hidden valley, hemmed in by cliffs on all sides and he descended to find the
valley to be warm and fertile. There was a lake so he made camp beside
it and lit a fire. When night fell some huge animals approached,
attracted by the fire. Frightened Batchmatchnik fired his pistol into
the dark causing a stampede. Come daylight he discovered large tracks
and a well worn track leading to the water. He looked for somewhere
safer to shelter and found a cave. He said when he entered the cave
there was a full grown mammoth already in residence. He described the
animal as 12 feet( 4 metres) tall and 18 feet(6 metres) long.
It was covered in reddish wool and black hair. The curving tusks were
about 10 feet( 3 metres) long.In the coming days Batchmatchnik saw about
twenty mammoths in the valley. All were adults and he saw no calves.
They were peaceable animals who were never aggressive to him and indeed
took little notice of him. He also claimed to have seen a dragon like
creature that lived in the lake and prayed on animals that came there to
drink. He described it as 30 feet (10 metres) long with fangs and
covered with scales One morning he saw this "dragon " attack a mammoth.
The reptile sized its victim and tried to crush it it in its coils.
After a long struggle the mammoth managed to pull itself free and get to
safety. Batchmatchnik eventually left the valley and found his way back
it civilisation and on his return the Russian officials seemed to believe his story as they pardoned Batchmatchnik due to his "services to science".
A
Russian hunter claimed to have seen a pair of mammoths in 1918. This
story was recorded by M. L. Gallon, the man in charge of the French
Consulate in Vladivostok
during the year 1920. Gallon claimed that the hunter did not understand
what he meant when he referred to the beast as a mammoth, but the
hunter simply maintained that it was similar to pictures of elephants he
had seen. Although Gallon shared the story with friends when he
returned to France
later that year, he was not persuaded to publish the account until
1946. The report can be found in Heuvelmans book, about page 550,
depending on which edition you read.
"In
the second year I was exploring the taiga, I was very much struck to
notice the tracks of a huge animal, I say huge tracks, for they were a
long way larger than any of those I had often seen of animals I knew
well. It was autumn. There had been a few big snowstorms, followed by
heavy rain. It wasn't freezing yet, the snow had melted, and there were
thick layers of mud in the clearings.. It was in one of these big
clearings, partly taken up by a lake, that I was staggered to see huge
footprints pressed deep into the mud. It must have been 70 cm across the
widest part and 50 cm the other way, so the spoor wasn't round but
oval.. There were four tracks, the tracks of four feet, the first two
about 4 m from the second pair, which were a little bigger in size. Then
the tracks suddenly turned east and went into the forest of
middling-sized elms. Were it went I saw a huge heap of dung; I had a
good look at it and saw it was made up of vegetable matter.Some
10 feet up, just where the animal had gone into the forest, I saw a
sort of row of broken branches, made, I don't doubt, by the monster's
enormous head as it forced it's way into the place it had decided to go,
regardless of what was in its path. I
followed the track for days and days. Sometimes I could see were the
animal had stopped at some grassy clearing and then gone on forever
eastwards. Then, one day I saw another track, almost exactly the same.
It came from the north and crossed the first one. It looked to me as if
they had trampled about all over the place for several hundred m as if
they had been excited or upset by their meeting. Then the two animals
set out marching eastward one following some 20 m behind the other, both
tracks mingling and plowing up the earth together. I followed them for
days and days thinking that perhaps I should never see them, and also a
bit afraid, for indeed I didn't feel I was big enough to face such
beasts alone. One afternoon it was clear enough from the tracks that the
animals weren't far off. The wind was in my face, which was good for
approaching them without them knowing I was there. All of a sudden I saw
one of the animals quite clearly, and now I must admit I really was
afraid. It had stopped among some young saplings. It was a huge elephant
with big white tusks, very curved; it was a dark chestnut colour as far
as I could see.. It had fairly long hair on the hindquarters but it
seemed much shorter on the front. I must say I had no idea that there
were such big elephants. It had huge legs and moved very slowly. I've
only seen elephants in pictures, but I must say that even from this
distance (we were 3000 m apart) I could never have believed any beast
could be so big. The second beast was around, I saw it only a few times
among the trees: it seemed to be the same size.
It sounds like a fantastic tale. Heuvelmans suggested a couple of reasons
why the story sounded so fantastic. a) the hunter got caught up in his
tale and added some details which are an exaggeration , but these don't
effect the basic veracity of the account b) Gallon inadvertently added
details in his recording of the account., especially if it was a story
for publication. (Plus the story being retold many years apart would
suffer from the Chinese Whispers effect and get distorted over time and
of course it may not be true. )
There
was a least one definite hoax which appeared in a 1899 magazine
article, published in McClure’s Magazine, in which the author purported
to have, during a trip to Alaska, stalked, trapped and killed a living
woolly mammoth .In October of 1899 McClure's Magazine ran a story by
Henry Tukeman. Called "The Killing of the Mammoth" it began with a
letter penned by a recently-deceased man named Horace Conradi which
released Tukeman from his promise to keep the slaughter of what may have
been the last living mammoth a secret. Some extracts:
Tukeman's story began in the untamed wilds of Alaska in 1890. There was little in the way of creature comforts, but Tukeman decided to stay the winter in Fort Yukon.
One day during his stay he was showing some pictures of African animals
he had hunted to an Inuit named "Joe" who, when Tukeman turned to a
picture of an elephant, became very excited. Joe already knew of such a
creature. He had seen one himself, up there in Alaska!Joe's
run in with the beast had occurred many years before while he was out
hunting with his son. They were looking for beaver and other game when
they had come across a huge animal, the Tee-Kai-Koa, bathing in a lake.
It was a living woolly mammoth. Joe's son shot it but did not kill the
behemoth, and afraid of what such a great beast might do when wounded
the two Inuits rushed back home”.
“When
the following summer melted the ice and snow they were on their way.The
trip was arduous but Paul and Tukeman soon found signs they were on the
right track. They found a cave "paved" with the numerous remains of
mammoths. Surely there would living ones nearby, and the bones provided
Tukeman the chance to test the strength of the firearms he had brought
for the hunt..On August 29th the hunters finally found their prey, yet
they did not immediately try to gun it down. Joe had said that the
mammoth he say followed the smoke from the gun his son had fired.
Perhaps, Tukeman reasoned, mammoths were attracted to the smoke so that
they could stomp out any forest fires before they really got going. “
“When
the trap was set in the autumn the mammoth was drawn by the smoke and
tried to stamp it out. Everything was going as planned. Paul and Tukeman
did not waste their chance. They fired, over and over again, until
blood oozed out of scores of bullet wounds in the animal's flesh. The
Tee-Kai-Koa was dead. Paul and Tukeman skinned their prize and collected
its bones, but by that time winter was setting in. They would not be
able to leave until the following spring. Tukeman had hoped that the
remains would be purchased by a great museum in Europe or America but
Conradi, the man who put a gag order on Tukeman until 1899, offered a
much larger sum than Tukeman could otherwise hope for. The plan was for
Tukeman to stay silent while Conradi presented the mammoth as a
discovery he had made himself.
A subsequent
article meant to set readers straight on mammoths (reprinted in the
Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution) a
McClure's editor wrote;
Ever
since the appearance of that number of the magazine the authorities of
the Smithsonian Institution, in which the author [F.A. Lucas] had
located the remains of the beast of his fancy, have been beset with
visitors to see the stuffed mammoth, and our daily mail, as well as that
of the Smithsonian Institution, has been filled with inquiries for more
information and for requests to settle wagers as to whether it was a
true story or not.
Tukeman's story was a work of fiction.
However articles continued to appear:
Portland Press. “Do Mastodons Exist? – Good evidence that at least one species still lives.” Decatur Daily Republican. Decatur, Illinois. Monday, March 29, 1897. "The Portland (Me.)
Press of November 28 publishes a long conversation with Col. C.F.
Fowler, late of the Alaskan Fur and Commercial company, in which he
gives very clear evidence that in the interior of Alaska
many mastodons still survive. He first discovered among some "fossil"
ivory collected by the natives two tusks which showed evidence of being
recently taken from the animal which carried them. On questioning the
native who sold it to him he was surprised to receive a full description
of the immense beast which had been killed by the natives, a
description fully identifying the animal with the mastodon. Col. Fowler
quotes Gov. Swineford, of Alaska,
as having also investigated this matter and as being satisfied that on
the high plateaus of that country large herds of mastodons still roam
unmolested by the natives, who fear them greatly. The Alaska News also
admits that the evidence of their existence is too strong to be denied."
For other news paper reports including the full text of this
see :
www.cryptomundo.com
It
is not impossible for a Mammoth to have survived but unlikely. The
climate has changed and the food sources have changed so it would have
to have evolved somewhat. Still the stories are wonderful and fired up
the imagination of many who read them.
Heuvelmans, Bernard (1959). On the Track of Unknown Animals. New York: Hill and Wang.
Newman, Edward. 1873. The Mammoth Still in the Land of the Living. Zoologist (London) Série 2:8:3731-3733.
