Dzungarian Bare Knees

Why do some unknown hominoids have bare knees?

Coleman's Agogwe

Wooden representation of a Proto-Pygmy from Africa.

Yowie

Witness drawing of a Yowie from Australia.

In 1913, Muscovite V. A. Khakhlov submitted to the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences his extraordinarily detailed report about the unknown hairy hominids of eastern Asia. In one section of the document, Khakhlov gathered reports from the native Kazakhs of Dzungaria.

Dzungaria is named after a Mongolian kingdom which existed in Central Asia during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Today, Dzungaria is a geographical region within the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, northwestern China. The area is a largely steppe and semidesert basin surrounded by high mountains: the Tian Shan in the south and the Altai in the north. Outside of Asia, the name is mostly associated with Dzungarian hamsters (Phodopus campbelli or Phodopus sungorus, depending on your source).

Specifically, Khakhlov wrote an interesting passage which appears to explain, perhaps, what is found regarding the “bare knees.” Khakhlov noted the following, in his report (as recorded by Ivan T. Sanderson in Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life), of one captive “wild woman” (an Almas) in the region of the River Manass, or Dam:

This creature seldom issued any sounds and usually was quiet and silent. Only when approached she bared her teeth and screeched. It [sic] has a peculiar way of lying down, or sleeping – like a camel, by squatting on the ground on its knees and elbows, resting the forehead on the ground, and resting the head [see drawing below from his report]. This position accounts for the unusually hard skin of the elbows and knees – like camel’s soles.

Could this be the reason for reports of bare knees? Could this aspect of certain representations of hairy hominoids be why this special trait is shown, due to shared behavior in using this sleeping position?

Black Almas

Sleeping position of an Almas from Asia.