Chuchunaa (“Wildmen”) is a western Siberian name for a specific type of unknown hairy hominid which may now be extinct. Anthropologist Myra Shackley, who calls the creature the “Siberian Snowman,” writes that they are most frequently reported by the Tungus and Yakuts, the local nomadic peoples. The Chuchunaa are shy but not entirely retiring; they have been known to throw dogs about when bothered. The Chuchunaa are notable for being among the few unknown hairy hominids said to wear clothing, perhaps as an adaptation to the severe temperatures where they live. Reported to be seven feet tall and neckless, they are restricted regionally to Siberia.
As with any unknown hairy hominid, regionalized names are given to these creatures. One local Chuchunaa was given the pet name “Mecheny” (“The Marked One”) because it appeared at the edge of a forest often enough for the locals to see that it had a distinctive white forearm on a body of darker hair. Another name for the Chuchunaa is Mirygdy (“Broad-Shoulders”) because the Chuchunaa have wide shoulders on a relatively narrow body. They allegedly raid barns and other dwellings. Significantly, another name for the Chuchunaa of southeastern Siberia is “Mulen” (a Tungus word for “Bandit”).
The Chuchunaa issue was taken seriously in the Soviet Union as early as 1928, when search parties were dispatched to gather information on them. The following year, a formal report on the Chuchunaa was presented to the Commission for the Discovery and Study of Antiquarian Curiosities attached to the Western Siberian section of the Russian Geographical Society. The report recommended that detailed investigations and systematic studies occur before the Chuchunaa became extinct. In 1933, Professor P. Dravert called upon the government to abolish the hunting of these “people” on the grounds that all people of the U.S.S.R. deserved equal protection. But little was done. Surveys were conducted in the 1950s, but by the time geologist Vladimir Pushkarev conducted research in Siberia in the 1970s, the Chuchunaa appeared to have become extinct, or nearly so.
Mark A. Hall has pointed out that in their habits and body type the Chuchunaa resemble other localized unknown hominids in Canada and elsewhere. Loren Coleman theorizes that the Chuchunaa-Mecheny-Mirygdy-Mulen are one form of what he calls the Marked Hominids, a class of unknown hairy bipeds exhibiting body hair colours that are piebald, two-tone, or albino in high numbers. According to Coleman’s analysis, these large creatures live mostly in the northern wilderness and near subpolar areas. Shackley holds that the Chuchunaa are recently extinct or surviving Neandertals. In separate writings Hall and Coleman dispute this view, arguing that in addition to having vastly different behavioural traits, Neandertals were never more than five and a half feet tall, while the shortest mature Chuchunaa are reported to be a foot taller.
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SOURCE:
The Encyclopedia of Loch Monsters,Sasquatch, Chupacabras, and Other Authentic Mysteries of Nature
Written by Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark – Copyright 1999 Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark