From the unexplained to the mundane, come join
us on a Journey to the Fringe. We stand by it.
I didn't actually run that one by Chelsea. I
thought she would just kind of agree with me
on that We'll figure it out if we ever have to
I don't know how we've done this for people that
are fairly not great at consistency I think we're
running like six seasons of not missing a Friday.
You can't just say that out loud on a recorded
podcast I can and I did that might create us
some problems. We are your podcast host, Taylor
and Chelsea, and here today going over a very
famous Bigfoot story from way back in the day.
What could this even be? Chelsea, I'm sure you
know the story. It is ancient. It is kind of
everywhere. And I kind of forgot it existed till
I sought and passing for research on something
else I'd been working on. But as I looked into
it, I realized there's a lot that's been happening
on it in the last decade. So I thought it'd be
good to go over the story and make Make sure
everybody knows it and knows how it's gone since
you maybe last heard about it. Let's hear it.
Chelsea, if I say the name Zana, does it ring
any bells for you? Vaguely. Is this the circus
one? No, this is Zana Abkhazia in Russia. Okay,
this is the story of a Russian Bigfoot from way
back in the day. We're talking the 1860s. Holy
crap. It is fairly well documented as well as
it could be for the time. It is fairly well regarded
overall that something weird did happen in this
area of Russia I do have at least one of the
people who got Secondhand information wrote it
down and that's the story we're gonna be going
over for this and then from there We're gonna
talk about what's happened since then Okay. This
comes from the book In the Footsteps of the Russian
Snowman by Dmitry Byanov. In Abkhazia, Western
Caucasus relict hominoids are called obnagwa.
While collecting reports in 1962, a colleague
of Boris Porzhnev, zoologist professor Alexander
Mashkovtsev, heard and studied the story of Zana.
Subsequently, Porchnev took over where his late
companion left off. The following information
is borrowed from Porchnev's work, The Struggle
for Troglodytes. Zana was a female Abnalyut who
had been caught and tamed and who lived and died
within the memory of a number of people still
alive at the time of the research. She was buried
near the village of Tikhina in the Okomchiri
district of Kazhia in the 1880s or 1890s. The
manner of her capture is vague. Some said it
was not chance. Hunters familiar with an age
-old technique tied her up, and when she furiously
fought back, hit her with cudgels, gagged her
mouth with felt, and shackled her legs to a log.
Probably she had already changed hands by a sale
when she became property of the ruling prince,
D .M. Achba, who was the titular head of the
Zidane region. She passed into the possession
of one of his vassals, named Cholo Kua, and still
later, she was presented to a nobleman, Eji Ganaba,
who visited the region. She took her away, still
shackled and chained, to his estate in the village
of Takina on the Mokva River, 78 kilometers from
Sukhumi. At first, Ganaba lodged her in a very
strong enclosure and nobody ventured in to give
her food, for she acted like a wild beast. It
was thrown to her. She dug herself a hole in
the ground and slept in it. For the first three
years, she lived in this wild state, gradually
becoming tamer. After three years, she was moved
to a wattle fence enclosure under an awning near
the house. Tethered at first, but later she was
let loose to wander about. The story is messed
up. Yeah, it really is weird. And it's hard to
verify all of this because this is all very secondhand
information, even the guy writing it. However,
she never went far from the place where she received
her food. She could not endure warm ruins and,
year round, in any weather, slept outdoors in
a hole that she made herself under the awning.
Villagers teased her with sticks thrust through
the wattle fence and she would snatch them with
fury, bare her teeth and howl. Her skin was black
or dark gray and her whole body covered with
reddish black hair. The hair on her head was
tousled and thick, hanging mane -like down her
back. She could not speak. Over decades that
she lived with people, Zana did not learn a single
Abkhaz word. She only made inarticulate sounds
and mutterings and cries when irritated. But
she reacted to her name, carried out commands
given by her master and was scared when he shouted
at her. And this despite the fact that she was
very tall, massive and broad with huge breasts
and buttocks, muscular arms and legs and fingers
that were longer and thicker than human fingers,
she could splay her toes widely and move apart
the big toe. From remembered descriptions given
to the Mashkov, Sev? and Porchnev. Her face was
terrifying, broad with high cheekbones, flat
nose, turned out nostrils, muzzle -like jaws,
wide mouth with large teeth, low forehead, and
eyes of a reddish tinge. But the most frightening
feature was her expression, which was purely
animal, not human. Sometimes she would give a
spontaneous laugh, bearing those big white teeth
of hers. The latter were so strong that she easily
cracked the hardest walnuts. She lived for many
years without showing any change. No gray hairs,
no falling teeth, keeping strong and fit. as
ever. Her athletic power was enormous. She would
outrun a horse and swim across the wild Malkva
River, even when it rose in violent high tide.
Seemingly without effort, she lifted with one
hand an 80 kilo sack of flour and carried it
uphill from the water mill to the village. She
climbed trees to get fruit and to gorge herself
with grapes. She would pull down a whole vine
growing around the tree. She ate whatever was
offered to her, including hominy and meat. Hominy
is a type of corn. With bare hands and enormous
gluttony. She loved wine and was allowed her
fill after which she would sleep for hours in
a swoon -like state. She liked to lie in a cool
pool side -by -side with buffaloes. At night
she used to roam the surrounding hills. She wielded
big sticks against dogs and on other perilous
occasions. She had a curious obsession for playing
with stones, knocking one against another and
splitting them. She took swims the year round
and preferred to walk naked even in the winter,
tearing dresses that she was given to shreds.
However, she showed more tolerance wore a loincloth.
Sometimes she went into the house, but the women
were afraid of her and came near only when she
was in gentle moods. When angry, she presented
a scary sight and could even bite, but she obeyed
her master, Eji Ganaba, and he knew how to bring
her to heel. Adults used her as a boogeyman figure
with children, although Zana never actually attacked
children. She was trained to perform simple domestic
tasks such as grinding grain for flour, bringing
home firewood and water, or sacks to and from
the water mill, or pull her master's high boots
off. But she became the mother of human children.
And this is the wondrous side of her whole life
story, very important for the science of genetics.
Zana was pregnant several times by various men,
and giving birth without assistance, she always
watched the newborn child in the cold water spring.
The half -breed infants unable to survive her
ablutions died. So, subsequently, when Zana gave
birth, the villagers began taking the newborn
babies away from her in good times, and reared
them themselves. Four times this happened, and
the children, two sons and two daughters, grew
up as humans, fully fledged, and normal men.
women who could talk and possessed reason. It
is true that they had some strange physical and
mental features, but nonetheless, they were fully
capable of engaging in work and social life.
The eldest son's name was Dejanda, and the eldest
daughter was Khojanar. The second daughter was
named Khamasa, and the younger son, Kuwait, who
died in 1954. All had descendants of their own
scattered across Abkhazia. I do remember this
story now. Was it the part about her dipping
them in the water? Like all of it, having kids
and everything. Okay. I'm familiar with the story
now that you've ref - refreshed my memory. Oh
good and I'm going to keep refreshing everybody
else's memory who's listening. No you can stop
now. Oh good. There were rumors that the father
of Gamasa and Kawit was in fact Eji Ganaba himself,
but in the census they were put under a different
surname and their family name became Sebekia.
It is significant that Zana was buried in the
family cemetery of the Ganabas, and that the
youngest children of Zana were brought up by
Ganaba's wife. Gamasa and Kawit were both powerfully
built and had dark skin, but they inherited scarcely
anything from Zana's facial appearance. The complex
of features inherited from their father was dominant
them and overruled the mother's line of descent.
Cuit, who died at the age of 65 or 70, was ascribed
by his fellow villagers as a little different
from the human norm, except for certain small
divergences. He was extremely strong, difficult
to deal with, and quick to pick a fight. In fact,
he lost his right hand after one of the many
fights he had with his fellow villagers, but
his left hand suffice him to mow and do other
work on a collective farm and even climb trees.
When old, he moved to the town of Tagavarchelli,
where he eventually died, but he was taken back
for burial at Tequena. The next stage of the
Zana case was taken up by attempts to find her
grave and skeleton. Here is what Boris Poshnev
says about his first efforts in that direction.
In September of 1964, the archaeologist V .S.
Orelkin and I made our first attempt to find
Zana's grave. The cemetery was wildly overgrown
and only the 10 -year -old mound over Cuit's
grave could be picked out among the bracken covering
the hillside. Nobody else had been buried since
then. Zana must be somewhere near. We asked the
old residents in the last scion of the Ganaba
den, 79 years old, Kenton. He was clear that
we should dig under a pomegranate tree. What
was found there turned out to be the remains
of one of Zana's grandchildren who had died early.
For the profile that we established from the
skull was extraordinarily like the profile of
Zana's two living grandchildren whom I myself
had met. After two more expeditions, the search
party had still not found Zana's bones. Though
in a third attempt in 1965, they found what are
probably the bones of of Gamasa as they present
slight but definite paleoanthropic features.
After the passing of Portion of it fell to my
lot to continue the search, I headed three expeditions
to Abakasia in search of Zana's skeleton in 71,
75, and 78, which merits a separate story. Our
difficulty was that by that time, the last scion
of the Ganaba Dan had finally passed away and
nobody knew exactly where Zana's grave was. We
put in a tremendous amount of spade work on that
hillside, digging sticky clay earth. under the
almost daily downpours. During the second expedition,
I was taken seriously ill with an illness which
doctors failed to identify. We never found a
skeleton that would fit Zana's features as described
by witnesses. It was then decided to exhume the
skulls of Kuwait, Zana's younger son, whose grave
was still well indicated. Professor Borchak Abramovich
assisted me in that digging. I brought the skull
to Moscow where it was studied by two physical
anthropologists, M .A. Kolodieva and M .M. Gerasimova.
The results of the study were purported by me
at the Relict Hominoid Research Seminar at the
Moscow Natural Society and published in 1987.
That's the story of Zana, more or less. We got
it like 80 years after it purportedly happened.
Even, there's no children of hers left. There
are some grandchildren to see, but like... Like,
living, like, descendants. Alive, yeah. Okay.
But like, even when the stories were told, nobody
had actually met Zana. okay it's just like legend
at this point yeah but everybody kind of agrees
on the story and this is as far back as we can
go look at it is uh this guy who went and visited
the town found the sun's skull so the research
on zana began in 1962 when moscow biologist alexander
mashkovtsev traveled to the village there he
heard the stories about zana those are what we
were hearing there from the local residents he
soon passed them on to the historian cryptozoologist
porshnev together with colleagues porshnev went
to tekina to find elderly people who had seen
zana in person after more than 70 years had passed
since her death. Though, these witnesses were
over a hundred years old, they still vividly
remembered the events related to Zana. And sorry,
I misspoke, they did meet her. Just super old.
In the story that was being relayed, it said
that Zana did not age. So I thought - Yeah, but
she did die eventually. I almost thought she
might have been eternal based on that, but okay,
she did die. But they don't actually know when
she died, or at least from the story that - to
hold what she died from. abnormal yeah and what
they believe like it seems like she was horribly
abused oh yeah it might be a little sad as we
get going too but there's a bit more still in
1975 historian Igor Dmitrovich Burtsev continued
the research and initially no one could locate
Zana's grave but the burial site of her son Kuwait
who died in 1954 was preserved that's the part
we were listening to at the end of that story
Burtsev also met Kuwait's daughter Reza born
in 1934 from his second marriage according to
Burtsev Reza Burcev had African facial features,
slightly curly hair and greyish skin. And after
a long search, Burcev found Zana's grave. He
conducted excavations that obtained the skull
of Kuwait and presumably Zana herself. So in
75, they did locate it. Years later, Burcev's
research caught the attention of American scientists
studying the genome and lifestyles of Neanderthals.
In a laboratory for Neanderthal genetics at New
York University, Burcev brought Kuwait's Zabikia's
skull after struggling to get permission to exhume
the grave. based on the skull material was supposed
to determine whether Zana was a Neanderthal.
And as of 2015, the last kind of notice I know
of for sure where these skulls are, they're still
in Moscow. Many theories were out there about
what Zana could be. There is a local Bigfoot
legend in the area, they're called the Almosty.
Some people believe that Zana was part of the
Almosty, the Caucasian analog for Bigfoot. Locals
described her as unusually strong, fast, resistant
to cold, traits that fuel claims that she was
a surviving relict hominin. And this interpretation
dominates especially in cryptozoological writings
for decades from when she was discovered. You
also might notice near the end there of my talking,
some people believe that she might have been
related or had Neanderthal genetics. So there
might have been like a lost breed of Neanderthals
that survived in Siberia. Okay. Is either a Neanderthal
remnant or a Denisovan or a previously unknown
archaic species preserved in isolation. These
ideas persisted because no genetic data existed
and kind of her description made her sound like
what we think of as a Neanderthal. And others
think that she might have been a feral human
or isolated mountain population that was living
there. Just some group that's weirdly evolved
on their own out there. And interesting stuff
that comes around 2015 is there's a theory that
Zana, who had dark skin, could have been a representative
of an Afro -Abkhazian group. However, eyewitnesses
who saw Zana claimed that she had nothing in
common with them. The main argument against her
Afro -Abkhazian origin was her abundant body
hair. According to writer Fazil Iskandar, elderly
people who knew Zana may have exaggerated her
body hair to attract public attention to the
village. Descriptions of Zana herself exist only
in stories and photographs of her descendants
and one of their skulls do not exhibit the traits
that would prove Zana was a relict hominid. The
skulls, which some enthusiasts believe belonged
to Zana, as reported by Bercev, is not necessarily
hers. And this is parts written before DNA testing
could be done on the skulls. This burial was
distinctive for the crouched position of the
body while Islamic burial customs require a body
to be laid out straight. The skull itself belonged
to an elderly woman and had distinct equatorial
features. Pronounced prognathism, a convex forehead,
slightly forward -facing cheekbones, a wide nose,
flattened nasal bones, and a broad interocular
space. Basically, what they're describing with
those words is what you would think of as a person
living in Africa. Cuit's skull is indeed impressive,
powerful brow ridge is a large face, wide nose,
and a pronounced occiput. However, by all accounts,
he was homo sapient. The man was undoubtedly
remarkable, but his size was not unusually rare
for the Caucasus. The large brow ridge does not
have the character of a ridge as it would in
a Neanderthal and the so -called supraorbital
triangle. Flattening at the base of the zygomatic
process of the frontal bone, a typical sapient
trait is clearly expressed. The temporal bone
at the lower jaw structure are all distinctly
modern. Are we still talking about? We're talking
about her son. Oh okay. So they've studied both
skulls. Now the next theory pops up in 2015 as
to what Zana was and I think this one's pretty
interesting Chelsea. Okay. Brian Sykes, professor
from University of Oxford, finally starts studying
the DNA. So he analyzes the DNA of Zana's descendant,
the son that we have the skeleton for, and it's
discovered that they have West African genes.
But surprisingly, this DNA did not match any
known modern African group. Sykes theorizes that
the ancestors may have lived in the Caucus Mountains
for generations after leaving Africa over a hundred
thousand years ago. Saliva tests were carried
out on Zana's living relatives, and a tooth was
available from the remains of her deceased son,
Kawit. The findings are controversial. This comes
after Genesis' involvement in other high -profile
cases dealing with disputed DNA samples and conclusions.
In 2014, Sykes and colleagues published a study
of their findings in mitochondrial 12S RNA sequencing
in samples of anomalous primates, popularly called
the Yetis, and the team concluded the samples
connected the legend with the Yeti with a paleolithic
polar bear. Zana's existence seems to be established
historically by witness and residents of Akagia,
yet experts wrestle with the background and biological
identity. Was she simply a victimized woman suffering
from a disability or a runaway slave? His theory
was that there's entirely separate, like, migration
of people out of Africa about 100 ,000 years
ago who are living, like, isolated in Siberia,
so they maintained, like, their black skin and
would still be existing there, I guess, and she
would have been, like, kidnapped from that tribe
out in Siberia. Interesting theory. How would
they have evolved though to be able to live without
clothes? That's a really good question I think
you can attribute that part of the legend as
legend and nothing more. Okay I think you got
to accept parts of the story as we keep going
seem like they might have just been made up by
the people I accept it all don't worry. Okay
good The last study that was done on this was
in 2021, and I do think this puts the whole story
to bed as to what happened. June 14th, 2021,
a paper was posted in PubMed Central for Medicine,
article titled The Genomic Origin of Zana of
Abkhazia, written by Ashot Margarian, Mikhail
Holger Sinding, Christian Caro, Vladimir Yamchikov,
Igor Burtsev, and Thomas Gilbert. They finally
did a study, they confirmed that the two skulls
were related, and they said the following. Enigmatic
phenomena have sparked the imagination of people
around the globe into creating folkloric creatures.
One prime example is Zana of Abkhazia, a well
-documented 19th century female who was captured
living in the forest. Zana's appearance was sufficiently
unusual that she was referred to by locals as
an alnesty. The analog of Bigfoot in the Caucus.
Although the exact origin of Zana's burial site
was unknown, the grave verse on Kuwait was identified
in 1971. The genomes of Kuwait and the alleged
Zana skeleton were sequenced using ancient DNA
techniques. The identical MTDNA and parent -offspring
relationship between the two indicated that the
unknown woman was indeed Zana. So they were able
to confirm that that was her son and therefore
by extension the skull they found was Zana. Population
genomic analysis demonstrated that Zana's immediate
genetic ancestry can likely be traced to present
-day East African populations. We speculate that
Zana might have had a genetic disorder such as
congenital generalized hypertrichosis which could
partially explain her strange behavior, lack
of speech, and long body hair. Our findings elucidate
Zana's unfortunate story and provide a clear
example of how prejudice of the time led to notions
of cryptic hominids that are still held and transmitted
by some today. In summary, our results based
on genome -wide analysis reveal that Zana's genome
had a sub -Saharan African genetic origin, consistent
with the results of previously unpublished craniometric
and mtDNA analyses. This suggested that her presence
in the region may have been linked to the Ottoman
Empire slave trade to Istanbul. That was one
of the main hubs for the slave trade in the region
of the 19th century. Moreover, Zana's largely
Eastern African ancestry is consistent with the
historical records indicating that most of the
African slaves in the Ottoman Empire originated
around the areas of Africa's Great Lakes and
present -day Sudan. The contemporary reports
and subsequent tales of Zana's wildness were
at least partially based on some of her unusual
physical characteristics, such as the lack of
speech, intellectual disability, and long hair.
covering her body, to name a few. With the genomic
data, clearly rejecting all non -human hypotheses,
we speculate that if these descriptions of her
physical characteristics are accurate, she may
have had a rare human genetic disorder such as
congenital generalized hypertrichosis, a syndrome
with dysmorphic facial features, intellectual
disability, and hypertrichosis. And I need to
add, they did have a section on ethics in their
paper. Following her capture in the forest, Donna
was deprived of her basic human rights and treated
as a slave. She was kept in captivity, likely
forced to have sexual relations with local men
and worked in forced labor conditions. After
she passed away, the accounts of her mythical
figure attracted several scientists to unearth
her story and Sun's bones were exhumed. Our study
intends both to reveal true human nature of Zana
and grant her and her descendants remains the
dignity they deserve. Yeah, it turns into a very
sad story when you reframe all the stories about
her as she was a runaway slave. It's this isn't
the first time that we've covered a topic like
this on the podcast. There was the other one
What was her name? We covered her very early
on and she was a part. It's the one that I originally
said She was a part of like a traveling freak
show. Yes I'm trying to remember her name, too
And she was fairly famous the same way and it
was exactly the same if you look into anything
from the 1800s It was something really racist
probably. Yeah, it actually ended about exactly
the same, that she was like a slave from Africa
and they called her Bigfoot. Yep. But yeah, Chelsea,
any questions about that story? I think it's
pretty laid to rest in it, like, fairly open
in shot that... This is exactly what it was.
Yeah, it's a good episode. I like this story.
It was pretty apparent though that even if it
was a Bigfoot, they're definitely abusing that
Bigfoot. But in the end, it just speaks to humanity.
No, she liked to swim in the river in winter
and to sleep outside all the time. Yeah, to dig
a hole to sleep in outside. And be prodded by
the children. Yep, and was referred to as the
Boogeyman to scare the children. And in the end,
it just isn't humanity great kind of thing. Yeah,
you like to think it was like a hundred years
ago was different, but we're really still pretty
terrible. I would like to think we don't do things
like this anymore, but we're just doing different
horrible things now. And we just like kind of
pick different groups to differentiate ourselves
from. Yeah. But that's probably enough introspection
for that. It's a fun Bigfoot story. Until you
look into it even a little. Until you listen
to the whole episode. With that I have been Taylor
here with Chelsea. We are journey to the fringe.
Thank you all for listening. We'll see you next
week. Goodbye Thank you for listening to Journey
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