Paranormal Creatures: The Akkorokamui, The Almas, and The Altamaha-ha · 8:48pm Mar 30th, 2017

Paranormal Creatures: The Akkorokamui

The Akkorokamui is a gigantic octopus-like monster from Ainu folklore, which supposedly lurks in Funka Bay in Hokkaidō.

John Batchelor records an account of this monster in his book The Ainu and Their Folklore when noting, "...three men, it was said, were out trying to catch a sword-fish, when all at once a great sea-monster, with large staring eyes, appeared in front of them and proceeded to attack the boat. The monster was round in shape, and emitted a dark fluid which has a very powerful and noxious odour." It is said that its enormous body can reach sizes of up to 120 meters in length.

Ainu reverence of this monster has permeated into Shintoism, which has incorporated Akkorokamui as a minor kami. Self purification practices for Akkorokamui are often strictly followed. While Akkorokamui is often presented as a benevolent kami with powers to heal and bestow knowledge, it is fickle and has the propensity to do harm. Akkorokamui’s nature as an octopus means that it is persistent and it is near impossible to escape its grasp without permission. Like other Shinto purification rituals, prior to entering the shrine of Akkorokamui, one’s hands must be cleaned with water with the exception that one’s feet must also be cleaned as well.

Akkorokamui enjoys the sea and offerings which reflect this: fish, crab, mollusks, and the like are particular favorites of Akkorokamui, which give back that which it gave. Homage to Akkorokamui is often for ailments of the limbs or skin, but mental purification and spiritual release is particularly important.

Shrines in dedication to Akkorokamui and associated octopus deity are found throughout Japan. In particular, well known shrines include one in Kyoto and the island of Hokkaido that pay homage to Nade yakushi. These shrines, while named to different entities, come from and share various characteristics with Akkorokamui, and as such practices involving healing, renewal, and purification are similar.

Akkorokamui is characteristically described with the ability to self-amputate, like several octopus species, and regenerate limbs. This characteristic manifests in the belief in Shinto that Akkorokamui has healing powers. Consequently, it is believed among followers that giving offerings to Akkorokamui will heal ailments of the body, in particular, disfigurements and broken limbs.

Another octopus-related kami is Nade yakushi. It is housed within the Takoyakushi-do, a shrine dedicated to Nade yakushi, along the street Teramachi-dori (Temple-Town Street) in Kyoto. This deity receives visits by thousands of individuals per year wishing for healing. At the shrine, Nade yakushi is physically manifested as a wooden statue of an octopus. Worshipers believe that when the left hand of an individual touches the limbs of the statue, the individual's ailments, both mental and physical, are removed.

Paranormal Creatures: The Almas

The Almas or Alma, Mongolian for "wild man", is a purported hominid cryptozoological species reputed to inhabit the Caucasus and Pamir Mountains of central Asia, and the Altai Mountains of southern Mongolia. The creature is not currently recognized or cataloged by science. Furthermore, scientists generally reject the possibility that such megafauna cryptids exist, because of the improbably large numbers necessary to maintain a breeding population.

Almas is a singular word in Mongolian; the properly formed Turkic plural would be 'almaslar'. As is typical of similar legendary creatures throughout Central Asia, Russia, Pakistan and the Caucasus, the Almas is generally considered to be more akin to "wild people" in appearance and habits than to apes (in contrast to the Yeti of the Himalayas).

Almases are typically described as human-like bipedal animals, between five and six and a half feet tall, their bodies covered with reddish-brown hair, with anthropomorphic facial features including a pronounced browridge, flat nose, and a weak chin. Many cryptozoologists believe there is a similarity between these descriptions and modern reconstructions of how Neanderthals might have appeared.

Speculation that Almases may be something other than legendary creatures is based on purported eyewitness accounts, alleged footprint finds, and interpretations of long-standing native traditions that have been anthropologically collected.

Almases appear in the legends of local people, who tell stories of sightings and human-Almas interactions dating back several hundred years.

Drawings interpreted as Almas also appear in a Tibetan medicinal book. British anthropologist Myra Shackley noted that "The book contains thousands of illustrations of various classes of animals (reptiles, mammals and amphibia), but not one single mythological animal such as are known from similar medieval European books. All the creatures are living and observable today."

Sightings recorded in writing go as far back as the 15th century.

In 1420, Hans Schiltberger recorded his personal observation of these creatures in the journal of his trip to Mongolia as a prisoner of the Mongol Khan. Schiltberger also recorded one of the first European sightings of Przewalski horses. He noted that Almasty are part of the Mongolian and Tibetan apothecary's materia medica, along with thousands of other animals and plants that live today.

British anthropologist Myra Shackley in Still Living? describes Ivan Ivlov's 1963 observation of a family group of Almas. Ivlov, a pediatrician, decided to interview some of the Mongolian children who were his patients, and discovered that many of them had also said that they had seen Almases and that neither the Mongol children nor the young Almas were afraid of each other. Ivlov's driver also claimed to have seen them.

A wildwoman named Zana is said to have lived in the isolated mountain village of T'khina fifty miles from Sukhumi in Abkhazia in the Caucasus; some have speculated she may have been an Almas, but the evidence indicates that she was a human.

Captured in the mountains in 1850, she was at first violent towards her captors but soon became domesticated and assisted with simple household chores. Zana is said to have had sexual relations with a man of the village named Edgi Genaba, and gave birth to a number of children of apparently normal human appearance. Several of these children, however, died in infancy.

The father, meanwhile, gave away four of the surviving children to local families. The two boys, Dzhanda and Khwit Genaba (born 1878 and 1884), and the two girls, Kodzhanar and Gamasa Genaba (born 1880 and 1882), were assimilated into normal society, married, and had families of their own. Zana herself died in 1890. The skull of Khwit (also spelled Kvit) is still extant, and was examined by Dr Grover Krantz in the early 1990s. He pronounced it to be entirely modern, with no Neanderthal features at all. Another account by Russian anthropologist M.A.Kolodieva described the skull as significantly different from the normal males from Abkhazia: the skull "approaches closest the Neolithic Vovnigi II skulls of the fossil series".

In the 2013 Channel 4 documentary, Bigfoot Files, Professor Bryan Sykes of the University of Oxford showed that Zana's DNA was 100% Sub-Saharan African in origin and she could have been a slave brought to Abkhazia by the Ottoman Empire. Sykes however raised questions as to whether Zana could have been from a population of Africans who left the continent tens of thousands of years earlier as her son, Khwit's skull had some unique and archaic characteristics. It should be noted that Dr. Sykes only looked at the mtDNA, that is only the DNA from the maternal side. He did not look at the nuDNA from her paternal lineage so the often stated claim that Zana was 100% Sub-Saharan African is an inaccurate conclusion because the DNA tests were limited.

In 2015, Sykes reported that he had undertaken DNA tests on saliva samples of six of Zana's living relatives and a tooth of her deceased son Khwit and concluded that Zana was 100% African but not of any known group, refuting the theory that she was a runaway Ottoman slave. Rather, he believes her ancestors left Africa approximately 100,000 years ago and lived in the remote Caucasus for many generations.

Another case is said to date from around 1941, shortly after the German invasion of the USSR. A "wild man" was captured somewhere in the Caucasus by a detachment of the Red Army. He appeared human, but was covered in fine, dark hair. Interrogation revealed his apparent inability (or unwillingness) to speak, and the unfortunate creature is said to have been shot as a German spy. There are various versions of this legend in the cryptozoological literature and hard proof is absent.

Myra Shackley and Bernard Heuvelmans have speculated that the Almases are a relict population of Neanderthals, while Loren Coleman suggests surviving specimens of Homo erectus. They have been connected to the Denisova hominin. Descriptions of Almases are similar to that of the Yeti of the Himalayas.

Paranormal Creatures: The Altamaha-ha

The mysterious Altamaha-ha is a river or sea monster that some say lives in the coastal marshes and twisting channels around the mouth of the Altamaha River. It is most often seen in the area around Darien and Butler Island, Georgia. A popular part of the culture and folklore of coastal Georgia, it is one of the most often sighted monsters in North America.

The region where the Altamaha-ha is usually seen is a beautiful and mysterious estuary known for its vast marshes, multiple river channels and abandoned 18th and 19th century rice fields and canals. It seems appropriate that the beastie inhabits the waters around Darien, a town founded by Scot Highlanders from the shores of Loch Ness in Schotland.

The original settlers were recruited in 1735 at Inverness, Scotland, a city known for sightings of the Loch Ness Monster. The Highlanders even called their settlement New Inverness before changing the name to Darien.

The exact nature of the Altamaha-ha is as mysterious as the domain in which it lives. Some, of course, say it is nothing but floating logs, masses of vegetation or known marine creatures. Believers, however, tell of a 30-foot long animal with flippers like a seal.

The monster made its splash on the national scene in 1981 when a former newspaper publisher named Larry Gwin reported seeing the creature while fishing with his friend, Steven Wilson. They said it had two big humps about five feet apart and left behind a wake like that of a speedboat.

When newspapers across the country ran stories about the sighting, other witnesses began to come forward. Harvey Blackman of Brunswick, for example, said he had seen the creature in the 1970s. He said it had a snake-like head and was 15-20 feet long and that he had seen it at a point called "Two Way" on the Altamaha River.

Another eyewitness, Frank Culpepper, saw its wake in the same area. He said it left behind a billow of water so big that it caused boats to bump about. One of the men with him ran for a rifle, but it was gone before he could get off a shot.

The reports in 1981 followed much publicity about the Loch Ness Monster, a fact that raised the eyebrows of the skeptical. It was not, however, the first time the Altamaha-ha had made the news.

In fact, a correspondent of the Savannah Georgian newspaper reported multiple sightings of a sea monster on the Georgia coast in a dispatch datelined in Darien on April 18, 1830. The primary eyewitness was a Captain Delano of the schooner Eagle, who saw a monster off St. Simons Island below the mouth of the Altamaha:

"...He repeated the...particulars precisely, describing the animal he saw as being about 70 feet long, and its circumference about that of a sugar hogshead, moving with its head (shaped like an Alligator's) about 8 feet out of the water." - Savannah Georgian, April 22, 1830.

A hogshead, for those not familiar with the term, is a large barrel or cask. Like the sightings reported in 1981, the 1830 appearance of the monster was verified by others. Five men on the schooner also saw it and a number of planters from St. Simons Island told the correspondent that they had seen something strange as well.

It appeared in St. Simons Sound that year and was viewed through telescopes over a period of several weeks. Other eyewitnesses proclaimed the creature seen in St. Simons Sound to be a whale, but no one could say for sure whether it was the same creature seen by Captain Delano. The captain, however, was clear that he had not seen a whale:

"...Capt. D. also states, that he is acquainted with all kinds of whale, and that he never saw but once before, (about 4 years since, off
Doboy bar), a monster similar to the one above described. - Cbarleston Mercury, March 29, 1830.

Doboy Sound, the site of Delano's earlier sighting, separates Sapelo Island from the mainland and connects to the Altamaha River.

Sea serpents seem to have been part of the lexicon of people around Darien well before 1830. In 1826, one of the sloops that sailed from the wharves there was named the Sea Serpent. Did it honor the Altamaha-ha? The sightings of the monster in the early 1800s confirm that people have been seeing something strange in the waters around the mouth of the Altamaha River for a long, long time.

Tradition holds that the Tama Indians who lived up the Altamaha had legends of a giant snake-like creature that lived in the river. No documentation has been found to verify the claim, but the Creek Indians of Georgia definitely told stories of giant snakes in the rivers of their territory to early explorers who recorded the legends.

Sightings of the Altamaha-ha continue to this day, with people ranging from timber workers to Boy Scouts claiming to have seen it. In 2010, an amateur photographer captured video of something strange swimming in the channel off Fort King George Historic Site in Darien. You can see the footage by clicking this link here.

Although many theories have been offered over the years as to what the Altamaha-ha could be, they all remain unproved. Perhaps that is just as well. There is something fun about having a local sea serpent and Darien makes the most of it.

Images of the creature can been seen all over the community and it is not uncommon to see tourists with binoculars, telescopes and cameras on the watererfront hoping to catch a glimpse of their own.

Sources:

Source One: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkorokamui

Source Two: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almas_(cryptozoology)

Source Three: http://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/altamahaha.html

Source Four: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cryptids

Report LyraAlluse · 313 views · #Paranormal #Unexplained #Mysteries #Unsolved #Cases #Scary #Ghosts #Spirits #True #Real #Creepy #Campfire #Tales #Nightmare #Storyteller #Cryptids #Creatures #Akkorokamui #Almas #Altamaha-ha

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Disavowed ASH

Disavowed ASH #1 · Mar 30th, 2017 · 1 · ·

I see.

I wonder if the Akkorokamui ever reserved any women as offerings. *stealth tentacle hentai joke.*

But Humor aside, large octopuses aren't exactly that far fetched, specially if we are talking about sittings from thousands of years ago. Sea Life eve just 800 years ago was larger and more dangerous than today. And plenty of myths regarding facing large beasts from the depts of the ocean aren't that insane.

One wonders just in how much danger where fishermen, and trading ships back in ancient times, I mean there is a reason why for thousands of years being a sailor was considered one of the most hazardous, and manly (no offense) jobs in around.

LyraAlluse

LyraAlluse #2 · Mar 30th, 2017 · 1 · ·

4477500 I definitely believe that there are weird creatures in the ocean and even lakes or larger bodies of water that scientists haven't discovered yet. That's why I don't like going swimming in the deep parts of larger bodies of water. You never know what might be swimming down there.

Disavowed ASH

Disavowed ASH #3 · Mar 30th, 2017 · 1 · ·

4477633 I go swimming and fishing anyway. The allure of the hunt is to good for me to resist.

LyraAlluse

LyraAlluse #4 · Mar 31st, 2017 · · ·

4477734 I love to go fishing and hunting. I don't mind being out in a boat. I just don't like swimming in the very deep parts of the ocean or other bodies of water. I'm afraid of what is potentially swimming below me. lol

Final fantasy forever