I have to confess, than when I read stories about Bigfoot, I like to imagine the places (Vietnam, South America, Tibet, Alaska, Caucasus) where the action is actually happening!! I have read again and again the chapter 8 of Ivan T. Sanderson "Abominable Snowman, legend comes to life" and I was wondering, if it is possible to get more data. I will explain below.

Abominable Snowman Legend comes to Life Chapter 8

"The whole is choked with wet tropical forest, is unmapped, unexplored, and just plain not known. I have a group of young associates under the leadership of this Kenneth (Cal) Brown, who have for some years been working in this area collecting scientific specimens for botanical, zoological, and petrological studies, and I once lived for several years in that area myself, flew over almost all of it repeatedly during the war and have walked all about it. Comparing notes (after 20 years of this) Cal and I have come to the conclusion that this is one of the [i]oddest areas on earth, made the more strange, almost eerie in fact, by the presence of many ancient Mayan ruins therein, which one stumbles across everywhere. There is something uncanny about these gigantic artificial hills, with their endless, writhing carvings, courts, passages, mighty flat-roofed halls, now filled only with the chitterings of bats; utterly abandoned in vast uninhabited jungles that just breathe silently in the noonday tropical sun. There are many strange things in these jungles and some of these pertain to our quest.

Cal Brown has pinpointed for me a valley to which his party once attained and where some of those odd incidents occurred that so often crop up when actually exploring. You can't really put your finger on them, and often one misses even recording them. It may be plants freshly broken in a way that is just not right; or very strange calls; or a certain

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reluctance by any native people around to go any farther or even to talk much. So powerful was this atmosphere at this place that one of Cal's partners—Wendell Skousen, a geologist, and one of the most pragmatic men I have ever met—corralled the locals almost by force and demanded to know what was going on. Then it came out. The locals explained:


There live in the mountain forests very big, wild men, completely clothed in short, thick, brown, hairy fur, with no necks, small eyes, long arms and huge hands. They leave footprints twice the length of a man's.

The area in question was in Baja Verapaz, around the town of Cubulco. Cubulco is the last vestige of civilization, the road ends there, and for all intents and purposes so does everything. The range of mountains in question is the Sierra de Chuacus, whose greatest peak is Mt. (Cerro) Sanché, 8500 feet elevation. Depending on which direction you're coming from, there are between 5 and 7 ridges from the floor of the Cubulco Valley [Rio Cubulco, which eventually joins the Rio Negro to the north roughly 20 kilometers] to C. Sanché. Further than this, I would not want to speculate as to range of this alleged creature. I have coloured in a patch on the enclosed map which depicts the approximate range according to what the natives told me, which means it would range into the departmento of El Quiche. (See Map V.)

Cubulco itself, at about 4200 feet, is really "tierra templada," and the area in question ranges up to "tierra fria." The vegetation is open pine and oak forests on the slopes, and many high plateau areas are covered with grass, as is the Cubulco environ. Along the margins of the highlands where rainfall is greatest, the oak and pine forest merges with the rain forest. Temperature ranges from 30°F to 90°F, and while I have no good figures on rainfall, it is considerably less than, say, Coban.

Now, as to "what the natives said." They referred to a large, hairy creature, which sometimes walked on two legs, and apparently ran on all fours. I considered bear first of all, and queried them regarding size, shape, appearance, etc. The answer was that it looked like a bear, but it wasn't from the description they gave—no conspicuous ears, no "snout"—it was somewhat taller than a man, and considerably broader, covered with darkish hair, and the locals live in mortal dread of disturbing it. [/i]

The people who live around Cubulco are the maya-related "achíes", and it seems the "sisimite" is a part of their legends.
I do not know in which decade Mr. Cal Brown and Mr. Wendell Skousen were active near Cubulco. They describe maya cities lost in the jungle, tropical jungles, highlands, the Cubulco Valley and Rio negro.

Which correspond more or less with this Google Earth's map that I found in another website (link below)


Above Cubulco, there is some valley from a river (flowing from west to east) which finally joins Rio Negro, in which an hydroelectric dam is built now (blue lake in the center) This seems to be a somewhat dry region, but there are some mountains above, which I supposse is the highland that Mr. Sanderson describes. I could not locate "Cerro Sanché", but I suppose it is one of the highest mountains around Cubulco (left hand side, north of the valley maybe?)

Skousen and Brown clearly mention the existence of "maya ruins", temples, public squares, ballgame courtyards...



Behold, the lost city of Kawinal...it is a submerged city, because it is flooded every rainy seasons, and emerges again on the dry season. I was really excited when I found these fotos in Internet, and actually the ruins of the city are near to Cubulco. It seems Kawinal was some kind of outpost.

Guatemala Prehispánica (Spanish)
Great Kawinal Submerged City (English)

Could it be possible, that a mythical creature like "el sisimite" existed here? PEople from Honduras claimed that the creatures were somewhat common at the beginning of the 20th century, buy they got extinct later. But there are some other stories from "Sierra de las Minas" (Montains of the mines). It can be just a myth, but meanwhile, we can dream with lost maya cities.

Hi Adam,

there are a lot of old tales about large creatures coming from mexico and the south american continent..........Percy Fawcett had a percieved sighting........

and then there are some sites that pre-date even the Mayans.........check this one out

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumapunku

this is still a largely unexplored continent, and I'm sure there will be finds in the future

there is also another one that is rumored to be around 15000 b.c.

http://www.crystalinks.com/tiahuanaco.html

The interesting point is that large and famous maya cities are concentrated on the "lowland forested" regions shown in Sanderson maps. Very few large ruins do exist in the "montane" region show in the map. But in the area that Sandersons shows in black, where the "sisimite" can be found (according to his description) there are some remains of strongholds and settlements, some of them with a semi-legendary status in old texts and chronicles, like Kawinal.

Classic mayas from the lowlands had a total collapse around 900 AD, and some survivors reached Yucatan. But the highlands remained populated by other agrarian tribes, which kept their land until 1200 AD, in which an invasion from the "kiché " people happened, which displaced the other tribes, and these cities played an important role in that invasion. But Skousen and Brown described cities with pyramids, temples, palaces and gameball courtyards!! Which still exists, somewhat destroyed and eroded, but they can be found in the places that Sanderson described.

Click to view attachmentI drawed using Google Earth, some new version of the map that Ivan T. Sanderson provided in his book. He's providing correct data, so I just updated the map a little bit.
This is a mountain range called "Chuacús Mountains", the Sisimites were seen around "Cerro Sanché" (Sanché Hill), which I could not locate.
but I suppose the events that he reported happened in the 40s, and Sanderson wrote about them 20 years later, in the 60s.
There was in the 80s a conflict between the guerrillas and the army going on in the region.

I marked the region around Cubulco, the ruins (Kawinal), the Chixoy dam and the Chuacús mountain range. Could it be possible, that some activity is still going on here? It seems it is not a heavily populated region, I could see very few towns and ranchs with Google Earth, and massive mountains in the center.

I heard some other report of Sisimites happening in "Cerro Raxhón", in Sierra de las Minas (Mines Mountain Range), but a long time ago.
It seems the "chicleros" (people who collect "chicle" gum from trees to prepare chewing gum, I'm not joking) had several tales about the "Sisimites". This people live northwards, in Petén. So people from Belize also tell tales about hairy sisimites, and some other friend told me that in nearby Mexico, Campeche, people report seeing "El Salvaje" (the wildman).

This wildman is huge, 2 meters high, dark burned skin, hairy, stinky. It seems he hunts deers and sometimes, cows, and he comes from the nearby mountains from Guatemala.
A friend related me a second-hand sighting, in which they reported that these "Salvaje" (which was no human, no native american, no lost hippy) had spears and some basic clothing. People think it is a caveman, which gathers food for its family in the mountains. Amazing, isn'it?
My friend told me that local peasants know a little about the creature, and that it is a region full of misteries.

I think the tale is amazing, but it would be difficult to prove that such creature like "El Salvaje" exists in reality...
Greetings.
K.A.