The Asian Wild Man Read online

  Tenzing told me that his father had encountered one which had crawled on top of his yak herder’s hut one night and stayed there until driven off by smoke from the old man’s yak dung re.6

  Tenzing also mentioned that he had recently spoken with an American, Tom Slick, who was planning an expedition to search for the yeti. Peter wrote to Slick in San Antonio, Texas; six months later they met in Delhi. Slick had long been interested in the mystery of the yeti. The photo taken by Shipton in 1951 during the Everest Reconnaissance Expedition had left just as vivid an impression on him as it had on Byrne. There was also that series of remarkable footprints photographed on the Menlung Glacier; the close-up of a footprint showing Shipton’s ice axe for scale was unforgettable. These tracks were most enticing because of their resemblance to human footprints. For example, the big toe was larger and more human-like in shape than that of the great apes. Those striking black and white images kindled a passionate desire to resolve their mystery.

  Few imagined that humans

  had made such tracks; even

  fewer supported the idea that

  they could have been made by

  a known great ape. Perhaps, as

  Odette Tchernine suggested,

  some unknown primitive hom

  inid might have survived, living

  deep in the high-altitude forests

  or in unexplored ravines. Noth

  ing could prevent it from ven

  turing as high as 7200 meters

  (23,600 ft) where Shipton and

  his companions had discovered

  its tracks.

  In those days, people from

  all walks of life were taking an

  Shipton footprint, one of a series found by Eric Shipton and Michael Ward on the Menlung Glacier, 1951. PHOTO: Interna onal Society of Cryptozoology Newsle er, vol 5, No. 4.

  interest in the existence of the snowman. Mira Behn, for example, an English disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, was working for the Indian government, organizing cattle grazing at high altitudes in northern India. She listened carefully to reports by cowherds, who spoke of the van manas or ban manas (van or ban: forest; manas: man). She was concerned that should such an “unknown brother of the hills” be caught, care would be taken not to injure it.

  One is reminded of the words of an old Indian quoted by Odette Tchernine: One day as I was walking on the mountainside, I saw at a distance what I thought to be a beast. As I came closer I saw it was a man. As I came closer still I found it was my brother.7

  In some areas, such brothers are studiously avoided. In his Himalayan Journals, published in 1884 in two thick volumes, Dr. Joseph Hooker described (vol. 1, chapter 1) wild men living near the mountain passes of Sikkim, called the harrum-mo by the Lepcha. These wild men lived far from human habitation, spoke an unknown language, used bows and arrows, and ate snakes and other vermin. Lepcha guides did not dare approach them, let alone touch them.

  In the middle of the nineteenth century, Bhutanese people believed in the presence of the snowman. They also thought that these creatures were becoming increasingly rare. According to them, there were three kinds of snowmen:

  Snowman Number One is large and fairly docile; the second type suggests a savage carnivore, about ve feet tall, long-haired and apelike, and of muscular build. Thirdly, comes a “Little Man,” shy and shaggy…According to the most recent statement I received from Bhutan, various types of Snowmen have common characteristics. The pungent smell and the high whistling, or mewing call, tally with some of the features attributed to other similar mystery creatures.8

  Odette Tchernine points out that the snowman is Bhutan’s national animal, to the point that in the 1960s it issued a series of postage stamps representing the various types of snowmen.

  There was at that time general agreement between the various descriptions, pro ling a creature closer to animal than to man, unclothed and without any weapons or tools, not having mastered re, and incapable of articulate speech. Bhutanese touristic brochures featured the scenery, the ora and the fauna, including the snowman, which was treated with as much sobriety and interest as were more familiar instances of “reality.”

  Nearby, in China, there appeared in the English language Peking Daily of January 29, 1958, an eyewitness report by Paï Hsin, a lmmaker with the People’s Liberation Army. In 1954, returning from a shoot, he and three coworkers saw two “men,” short and bent over, climbing, single le, a hillside in the Pamir Mountains. Paï Hsin and a cameraman followed tracks that closely resembled human footprints, except for their giant size. As night was falling, they had to turn back after about a mile (1.5 km).

  The lesser ye and human prints compared. ILLUSTRATION: P. Coudray, Guide des Animaux Cachés, 2009.

  The Himalayan realm. PHOTO: Author’s le Paï Hsin had also lived in Sinkiang, a Chinese province just north of Tibet. He had stayed in the posts of border guards at the Russian frontier, in the Pamir Mountains. Once, the guards had taken away the carcass of a diseased (and deceased) cow some 40 meters away from their post. The meat must have been spoiled. At dawn, the guards saw a “wild man” sneaking away with pieces of meat. Whatever that creature might have been, Paï Hsin was sure of its existence in the Pamir wilderness.

  On the Russian side, in the 1950s and 60s, researchers were looking for a snowman they called alma (or almasti) and were trying to map its geographical distribution, which turned out to resemble closely that of the snow leopard. It was suggested by some that it was the leopard’s prints that were mistaken for those of the snowman. Others claimed that the reason that the snow leopard never attacks humans is that it lives in peace with the human-like yeti.

  The proximity of snowman and leopard would of course suggest an answer to the recurring question: Why are the bones of snowmen never found? Simply because there are no leopard bones either. Predators totally clean every carcass. What’s left is then swept away by mountain streams at snowmelt.

  Thus, already in the 1950s there were serious research efforts focusing on the search for the snowman. Russian and Chinese scientists collaborated to create a map of its habitat in Russia and Asia. Witnesses came from all ranks of society: Sherpas, farmers, shepherds. Some had diplomas, like John Dalton Hooker, a physician; or Paï Hsin, a lm producer working with soldiers familiar with the mountains.

  The weight of credible reports, the plethora of tales, mythological accounts, scienti c articles, and eyewitness descriptions by indigenous people all added up to a solid case for launching an expedition to prove the biological reality of the snowman.

  1. Sherpas: A Nepalese ethnic group reputed for its skilled mountaineers. Lepchas: a Mongoloid people thought to be the original inhabitants of the mountains of Sikkim, where Tibetans and Nepalese also live.

  2. Among the names describing “Surviving Hominids,” Ode e Tchernine nds the term rakshasa: mys cal Sanskrit word for demon, reminiscent of rakshibompo: a hybrid Tibetan/Sanskrit word meaning powerful demon (cf Ode e Tchernine, In Pursuit of the Abominable Snowman, p. 175).

  3. Peter Byrne, The Search for Bigfoot, p. 96.

  4. Peter Byrne, op. cit. p. 97.

  5. Peter Byrne, op. cit. p. 97.

  6. Peter Byrne, op. cit. p. 98.

  7. Ode e Tchernine, In Pursuit of the Abominable Snowman, p. 12.

  8. Ode e Tchernine, op. cit. p. 64.

  2. Nepalese Expeditions

  Con dent in the authenticity of the information he had gathered about the snowman, Peter Byrne wrote to Texas cattle and oil entrepreneur Tom Slick, in San Antonio.1 Slick ew to New Delhi to meet him. They traveled together to Katmandu to prepare for a trek on foot up the valley of the Arun into the mountains of northwestern Nepal.

  At the end of three months Byrne found, at an altitude of 3300 meters (10,827 feet), some 25-centimeter-long (10-inch) ve-toed tracks; Slick with a separate team also found a set of tracks, 32.5 centimeters (13 inches) long. After such encouraging beginnings, Slick decided to launch a more intensive search and spent
the next six months gathering supplies. Another wealthy sponsor, Kirk Johnson, joined the team, which by now included ve Europeans, 10 Sherpa guides and 65 porters. Well known naturalist Gerald Russell, who lived in France and had already traveled in the Himalayas with a Daily Mail expedition in 1954, led the expedition. The team also included photographer George Holton and German lmmaker Norman Dyhrenfurth. Peter Byrne and his brother Bryan were in charge of logistics. Pushkar Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana, a retired Nepalese army captain, took care of liaison with local authorities. A carefully planned and well-out tted enterprise!

  The weekly magazine Paris Match followed the progress of the expedition. In those days only the cover page, some ads and a few photos were in color. Most of the pictures were in black and white, but their sharp contrast and the large format of the magazine left a lasting impact on readers’ memories. On May 17, 1958, the front cover featured popular TV hostess Jacqueline Huet and a catchy hook: “Exclusive! The Hunt for the Abominable Snowman. On the tracks of the Yeti!”

  Bryan Byrne demonstra ng the use of the crossbow and anesthe c arrows. PHOTO: Paris-Match One of the full-page photos showed Bryan Byrne, surrounded by a group of villagers in local dress, handling a compressed air crossbow. It was hoped that the vial of curare in the arrowhead would put the “monster” to sleep. This brings to mind a conversation I had with Peter Byrne in Oregon in 1995 while he was showing me a stun pistol. Peter admitted that no one knew the appropriate dose for putting a bigfoot to sleep; the same is of course true for the yeti or any other unfamiliar creature. Too much can be lethal. How can one guess a priori how much curare it would take to cause only a temporary paralysis?

  After leaving Katmandu, the explorers set up a base camp in the northeast valley of the Arun River. They visited Sherpa villages, some rather primitive:

  —it was a collection of a dozen stick huts hidden in the Himalayan forest. We approached, unarmed; the village was deserted. It was only after about an hour that the inhabitants—about thirty altogether—gradually reappeared, one at a time. They had never seen white men…There couldn’t be that much difference between their shacks and the Snowman’s den. Their tools were re-hardened sticks; their only weapon a long wooden spear and their bedding a pile of grass. However, the Sherpas understood their language. It was in that most simple of villages that we found ourselves again on the track of the Yeti.

  As soon as we arrived, Gerald Russell, our lead hunter, interviewed the natives, with one of the porters acting as an interpreter. Each time the Sherpa pronounced the words Metah-Kangmi— abominable snowman—panic ared in the tribesmen’s eyes. For untold generations the apemen were the terror of the valley. After an hour’s discussion, an old man told us that a Metah-Kangmi had been seen three moons ago near a very small hamlet—two isolated hovels—down the stream.”2

  Gerald Russell, Peter Byrne, Norman Dyrhenfurth and, standing behind them, Bryan Byrne. PHOTO: Paris-Match The nature of the terrain made getting around most dif cult. The images gathered by lmmaker N. Dyhrenfurth give an idea of the nature of the ground. They also show the three mastiffs, Lou, Mary, and Blue, brought in from Arizona and trained for yeti hunting. The leaders of the expedition were all experienced mountaineers, familiar with Himalayan forests. Gerald Russell relied on solid principles:

  • it was essential to remain friendly with the natives, otherwise, there was no hope of ever nding any kind of specimen;

  • one had to be ready to get one’s hands dirty and share in the work;

  • one had to remain modest in behavior and appearance.

  Many had trouble with one or the other of these conditions! Camped a two-hour walk below the summit of a pass, in the thin mountain air, the men sought some protection from the wind, but the erection of a snow wall required great effort. An observer was always on guard, night and day. The explorers kept their guns handy: “our last defense against the yeti.” Peter Byrne was sure that the snowman had been watching them for the last four nights. Should he be afraid? Not if he were to recall the adventure of Capt. d’Auvergne, a British soldier of French ancestry who, in 1938 in the Himalayas, was literally blinded by a violent blizzard. Lost and wandering, he faced death by hypothermia. A yeti carried him to his den and fed him. The captain recovered his composure and his sight, but the gray-furred creature had disappeared…

  One night, Peter, Bryan and the photographer were awakened by the sound of footsteps. Struggling with the frozen tent zippers they rushed outside with their ashlights. Nothing. The creature returned the following night. “We were sleeping in our clothes, with the tent doors open. In thirty seconds we were outside. Not fast enough. We heard the snow squeaking uphill and a gigantic sigh. Our lights showed nothing but the darkness.” (Peter Byrne)

  showed nothing but the darkness.” (Peter Byrne)

  inch) footprints; the creature had approached within two meters (6.5 feet) of Gerald Russell’s tent. The big toe left a clear imprint. The tracks stretched over 200 meters (650 feet), as far as a rocky outcrop. Peter dispatched two Sherpas with the news and readied enough supplies for a sweep of the area over the next two weeks. Most of the materials were left in a cave used as observation point.

  After four months the expedition members left Nepal, called elsewhere by various commitments. Peter and Bryan Byrne continued their search alone for ve more months.

  Finally, when the snow became too deep, the brothers walked back to Katmandu. They consumed the last of their supplies and found that much of their equipment needed replacing. They spent six restful weeks in the modest Royal Hotel before a message from Tom Slick requested them to return to the freezing summits to photograph a yeti. A week before Christmas the two young men left behind the comfort and amenities of the city. Peter noted that they were so taken by what Slick called “the ultimate quest” that during the rst year they worked for nothing. In the second year, they accepted wages of $100 per month each.

  The two men traveled light, without tents or food supplies. They decided to live like mountain shepherds, sleeping in wooden shelters or in caves when they climbed above the tree line. They spent another nine months in northeast Nepal.

  Did they perhaps nd time to read in the papers the report of a famous Russian geographer, Prof. S.V. Obruchev? According to him, the yeti was as tall as a man, covered with brown or gray hair or fur. Its feet were 25 to35 centimeters (11–16 inches) long and wider than a human foot; the big toe, as well as the next toe, was well separated from the other toes. The prints were reminiscent of both those of a man and of a great ape, similar to those of a Neanderthal but more primitive. The snowman fed on plants, herbs, berries, roots, insects and small mammals.

  During her research on the northern slopes of the Caucasus, Dr. Marie-Jeanne Koffmann and her team had discovered two dens of almas:

  They found a heaped-up larder consisting of two pumpkins, eight potatoes, a half-chewed corn-cob, two-thirds of a sun ower centre, blackberries, and the remains of three apples. Mixed up in this hoard were four round pellets of horse dung. It seems the Almas are very fond of this substance because of its salt content.3

  Peter Byrne reports that an unknown primate, probably a yeti,

  Bernard Heuvelmans and Edmund Hillary examining a ye scalp. PHOTO: Author’s le living in a canyon of the Arun River also had frogs on his menu; at least that’s what the natives said, since Peter and Bryan, in spite of the hundreds of kilometers of travel in the high mountains, never met the snowman.

  Nevertheless, some ndings suggested that the brothers had found solid evidence: rst, the discovery of the scalp of a yeti in a monastery in Pangboche; later (1960), Sir Edmund Hillary, the conqueror of Everest, brought back an identical imitation of the Pangboche scalp from an expedition in search of the snowman. Peter and Bryan also found in Pangboche what they took as the mummi ed hand of a yeti. James Stewart, the actor, and his wife agreed to smuggle it to London in their baggage.

  For three years in the Himalayas the Byrne brothers enjoyed a life fully as adv
enturous, and sometimes as dangerous, as young men can possibly imagine.

  The Pangboche hand was perhaps an essential element of a sacred ritual. In his quest for knowledge, Peter Byrne interfered with this relic, a supporting artifact of a holy prayer to the emanation (from the Latin manus = hand) or even the manifestation of the Supreme Being. As a result, the affair of the Pangboche hand has taken on a divergent mythical status. This ritual Tibetan object has now entered the domain of western science, passing from one mythical realm to another. In London, W.C. Osman Hill conducted a physical examination of the pieces (thumb and a nger bone) that Byrne supplied. His

  rst ndings were that it was hominid, and later in 1960 he decided that the Pangboche fragments were a closer match to a Neanderthal. However, more recent DNA testing has shown the bones to be of human origin.4

  The yeti scalps preserved as sacred relics in Tibetan monasteries had strictly religious purposes. The specimen brought back by Sir Edmund Hillary and examined by Bernard Heuvelmans turned out to be an artifact constructed from the skull, skin and hair of the serow goat (Capricornis thar).5 The lamas wore that cap during ceremonies in order to represent the snowman.

  According to Bernard Heuvelmans, Tom Slick’s most important contribution was to distinguish between two kinds of yeti: • one was covered with black hair and stood up to 2.40 meters (8 ft) tall;

  • the other was smaller and with a reddish pelt.

  The former lived in Tibet, northern Sikkim and Nepal, at altitudes above 4000 meters (13,000 feet).