The Asian Wild Man Read online

  Bernard Heuvelmans named it Dinanthropoides nivalis, the “abominable snow anthropoïd.” Should it be discovered some day that its teeth are similar to those of a Gigantopithecus, it may become necessary to rename it Gigantopithecus nivalis, to distinguish it from the giant primate of the late Pleistocene (500,000 years ago). As Gigantopithecus is a member of the Pongid family—to which also belongs the orangutan—so is Dinanthropoides a member of a parallel branch of the same family.

  The yeti is thought to be omnivorous, feeding on roots, bamboo, fruits, insects, lizards, birds, small rodents and even larger prey such as yaks.

  In 1957, a Nepalese paper described the terrifying massacre in 1922 of 31 soldiers in an isolated village 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Katmandu. Of the 32-member unit marching at night toward the Tibetan border, a single man had survived. The survivor returned with a 10-man-strong squad. The monster was found asleep after having devoured many of its victims. It took at least two volleys to kill it. The squad leader kept the head. However, a quarter century later no one could nd it.

  The smaller yeti, stocky and hairy and no taller than a 14-yearold child, has a pointed head with thick hair and moves quickly. He eats mostly picas and other small rodents. He is said to be more timid than aggressive and appears quite intelligent.

  There are many reports about these two creatures. One of the most credible comes from Commander E.B. Beauman of the RAF, who found footprints on a glacier at 4200 meters (13,600 feet) during a mountaineering expedition. However, those expeditions speci cally devoted to nding the yeti never managed to catch a glimpse from near or far—only prints, hair and droppings. From an examination of the yeti’s feces, in which he found hair, bones, the whiskers of three mice, a feather probably from a baby grouse, as well as grass, thorns and the claw of a large insect, Gerald Russell concluded that it must be omnivorous.

  A large group on an organized expedition rarely manages to observe a shy animal. In 1950, in the hills, 30 porters were needed to support three explorers. The Daily Mail expedition of 1954 counted 300 men. Journalist Ralph Izzard commented that such an assembly stands out like a line of cockroaches on a tablecloth! It might be more effective to split into small groups hidden for longer periods in strategically selected places.Bernard Heuvelmans also did not think much of quick expeditions: animals do not have time to become used to the presence of the intruders and the explorers are there too brie y to merge into the background, which of course takes some time.

  1 “Tom Slick, the king of Texas oil, who reads only Kipling and whose only hobby is adventure.” Peter Byrne in Paris Match, no. 475, 17 May 1958.

  2 Peter Byrne, Paris Match, loc. cit. p.17.

  3 O. Tchernine, op.cit. p.21.

  4 The hand and the scalp were stolen from the Pangboche monastery in the 1990s. Recently (spring 2011), New Zealander Mike Allsop had replicas made, which he plans to return to the monastery “to help them have an income

  again,” a rac ng tourists to view the relics. (www.bigfootencounters.com/ ar cles/ye -hand.htm) The hand bones (a thumb and a nger) were recently rediscovered at the Bri sh Royal College of Surgeons; Dr. Rob Ogden of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland performed DNA analysis, and the results were revealed on the BBC on December 27, 2011. (www.bbc.co.uk/news/ukscotland-edinburgh-east fe-16316397).

  5 Anthropologist Myra Shackley disagreed with this conclusion on the grounds that the hairs from the scalp looked dis nctly monkeylike and contained parasi c mites of a species di erent from that recovered from the serow.

  3. The Book of Small People

  “The Book of Small People” is the literal rendition of the Chinese ideogram for a “comic book.” One of the most famous authors in this genre was Hergé, the Belgian creator of Tintin, the young reporter, and his dog Snowy. Tintin in Tibet is a classic graphic novel adventure. Bernard Heuvelmans was a friend of Hergé and his technical advisor on the yeti. In the story, Tintin’s young Chinese friend Chang was ying to Katmandu when his plane, caught in a storm, crashes in the mountains. Convinced that his friend has survived, Tintin goes looking for him and eventually nds him in a cave, where he has been sheltered and fed herbs, roots and small animals by a greater yeti.

  Is the yeti, as drawn by Hergé, a real plantigrade biped? Is it an anthropoid great ape? Hergé must surely have pondered such questions after reading Heuvelmans’ description of the footprints, with the big toe close to the other toes, as it is in humans. Besides, Heuvelmans added, anthropoids are usually quadripedal; even when it stands up, the orangutan uses its arms as crutches. Further still according to Heuvelmans, the great apes are not built to walk on their hind legs. The position of their skull and the shape of their spine make them lean forward: the gibbon, for example, stands up by using his long arms for balance.

  Nevertheless, great apes have been seen walking on their hind legs, if only for a short time. Dr. Sydney Britton, a professor of anthropology at the University of Virginia, observed the behavior of a chimpanzee recently arrived from Africa. It had just snowed and the animal stood up on its hind legs. Dr. Britton speculated that snow had played a crucial role in human adaptation to the bipedal stance. Similarly, in the Himalayas, a great ape could have learned to walk on its hind legs to minimize the area of skin in contact with the frigid snow.

  Humans have kept the plantigrade feet of primitive mammals. Human feet are not derived from the prehensile feet of tree-climbing monkeys. Evolution is to be thought of as having progressed in the opposite direction: the feet of the great apes evolved from those of primitive humanoid ancestors. The great ape’s foot is “well developed,” with a strong heel, long and curved toes and, of course, a big toe that moved apart and became opposable. Such a big toe turned out to be useful to climb trees. However, a lineage of creatures that evolved to a larger size would stop climbing trees. This reasoning has led some experts to speculate that the evolution of the gorilla has by now come to an end.

  Le to right: feet of gorilla, snowman, man, bear. ILLUSTRATION: Author’s le. A giant great ape would be more comfortable in a relatively open area: mountains would become an ideal habitat and the snow cover would lead it towards bipedia. This is why Heuvelmans speculates that a race of giant apes, sporting primitive plantigrade feet and bipedal posture, could have developed in a mountainous domain.1 As Heuvelmans remarks, there already exists in the mountains a race of giant carnivores possessing these very characteristics: the bears!

  In June 1942, Slavomir Rawicz and three other exhausted wanderers were rescued in Sikkim by Indian Army soldiers. They had walked across Mongolia, Sinkiang and Tibet, a total of 3000 kilometers (1900 miles). There were originally seven of them who had escaped from a Soviet labor camp in Siberia. Three of them died on the way. During their journey (May 1942) the four survivors said they had met a couple of yetis in a Tien Shan pass between Tibet and Nepal; they watched them for two hours2:

  They stood upright, sticking out their mighty chest, with their hands, at the end of excessively long arms, hanging at the level of their knees. Their ears were at against the skull and, seen from behind, the side of their head showed a straight line from the top of the head to the shoulders. One was reminded of a “Prussian nape.” I couldn’t t this animal in any category; I nally opted for a cross between a bear and an orangutan.3

  Bernard Heuvelmans readily dismissed the idea of a bear and thought that many details strongly suggested an anthropoid ape. He also remarked on the military stiff-necked appearance, sometimes found in older gorillas: “The striking rigidity of the yeti’s neck is likely to be linked to a long-established bipedal stance.”4

  Although Heuvelmans’ hypothesis appears somewhat at odds with more established ideas, it is instructive to follow his reasoning, and to see the elements brought in by a (crypto)zoologist to understand an unfamiliar animal. Hergé, the cartoonist, made good use of the features suggested by his friend Heuvelmans: general appearance, footprints, pelt, sagittal crest, long arms, small prey judging from the size of t
he bones in the den. The snowman’s hair also agrees with Heuvelmans’ description.

  Sheltered in a monastery, Tintin and his friends are guided by a lama’s vision towards the area where the snowman picked up young Chang. The monks know about the mi-gou, as Tibetans call the animal named yeti in Nepal. However, in spite of the fears expressed by the monks, the mi-gou acted in a most friendly fashion towards Chang. Freed unharmed by his friends, Chang remarks:

  it behaved towards me in such a way that I often asked myself if it was not a human being… In striking contrast, Odette Tchernine speaks of the terrifying story told to her by a journalist friend about a little girl kidnapped by a yeti. It was before the Second World War; the child was never seen again. Does Dinopithecus nivalis, the “terrible snow ape” merit such a reputation? We shall soon return to this question.

  Odette Tchernine emphasized the place given to wild men in Tibetan monasteries, near which footprints are often found:

  The lamas in these gompas, as those monasteries are called, beat gongs to scare them away. An account describes how some yeti were given drink and then murdered as they lay drunk within the gompas’ enclosure.5

  Coincidentally, according to Tintin’s Sherpa cook, the yeti loves beer to the point of falling asleep drunk. On that day, he said, the villagers had tied him up, but when he woke up he broke his bonds and ed. Hergé drew freely from the stories told by Himalayan villagers.

  Many authors and travelers speak of the relations between the yeti and people. American novelist and non ction writer Peter Matthiessen was on an expedition to study the snow leopard, sitting around the camp re with his Sherpa companions, when he alluded to the yeti. Their view was that it was more a man-creature than an ape-creature. It was not dangerous, but to meet it brought bad luck. Their grandfather said that the yeti stole from the crops and had in the past been killed with poisoned barley. The Sherpas also thought that the yeti was a Buddhist. Tibetans claim to be the descendants of a monkey-god, and a Sherpa legend says that a monkey that became a Buddhist hermit lived in the mountains and married a she-demon; their children were mi-the, or yetis.

  Matthiessen alluded to the animist gods of pre-Buddhist religions whose focal point was the mystery of the sangbai-dagpo, or hidden lords. That religion, the predecessor of lama Buddhism, was obsessed by the transmigration of the human soul into the bodies of lower anthropoids. Members of that sect venerate the “abominable snowmen,” and the head, feet and hands of dead specimens play a role in their rituals. One should not underestimate the in uence of that animist doctrine on Tibetan Buddhism; it also leads local people to protect yetis from the Europeans’ probing investigations.

  Dr. Charles Stonor, an anthropologist who was the associate director of the London zoo, had traveled in Tibet in 1953 before joining the Daily Mail expedition in 1954. It was he who quoted the words of a lama of the Pangboche monastery, according to whom the remains of the snowman were the object of a special cult in many monasteries. The monk added that he had actually seen two snowmen in Tibet.

  Within the Pangboche Gompa, Stonor discovered a relic which soon became famous: the scalp of a yeti, three-and-a-half centuries old. In Heuvelmans’ view, the shape of the head suggests a personality quite different from that of human being’s: “Only the examination of an actual specimen of the Snow Man will allow veri cation of my conclusions and the completion of a preliminary description of Dinopithecus.”

  These words written in 1955 are still true today. The analysis of the “relic” revealed it to be a fabrication without scienti c value (it was made from the skin of the serow, a type of goat). However it was one of three such scalps, discovered at that time or later. The others have not been analyzed. The biological nature of snowman remains as elusive as ever.

  From a symbolic perspective, however, the scalp or the skull suggests the seat of consciousness, the hand is the em

  anation of the spirit, and the footprint, or rather a

  series of ephemeral tracks in the snow, speaks of

  the path followed by these beings, the way for

  wards. In a mystical context, the trilogy foot

  print/hand/scalp takes a familiar meaning for

  Tibetan Buddhists: it is a call to go further,

  higher, towards the awakening, the En

  lightenment, the ultimate stage of hu

  man evolution.

  Meditation leads to enlighten

  ing intuition, towards the insights that

  break through the veil of illusion. The

  inner vision is the way that leads from

  the world of appearances to that of

  deep truth beyond the world of mere

  phenomena.

  Until recently, sometime before

  the de nitive annexation of Tibet by

  Portrait of the ye .

  ILLUSTRATION: Science et Avenir, 1958

  33

  China in 1965, generations of hermits followed each other high on the slopes of the Himalayas, at 5000 meters (16,000 feet), where Milarepa sat and meditated, and where the yeti spends its life. Mila of the cotton robe, his only garment, was an ascetic and a poet:

  Within the ocean of transmigration between the three worlds, the mystical body is the great sherman. As long as one is concerned with food and clothing, there can be no giving up the material world.6

  Those journalists, explorers and scientists searching for the yeti in the 1950s were probably unaware even of the rudiments of Tibetan mysticism, which must be approached with patience and humility. They might have avoided some disappointments if they had adopted the explanation once offered by a Korean wise man to globetrotter Alexandra David-Néel: We create the world by our thought, but the world also creates us, including our thoughts. There is interdependence. The world (samsãra) does not exist without us; we do not exist without samsãra.

  Two Sherpas. PHOTO: Paris-Match 1 Bernard Heuvelmans, On the Track of Unknown Animals, p 168–171.

  2 There are claims that Rawicz did not make the journey as stated. It is said that he related the experiences of another man, Witold Glinski, and fabricated the ye sigh ng. This, however, has not been substan ated other than by tes mony.

  3 Statement by Slavomir Rawicz, as quoted by Bernard Heuvelmans in On the Track of Unknown Animals, p. 183 . See also Slawomir Rawicz (with Ronald Downing), The Long Walk (1955).

  4 B. Heuvelmans, op. cit. p. 185.

  5 Ode e Tchernine, op. cit. p. 68.

  6 Encyclopédie des Mys ques, tome 4, p. 28.

  4. The Yeti and Ethnomedicine

  The following sections are an attempt to place the presence of the yeti within a broader framework. A deeper perspective will help demonstrate that the yeti, and more generally the wild man, as well as the rituals that surround them, are not speci c to the Himalayas but nd their counterparts in remote areas and ancient times.

  A sidebar in a French magazine recently caught my eye; it described how some chimpanzees took care of their health. While in Uganda, Sabrina Krief, a primatologist with the CNRS, noted that a female chimpanzee suffered from digestive problems. She saw her draw apart from the family group and gather the bark of albizia, a shrub usually of no particular signi cance to the apes. Two days later, the female chimp was better. An analysis of her feces showed her to be free of the microorganisms responsible for the condition. Dr. Krief remarked:

  The observation of animals is perhaps a new approach to discover tomorrow’s medicinal plants.1 According to Haida sculptor Ralph Bennett, the rst shaman, guided by his intuition, followed a sick bear into the forest. He saw it grab some pieces of bark and chew them. The shaman lled his medicine bag with this bark and experimented with it on himself.

  Thus, was empirical medicine born. It has ourished through the centuries. Roman civilization, ahead of its time in many areas, kept intact ancient traditions, as attested by numerous authors. Seneca, writing in the rst century after Christ, thought, “the medicine of yore was the science of a few herbs used to
stanch blood and help the healing of wounds.” Seneca was of course speaking of ancient times, back at the beginnings of Rome (seventh century BC). Perhaps in those days physical labor and simple food were enough to guarantee good health, without much need for physicians. The poet Lucretius believed that the rst men were not subject to diseases. However, the absence of physicians does not imply absence of a medicine based on simple remedies. Cato the Elder held cabbage as the most important and healed himself with a regimen of wine and cabbage; he also relied on incantations to cure dislocations!

  There is no doubt that herbs played an important role in curing the ills of both men and cattle. As cities expanded (Rome had a million inhabitants by the rst century AD) so did the scope of medicine; Seneca commented: “as the number of dishes increase, so do the maladies.”

  Pliny the Elder, ( rst century AD) deplored, as did many others, the fact that his contemporaries had abandoned the simple rustic life of their ancestors. His reference to “The innocent wisdom of early days”2 is a reminder of the old myth of the Golden Age, before man was corrupted by civilization.

  Today’s renewed interest in ethnomedicine and ethnopharmacy reaches back to the most ancient practices, modi ed and skewed by superstitions well before they were replaced by modern science. Science in turn, victim of its own rigor and specialization, no longer fully satis es a large segment of the public. Ancient healing practices are being viewed from a new perspective. It has long been the custom for medical practitioners to heal the spirit as well as the body of the patient. Today, there is a rediscovery of traditional therapeutic methods that treat the sickness by invoking an invisible world accessible to the initiated practitioner, be he shaman, healer, medicine man or medium. Such healers use man-made tools: masks, drums, rattles or costumes.

  One cannot overemphasize the importance of ritual in healing practices. In his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, mythologist Joseph Campbell provides numerous examples. For instance, the !Kung Bushmen of South Africa, whose main musical instrument is their own body, move their feet and their hands with great virtuosity to create extremely complicated rhythms. Behind the drums rise the many voices of healing chants. During these healing dances, the Bushmen commune with each other more deeply than ever, to such a degree that they become a single body. Within this close-knit conguration, they come face-to-face with the gods.