The Asian Wild
Man
The Asian Wild
Man
Yeti Yeren & Almasty Cultural Aspects & Evidence of Reality
Jean-Paul Debenat, PhD Translated by Paul LeBlond, PhD
ISBN 978-0-88839-719-5 Copyright © 2014 Jean-Paul Debenat First printing 2014
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Debenat, Jean-Paul
[À la Poursuite du yéti. English]
The Asian wildman : yeti, yeren & almasty : cultural aspects & evidence of reality / JeanPaul Debenat, PhD ; tranlated by Paul LeBlond, PhD.
Includes index.
Translation of: A la poursuite du yéti.
Translation of: A la poursuite du yéti.
88839-720-1 (html)
1. Wild men--Asia, Central. 2. Sasquatch--Asia, Central. 3. Yeti.
I. LeBlond, P. H., translator II. Title. III. Title: À la poursuite du yéti.
English.
QL89.2.S2D4213 2014 001.944 C2013-908225-5 C2013-908226-3
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Contents
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Translator’s Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1. The Yeti in the 1950s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2. Nepalese Expeditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3. The Book of Small People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4. The Yeti and Ethnomedicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5. The In-between Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
6. Dasaï, Dasain or Dashain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
7. In the Footsteps of a Myth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
8. The Dumje Festival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
9. Esau the Hirsute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
10. Messner’s Yeti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
11. A Casual Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
12. Discoveries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
13. Messner Perseveres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
14. A Parenthesis: Links to the Paci c Northwest . . . . . . . . . . 76
15. Siberia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
16. Kazakhstan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
17. Mongolia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
18. Diogenes in the Himalayas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
19. Looking Back: Marie-Jeanne Koffmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
20. Mystery of the Braided Manes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
21. Myth and Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
22. Dr. Koffmann’s Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
23. The 1992 Almasty Expedition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
24. Grover Krantz’ Enquiry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
25. The Wild Man in Modern China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
26. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Postscript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Appendix 1: From the Roof of the World to the Mesas of Arizona 149
Appendix 2: Angels and Demons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
About the Translator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
This book is dedicated to Maya
Note on the term “almasty” There are many terms in Russia for this unclassi ed hominoid. Every region in this vast country has its own name for the creature, and almasty (or almasti, almas) is simply one of the names. However, in the last 30 years or so, this word more than any others has been used for the creature in European and North American written material. I have therefore elected to use it as the common word for the Russian hominoid I discuss in this book.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Peter Byrne (USA), Paul LeBlond (Canada), Christian Le Noël (France), Prof. Zhou Guoxing (China) and all those friends who helped me with my rst book on the wild man (Sasquatch/Bigfoot, 2009, Hancock House).
I wish to thank the artists who have offered their illustrations: painter and writer Alika Lindbergh; and Philippe Coudray, illustrator and author, for his drawings of the greater and lesser yetis from his Guide des animaux cachés (Editions du Mont, 2009).
I am particularly grateful to my translator and friend, Paul LeBlond who I have known for many years. The Asian Wild Man is our second collaboration.
I am also most grateful to my faithful and patient secretary, my wife Marie-Agnès, and for the work and suggestions of my translator, Paul LeBlond.
Translator’s Foreword
Are there really wild men still lurking in the mountains of Asia? Are the yeti of Tibet, the almasty of the Caucasus and the chuchunyas of Yakutia possibly manifestations of a relic population of primitive hominids, relegated into ever more inaccessible areas by the invading tide of their human competitors? Is their shyness and fear of humans the reason why they are seen so eetingly and why their existence remains too doubtful to satisfy modern zoologists? Or are those vague and rare glimpses misinterpretations of bears and apes? Have those wild men perhaps by now vanished entirely, surviving only in the legends and myths of native populations?
Debenat takes us on a whirlwind tour of Asia, and its extension in the European Caucasus, in the footsteps of prominent wild man explorers—Peter Byrne, Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, Reinhold Messner, Zhou Guoxing—documenting their efforts to nd answers to these questions. He complements historical and recent ndings by searching the deep past through the window of mythology for traces of vanished races. Myths, religious rituals and folkloric events hold clues to the hidden meaning of the wild man, in Asia and elsewhere, as the author emphasized in his previous book on the sasquatch/bigfoot.
The possibility of survival of another branch of humanity, parallel to and estranged from H
omo sapiens, continues to fascinate scientists and novelists. Were our mysterious Neanderthal cousins and competitors exterminated, as most believe; assimilated, as some recent evidence suggests; or merely pushed aside into the wilderness? In this book, Debenat presents a panorama of the state of knowledge of the wild man in Asia, which spans the continent in space and the centuries in time and which leaves the reader with a deeper appreciation of one of the most fascinating mysteries of modern anthropology.
Originally published in French, this book draws from a wide variety of sources; in adapting it to a North American readership, citations have been made to English language references wherever available. Cultural allusions obvious only to a Gallic audience have been adapted or explained where necessary.
Paul LeBlond
Galiano Island, BC
Preface
He had barely begun with the traditional expression, “ Once upon a time…” when a woman interrupted him.
Just what time are you talking about?
He answered, That time when the animals spoke.
There were of course smiles and whispers. Thinking himself clever, a man said, You mean at THAT time?
Exactly, answered the storyteller. But please do not interrupt me again: I can’t explain and tell the story at the same time. It’s your choice.
—JEAN-CHARLES PICHON, from L’âne qui a vendu son maître (The donkey who sold his master), 1996 A few years ago, my many travels, readings and encounters left me with an extensive documentation about an elusive creature: the slippery and evasive sasquatch, or bigfoot, the hairy giant of the American Paci c Northwest. I gathered my notes in a book wherein I also, on occasion, referred to the wild man of Asia and to Gigantopithecus, bigfoot’s widely debated putative ancestor.
In spite of occasional dif culties arising from their governments’ politics, investigators in North America, Russia and China have always exchanged information. Right from its creation by Bernard Heuvelmans in the 1950s, cryptozoology attracted the curious everywhere and even eminent scientists. The International Society of Cryptozoology (ISC), over which Heuvelmans presided, included among its honorary members Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, Théodore Monod, Sir Peter Scott and John R. Napier. In 1938, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, curator of the East London Museum in South Africa, discovered a sh covered with bony plates rather than scales, a living fossil thought extinct for 65 million years: the coelacanth! Local shermen knew of it as a food sh called gombassa or mame. This discovery, at rst met with incredulity, caused a major sensation in zoological circles.
As to Dr. Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, the reader will learn about her and her works below in the chapters relating to the almasty, the wild man of the Caucasus.
Théodore Monod, was a specialist of desert ecosystems, an erudite and proli c author as well as a poet and philosopher. His works are a trove of information for scientists as well as a source of inspiration for all thinking people.
Sir Peter Scott, prominent ornithologist and nature painter, was one of the founders of the World Wildlife Fund and the artist who designed its famous panda logo.
Physician, primatologist and paleoanthropologist John Russell Napier was the Director of the Primate Biology Program at the Smithsonian Institution. He was interested in the wild man phenomenon and wrote about it in Bigfoot: the Yeti and Sasquatch in Myth and Reality (1973).
More recently, the renowned chimpanzee specialist Jane Goodall has also shown an interest in the wild man.
These few examples should suf ce to show that people interested in cryptozoology are certainly neither ignorant nor feeble-minded. The lure of mystery also draws in a broad public to works describing creatures either still unknown or believed to have disappeared. The authors of such works regularly repeat the same information since they often draw from each other’s books. The most honest of them of course quote their sources. As for myself, I have sought to go a little further or, in any case, to go back in time. I have strived to draw from the very sources of information by putting the emphasis on the fundamental works of the pillars of cryptozoology, be they eld investigators or theoreticians, or perhaps both at the same time as were the zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans and the physician Marie-Jeanne Koffmann.
I also speak in this study of the work of Vera Frossard, a videographer whose documentary on the yeti has, in my view, not received enough attention. I will also delve at length into the research carried out by the alpinist Reinhold Messner, wrongly decried by some, and I will defend his excellent report on the yeti. I will also quote from the works of a Russian-born Englishwoman, Odette Tchernine, a poet and essayist to whose works Bernard Heuvelmans introduced me many years ago. Many quote from her pioneering work; too few acknowledge it.
I also turned my attention to China, where a wild man, the yeren, has often been reported. A meeting with Prof. Zhou Guoxing opened the door to that investigation and further correspondence with him allowed me to broaden my knowledge.
Finally, in Appendix 1, I report on links between the bigfoot kachina of the Hopi and Tibetan traditions. I thus wished to loop the loop with a brief foray back to North America.
My literary training, as well as my keen interest in traditional cultures, together with the friendly and insightful teachings of Bernard Heuvelmans and of the prominent writer and mythologist JeanCharles Pichon, has led me to emphasize a particular perspective: the hidden meaning of the creature described as the wild man. In order to decipher the deeper symbolism of that creature, I have drawn upon mythology, the history of religions (notably shamanism), and even esoteric knowledge.
I have of course taken into account factual data ( eld observations, scienti c descriptions…), but I have described as best as I can the domain where I feel most competent: interpreting the meaning hidden in tales, legends, rituals, masks and other cultural artifacts. I invite the reader to discover, as I have, some unexpected aspects of the wild man in Asia.
Pont St. Martin January 2011
1. The Yeti in the 1950s
A few years ago, Peter Byrne and Robert Short were reunited for a special ceremony. They were celebrating the 60th anniversary of the crash of a twin-engine Catalina seaplane in a lagoon of the Cocos Islands (also known as Keeling Island, 800 kilometers [497 mi] southwest of Java). The aircraft, part of Squadron 240 of the Royal Air Force based in Madras, carried 14 Canadian and British airmen when it fell into the lagoon on June 27, 1945. Nine people died. Peter Byrne, then in the RAF, was a member of the rescue team rst on the scene. On June 27, 2005 he and Robert Short, the last remaining survivor of the crash, took part in a commemorative ceremony on West Island, one of the Cocos.
This rather solemn function is a vivid reminder of what an adventurous life Peter Byrne has led. In 1946, while he was still in uniform, he rst heard about the “snowman” from Sherpas and Lepchas1 during a leave in Darjeeling in the mountains of northern India. Demobilized in London in 1947, he set out to investigate the mysterious mountain primate. He discovered that except for some Chinese manuscripts dating back to 200 BC, there was hardly any mention of it until 1832. In that year, the British resident at the royal court of Nepal in Katmandu wrote that during an expedition his men had been scared by a rakshas,2 a Sanskrit word still used in the 1970s. The tribes of northern Nepal were also said to use the term shookp or sogpa to denote the yeti. In Byrne’s words:
The Resident, Mr. B.H. Hodgson, a well known naturalist in his day, described the creature seen by his men as walking erect, tailless and covered with long dark hair.3
Nepal and surrounding countries. Reports trickled in during the rest of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1921, for example, C.K. Howard Bury, leader of the Everest Reconnaissance Expedition, described enormous footprints left in the snow in Lhokpa Pass, at 6600 meters (20,000 feet). In 1925, British photographer N.A. Tombazi, a gentleman of impeccable reputation and a member of the Royal Geographical Society, observed a yeti-like creature crossing a grove of dwarf rhododendrons i
n the area of the Zemu Glacier, at an altitude of 5000 meters (16,000 feet).
These two examples will suf ce for now, and we return to Peter Byrne who, in 1947, found employment with a London-based rm managing tea plantations in northern Bengal. Wrote Byrne:
In those days companies were liberal with the amount of vacation time they allowed their young gentlemen assistants and just a year later I was able to take a month’s leave of absence.4
In 1948, Peter drove to Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim, in his rusty Austin Seven. Accompanied by two Sherpas, he walked to the area of Green Lake, and after 10 solid days of trekking reached the Zemu Glacier. There, in the hard snow, he found a single footprint. The Sherpas, hardy mountaineers, reacted nervously and were eager to leave the area.
Famous mountaineers soon joined the roster of discoverers: Eric Shipton photographed a lone print on the Menlung Glacier in 1951; he was soon followed by John Hunt and Edmund Hillary. Prince Peter of Greece, a resident of Kalimpong, India and a respected anthropologist who pondered for many years the mystery of the yeti, was of the opinion that there was some factual evidence behind all those observations. Peter Byrne was often his guest.
Peter returned to Sikkim in 1956. By this time I had resigned from my tea company and gone into the big game hunting business in India. The life of a tea planter proved less attractive after Indian independence, and the big-game hunting safaris in India were in their infancy and just beginning to attract international attention. In the spring of that year, with time to spare between safari bookings, I once again set out for Sikkim. This time I went up the Sikkim–Nepal border route, a high ridge route that runs south to north and that climbs all the way into the Zemu area. I spent a month searching the frozen dwarf scrub up to 15,000 feet and found nothing more than wolves, snow leopards and bears, the common wildlife of the middle Himalaya.5
On his way back, trekking through cold and fog, Peter and his two Sherpas caught a glimpse of a group of men walking about 650 meters (2000 ft) below them. They aimed to join them: “a month in the hills leaves one wanting company.” Soon, Peter and his companions were welcomed around the camp re where they met with old friends, one of them being Tenzing Norgay, Edmund Hillary’s climbing mate. The men were members of the new Indian Mountaineering School created in Darjeeling. The conversation quickly turned to the yeti. As Byrne wrote:
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