The Asian Wild Man

by Jean-Paul Debenat

  As with many other traditional people, the Kazakhs believed in spirits. Some of these beliefs still surface today. For example, a guest may be invited to bless the lamb cooked in his honor because it is necessary to obtain from the spirit of the animal permission to eat its

  esh. Most Kazakhs are Muslims, although there are many orthodox Christians in the country. The term albast, close to almas and almasty, is used by Kazakh nomads to refer to the wild man. Shaitan—satan, devil, demon—is also used to describe the yeti by Muslim people throughout the former USSR. The Kazakhs and their neighbors the Kirghiz also use the term ksy-gyik, meaning “wild man.”

  In 1907, V.A. Khakhlov, a young Russian zoology student, heard about the ksy-gyik from his Kazakh guide. At the time he was exploring the area of Lake Zaisan, near Sinkiang (Xinjiang) and Chinese Mongolia. The young man interrupted his studies at the university for two full years to explore the wild country around Lake Zaisan and the Tarbagatai Mountains (3000 meters [10,000 feet]).

  Khakhlov sought of cial approval and funding to mount an expedition into Sinkiang. He hoped to return with the head and limbs of a ksy-gyik. Lack of of cial support, followed by the beginning of the war in 1914, rendered his efforts futile. Nevertheless, a great many reports from a variety of travelers suggested the presence of a strange creature in Central Asia.

  One of these travelers was Prjevalsky, a colonel in the Russian army, whose name has become famous as the discoverer of a race of wild horses, covered with thick hair and, with their large heads, looking like wild asses. This primitive relative of modern-day horses was baptized Equus prjevalskii. It was during his rst expedition that Prjevalsky heard about the khoun-gouressou, meaning the “manbeast.” He offered a bounty to whoever would bring him a specimen. Someone brought him a stuffed bear and the explorer concluded that the khoun-gouressou was a variety of local bear.

  During his third expedition, in 1879, one of his riders was chasing a wounded yak when he found himself face-to-face with a group of hairy wild men. Prjevalsky made no mention of this in his of cial report, but Khakhlov heard about it from one of the members of the colonel’s expedition. He also gathered further signi cant reports from nomadic Khazakhs.

  One of these reports speaks of a female captured by peasants. Her body was hairy, the chest narrow, the head deeply set in the shoulders, the arms long and dangly, the legs short. Her feet were large, with widely spread toes, but her hands were long and narrow. Her posture was stooped:

  She was still young, completely hairy and speech-less…whenever a human being approached her, she would yelp and show her teeth. During the day, she would sleep in a position often adopted by small children: the “pose of the child” or “like a camel” in the words of an eye-witness, leaning on her elbows and knees, with her forehead on the ground and her hands on the nape of her neck. Thus, she had calluses, like the “sole of a camel” on her knees, elbows and forehead.1

  Khakhlov noted that the Kirghiz called the wild camel t’ë-gyik, wild horses at-gyik, and wild men ksy-gyik. He concluded that these different creatures must occur in the same geographical area. His strong interest in local names contrasted with the attitude of some “of cial” scientists. Khakhlov’s rich collection of information warranted a detailed report and he wrote an extensive memoir, dated June 1, 1914, to the Russian Academy of Science in Petrograd. Half a century later, Boris Porchnev went looking for the document and discovered it led under: “Notes of no scienti c importance.”

  Obviously, few people shared the young zoologist’s enthusiasm for his “antediluvian man,” in spite of Khakhlov’s conclusion that: “The content of these stories told in the eld by eye-witnesses is enough to conclude that they are not merely mythological or imaginary. There can be no doubt as to the existence of such a Primihomo asiaticus, as one might name it.”2

  Another report originated from a Russian geologist, B.M. Zdorik, working in the Sanglakh Range, part of the Hindu Kush mountains. Having asked for a list of the local fauna, he was told of wild boars, wolves, bears, hyenas, porcupines and jackals. Later however he heard the word dev or deva, a word meaning “impure spirit,” which he had heard in other regions of Tadjikistan. The term is of IndoEuropean origin and is the root of the English word “devil.”

  When quizzed, the local chieftain said that dev were occasionally encountered, singly or in pairs. The Tadjiks had caught one that stole our and grain from a mill. After a couple of months, the creature had managed to break its bonds and escape.

  Zdorik lived for many years in Tadjikstan. In 1934, he was trekking on a high plateau (2800 meters [10,000 feet]) with a local guide when he suddenly came upon a dug-up part of the path, as if worked with a shovel. On the ground, there were blood spots and tufts of marmot fur. A creature was stretched out on the ground; its body was covered with coarse hair closer to that of a yak than to a bear’s. The guide immediately pulled on Zdorik’s sleeve and told him to run away as fast as he could. Describing their fear, Zdorik wrote:

  Never before, had I seen such an expression on a man’s face. His fear communicated itself to me, and beside ourselves, without glancing backwards at the creature, we both ed away down the path, enmeshing ourselves and stumbling about in the high grass.3

  The villagers told them that they had just stumbled upon a sleeping dev, an animal that dwelled in the mountains and with which they were quite familiar. Such an encounter was however an ill omen.

  Without hesitation, Prof. Porchnev followed in Zdorik’s footsteps. He had already gathered testimonies from equally reliable specialists (geologists, engineers…). In 1961, he set on a reconnaissance trip to Central Asia, where he found that the information arising from Tadjikistan was most promising. Having heard about

  Professor Porchnev.

  PHOTO: Author’s le the sleeping dev, thought to be an animal by the people of the region, Porchnev wondered whether it was a bear or an apelike creature. He found from a pair of engineers particularly interested in the wild man a tidbit of information about Asian pharmacopoiea. There exists a medicine fabricated from the grease of “wild man,” a generally rare and expensive product, except in a certain village located in a zone where these hairy beings were reputed to be abundant.

  One immediately thinks of bears, whose body parts are traditionally used in Asia as balms and ointments for various reasons, notably as aphrodisiacs.4 Even today, bears’ penises are found in jars in traditional

  Chinese medicine pharmacies. Porchnev noted the name of the remedy, moumieu, from the Iranian moum, meaning wax or grease; he also noted its resemblance to the Tibetan mi-gheu for wild man. In an area suggested by Zdorik among others, Porchnev bought some moumieu. It was unfortunately of the mineral variety, useful but concocted from petroleum products and unrelated to wild man grease. However, that area was home to a rich fauna: bears, wild boars, lynx, wolves, foxes, martens, badgers, porcupines and marmots, and a luxuriant ora, in some places impenetrable. Stream banks and summits remained inaccessible to Porchnev’s expedition.

  The abundance of berries, sh and game create an ideal refuge for a population of large creatures, especially in combination with its remoteness from human settlement—a guarantee of the presence of large animals…or wild men. Nevertheless, Porchnev felt that obstacles were being put in his way. Time and again, the evidence evaporated, as it did for the moumieu. He blamed his dif culties on the role played by local religions. A map of the distribution of ethnic groups shows that it overlaps with those regions where Islam, Buddhism and Shamanism are widespread; there are, in addition, a few local “pagan” cults. Porchnev came to the conclusion that over the past few millennia, perhaps the last few centuries, Neanderthals had survived in those regions where they were protected by religions or superstitions. For example, leading lamas have issued a special edict protecting the last mi-gheu. Islam, originally spreading at the expense of Zoroastrianism, has become, by default, the protector of the dev:

  Speci c interdictions and instructions have been issued to
the true believers about the near-men, those “spirits” strangely material as well as mortal.5

  Religions play an important role in the countries visited by Reinhold Messner. They constitute a factor that just cannot be ignored. In some cases, wild men have certainly been protected; in others they have been hunted, again for religious reasons. It becomes very important to understand the cultural history of the regions visited, which requires patience and subtlety. The dividing line between physical reality and metaphorical speech is often vague, making it dif cult to know when natives speak of the world of spirits and that of near-men, strangely material as well as mortal.

  Depending on the attitude of the investigator, the religious dimension will appear either as an obstacle, a veil over the phenomenon under study, or as a component which must be included to understand it. In that case, religious in uences open the door to a beginning of understanding and help lift the veil obscuring physical reality.

  1 Boris Porchnev, op. cit. p. 53.

  2 V.A. Khakhlov, as quoted by Boris Porchnev, op. cit., p. 59.

  3 Ode e Tchernine, In pursuit of the abominable snowman, p. 48.

  4 I have seen such jars on the shelf in an “old-style” pharmacy in Chengdu, Szechuan in 2008. I deplore the hun ng of bears, whose numbers are in alarming decline.

  5 Boris Porchnev, op. cit., p. 161.

  17. Mongolia

  In 1998, Messner traveled to Mongolia, a country where the faithful of many religions have had to submit to the communist regime. Today, 50 percent of Mongolians are Tibetan Buddhists, 6 percent shamanists or Christians, 4 percent Muslims and 40 percent agnostic or non-practicing.

  Mongolia. Map: Wikipedia Already in the seventeenth century the lamas attacked the shamans; the “yellow faith” of the “yellow hats” of Tibetan Buddhism faced the “black faith” of the shamans. Shamanisn was, however, so deeply entrenched that what followed was a mixture of both religions. This syncretism is still re ected in Mongolian Buddhism today.

  Once again, ignoring the shaman means going without a potential ally, especially among traditionally nomad or semi-nomad populations: “In him are united religion, psychology, medicine and theology, all of which are separate areas in the West.”1

  Do shamans possess a special ability to get along with wild men? Can they approach them easily? Even dominate them? Do they take advantage of them or of their remains for ritual purposes?

  Neither shamans nor lamas seem to fear encounters with the wild man, speci cally the Mongolian almass. Professor Baradyine, orientalist and explorer, relates how in 1906 his caravan set up camp for the night. At the top of a sandy ridge there appeared the simian silhouette of a hairy man. The professor asked his guides to go after the creature, but only a lama ran towards the almass, declaring that he felt suf ciently strong to immobilize it. However, the almass quickly disappeared behind another dune. The Mongolian members of Baradyine’s party pointed out that it was as rare to encounter an almass as it was to run into a wild horse2 or a wild yak.

  The Mongols call the wild horse tahi. Until recently, of cial zoology considered that such local names referred to legendary creatures, but there really exists a tahi. Odette Tchernine provides important information: “It became evident to the nomads of this region that the Almass, just like the wild horse and the wild camel, were avoiding the neighborhood of man. They had moved further and further away, as the people were extending their grazing areas.”3

  On the other hand, Boris Porchnev points out the wide-ranging distribution of almass in Mongolia, although already by 1927 they were found only in the Gobi Desert and in the Kobdo province.

  Another prominent Orientalist, Prof. Rinchen, a member of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, gathered with the help of his team a large number of eyewitness reports. Here’s his summary portrait of the almass:

  The Almass are very similar to people, but their body is covered with reddish black hair which is not very dense: their skin remains visible through the hair, which never happens among the wild animals of the steppes. Their stature is similar to that of the Mongols, but they are slightly stooped and walk with their knees half bent. They have massive jaws and a low forehead. Their brow ridges are quite prominent compared to those of the Mongols.”4

  Prof. Rinchen (right) with Polish colleague, W. Plawinski, 1967. PHOTO: Author’s le

  The Mongols speak of an illkempt individual as “bristling like an almass.”

  In 1937, during a Japanese offensive in Outer Mongolia, Soviet soldiers shot down two individuals who hadn’t responded to a call to lay down arms. They found that the victims were very apelike. Their interpreter, an elderly Mongol, told them that these wild men were sometimes seen in the hills. As tall as a man, they were covered with moderately dense reddish hair. Their thick hair hid their forehead but not their bushy eyebrows.

  Twenty years later, a considerable number of eyewitness reports about the almass had accumulated. In the Gobi Desert in particular, juvenile almass had been seen, alone

  as well as with their mothers. Porchnev reports on the ethnographic enquiries of Prof. Rinchen and his colleagues, expressing his strong admiration for his work:

  —a magni cent elder, sporting enormous Mongol-style drooping mustaches, always garbed in the colourful national frock. Extraordinarily erudite, he has assimilated various western cultures as well as the Russian and the Mongol, and is considered a worldclass orientalist…As early as 1958, Rinchen published in Sovremennaya Mongolia (Contemporary Mongolia) an article entitled: “A Mongol ancestor of the Wild Snow Man?”5

  Once more, we must acknowledge the quality of the witnesses: hill people, shepherds, soldiers and of cers, explorers, scientists. The precision of the evidence stimulated further work by researchers and everyone eager to gather more information on the creature that a witness, a marshal of the Soviet Army, described as “a fossil ape-man.”

  A report that stands out among the many collected by Rinchen is that of the body of an almass nailed to the ceiling of the Baruun-Urt monastery, in northeast Mongolia. According to the witness, reporting around 1937, the spread-out limbs of the relic were similar to human arms and legs. The dark face was partly obscured by long dangling hair. The skin of the body was decorated by paintings and scattered mystical incantations, the work of lamas. The witness could not recall the presence of hair on the body. This almass, exhibited in a monastery, is reminiscent of Reinhold Messner’s discovery of the skin of a “red yeti” in a Bhutan monastery.

  1 Piers Vitebsky, op. cit., p. 154.

  2 Prjevalsky’s horse.

  3 Ode e Tchernine, op. cit., p. 53.

  4 Boris Porchnev, op. cit., p. 43. B. Porchnev judges these reports reliable: “These carefully worded documents were the results of a long and dedicated research by the emerging Mongolian scien c school, before it split up in a variety of individual disciplines.”

  5 B. Porchnev, op. cit., p. 45.

  18. Diogenes in the Himalayas

  On the roof of Asia, life is constantly in close contact with spirits. The natives’ existence is replete with symbols, rituals, prayers, meditations and dialogues with the world of the living. While religious activity is most intense in the monasteries, one should not forget the numerous sedentary or wandering hermits, Himalayan versions of Diogenes, living in caves, in the forest or in abandoned houses.

  Alexandra David-Néel, the veteran traveler who long lived in Tibet, spent a whole winter as an ascetic, living in a hut of rough-hewn timbers backing onto a cave. She ate but a single meal a day.

  Both the spirit and the senses are sharpened through this life style, constantly lled with contemplation, observation and re ections. Does one then become a visionary; or rather has not one remained till then completely blind?1

  Given the mystical context of the country, one should not be surprised to hear that she wore, as part of her hermit’s garb, a rosary made up of 108 discs cut out of 108 human skulls, a magic dagger at her belt and a trumpet carved out of a human femur. Tha
t a lama called her the “Reverend Lady” is a sign of the respect given to a woman who held a high rank in the Lamaist orders. The lama lady had been fully initiated; she even occasionally resorted to witchcraft. She was respected and also somewhat feared.

  The prehistoric appearance of the hermits’ refuges is not surprising. They are mere caves, closed by a wall made of stones, dirt and turf, and entered through a curtain of yak hair. Some hermits even survive naked in snow-covered hills. How can that be possible? It is well known that Tibetans can endure very long hikes: walking steadily for 24 hours is by no means a record. The loung-gom-pa lamas are initiated through a series of breathing exercises before learning a mystical formula; they focus their thoughts on a rhythmical mantra that guides their breathing during a trek.

  Under the trance state, although much of normal consciousness is abolished, there remains enough to lead the walker towards his goal and to avoid obstacles he might meet along the way. However, this is done entirely mechanically, without the need of conscious thought on the part of the walker in a trance.2

  What is even more surprising is survival in the mountains at 4500–5000 meters (13,000–17,000 feet) without succumbing to the cold. Such a feat also requires teaching by a master: the key is to learn to stimulate the internal warmth called toumo (see also, chapter 7). Alexandra David-Néel went through this training and, at the request of a lama, successfully bathed in the icy waters of a river and, without getting dressed, meditated for a whole night: “It was at the beginning of the winter, at an altitude of about 3000 meters (10,000 feet). I felt enormously proud of not having caught a cold.”3

  Learning about toumo is a practice related to the Hindu hatha yoga. The apprenticeship is lengthy and complicated, requiring patience, concentration and application. Both practices, sustained walking and the marvelous production of internal warmth, show surprising aspects. For example, the trek of the loung-gom-pa walker must not be interrupted by speaking to him or by taking his picture. The walker is in a trance and a nervous shock might be dangerous, even lethal.