With her deep erudition, her study of the history and prehistory of the Caucasus, her knowledge of local languages, her ability to forge long-lasting links with local people, Marie-Jeanne Koffmann is a living memory. Anyone who has had the opportunity to hear her conferences will con rm it.
Even more convincing, for those who have read them, are the four articles she published in Archéologia. They reveal the author’s method, where she rst addresses mythology in general, harking back to the deepest antiquity, and then focusing through more speci c and prosaic myths on the concrete features of the wild man’s behavior.
A particularly interesting passage is that where, after a reminder of Enkidu, the hirsute hero, Koffmann describes the taming of a “savage” from the Caucasus. He learns to do heavy work and to look after the herd; he is resourceful and perceptive, as faithful as a dog, and knows the forest like the back of his hand. In another passage, a cultural education delegate of the Communist Party’s regional committee speaks of an elderly Balkar couple that harbored a female almasty:
She knew how to perform many tasks: carrying wood or water, leading the herd to the barn or gathering it for the night under a rocky ledge…The Party of cial quickly found the right words to describe her role…in a word, she brought a physical contribution to the ful llment of summer plans.5
The behavior of humanoids varies somewhat from country to country and from time to time, as does that of animals, and is of some interest. What is however most important is the method Koffmann used: starting from myth, she ends up immersed in local daily life. The almasty is part of it, with the characteristics which he shares with his cousins, as described by Eric Shipton, Peter Byrne, Véra Frossard, Odette Tchernine, Reinhold Messner, Boris Porchnev… without omitting ancient writers:
One of the most extraordinary aspects of the problem of relic humanoids is their presence through the centuries in the company of man, involved in his history, his cultures and his home life, as quiet, discreet and elusive creatures. Each era had its own interpretation of this troubling look-alike without ever succeeding in de ning it precisely, and it is amusing to see the labored interpretation given by today’s ethnologists of these many “wild men,” usually consigned to the realm of the imagination.6
The search for the wild man has generated a surprising mixture of tales and factual accounts, akin to a cartoon where live actors also appear, thanks to editing techniques. The overlap is such as to make it dif cult to realize which domain is dominant. Generally, the characters are normal people, but there are notable exceptions. And sometimes, one escapes the realm of the known fauna to slip towards the unknown.
Can an overview bring out a thread with a suf ciently strong scienti c basis to support the existence of the wild man? Might that elusive thread refer to a stage beyond our ken, a shadow theater where we occasionally catch glimpses of meaning?
Let us now look further and try to learn more from China, where reports about the wild man—the yeren—arise from many areas.
In a previous work, I noted the presence of wild men on all continents. I gave, for China, the example of the tragic demise of a hirsute creature in Tibet. The eyewitness was Chinese, the commanding of cer of the Chengdu area, adjacent to Tibet. This of cer had twice seen a snowman while he was stationed in the Ngari province (northwest of Tibet). One day, a yeti tried to take away the gun of a soldier, who defended himself and killed his assailant. The rest of the detachment said that they had buried the yeti without preserving any part of it.
There is a plethora of short reports, vague and unveri able. What can we conclude?
1 Pierre Berruer, “La science traque le Yé du Caucase,” Ouest-France, 28–29 mars 1992, p. 6.
2 In my earlier book, Sasquatch/Bigfoot and the Mystery of the Wild Man, p. 209 , I described Marie-Jeanne Ko mann’s discussion of nocturnal vision among almasty.
3 Yves Coppens, one of the discoverers of Lucy, added later: “It [cryptozoology] is a perfectly respectable science…It coexists very well with zoology. Each year, a number of creatures pass from the realm of cryptozoology to that of zoology…All there is to it is that once fully documented, they go from one list to another.” He also added: “Always expect the unexpected!” www.rhedaemagazine.com/, Sat. Oct 20, 2007.
4 Soupe aux Choux, a lm by Jean Girault. Two buddy farmers are visited by aliens who like their domes c cabbage soup.
5 Marie-Jeanne Ko mann, “Les Hominoïdes Reliques dans l’An quité,” Archéologia, no.308, Jan 1995, p. 61.
6 Marie-Jeanne Ko mann, pers. comm. March 22, 2000.
24. Grover Krantz’ Enquiry
Fortunately, there have been other serious enquiries besides Dr. Koffmann’s investigations. Grover Krantz was a professor of physical anthropology at Washington State University, in Pullman, Washington. In spite of his reputation as a teacher, Krantz was widely criticized for the unfailing energy that he devoted to the study of the wild man of the Paci c Northwest, called bigfoot by white Americans and sasquatch by the Natives. Dr. Krantz published a solidly documented book, Big Footprints, A Scienti c Enquiry into the Reality of Sasquatch (1992). It is one of the rare books written on the subject by a well-known scientist—a book also disparaged by some.
I heard Krantz speak on numerous occasions, often during formal conferences. I respect his work and I know that he followed a rigorous approach in all his investigations of the wild man. This is why the report of the expedition he joined in China (May–June 1995) to produce a documentary on the yeren deserves mention.
The expedition took place in the province of Guangxi, south of Sichuan and Hunan, facing the Gulf of Tonkin in the south and abutting on Vietnam in the southwest. It included, in addition to Grover Krantz, 10 Chinese, three scientists from Taiwan, and a Japanese TV crew. The objective was to interview two members of the Miao ethnic minority who had recently observed yeren.
About 15 Miao porters carried the supplies. The Taiwanese scientists also wanted to study the ora and the fauna as well as the human presence in the area. The group left Liu Zhou, 265 kilometers (165 miles) north of Nanning, the provincial capital, and drove 300 kilometers (186 miles) towards the northwest to reach, after six hours on the road, a small Miao village unspoiled by civilization.
The Miao (or Hmong) are a group of linguistically related native ethnic minorities of southwest China. They are distinguished by the colorful weavings and embroideries of their women’s festive apparel. Women also wear magni cent silver jewels and sometimes striking tiaras,1 decorated with stylized horns—a reminder perhaps of some ancient cult of Taurus the bull?
The cave paintings of Guangxi, the traditional songs, the animist practices related to shamanism, a panoply of medicinal herbs, and the art of embroidery are among the many features of interest to the curious visitor. The second Silk Road—actually the most ancient— started from Sichuan, crossed Yunnan and Burma (today, Myanmar) to reach India. Neighboring provinces (such as Guangxi) bene ted from the trade route, a conduit of commercial, scienti c, religious and cultural exchanges.
For three days Grover Krantz, then 63, climbed toward a high Miao village, walking along the low walls guarding the terraced rice paddies, ascending the stairs between the terraces and following a variety of steep trails. Big-nosed—as all Europeans appear to Asians—bearded and large, at 6 feet 2 inches and 210 pounds (1.9 meters/95 kilograms), Krantz was the butt of many jokes in which he was identi ed with the wild man.
Krantz noted that modernity had little impact on the life of the villagers. He was struck by how friendly and hospitable the Miao were, in spite of their rather modest means. A world unchanged for centuries, particularly regarding animist practices, greeted the expedition, which was led by Prof. Zhou Guoxing, paleoanthropologist with the Beijing Museum of Natural History and an old friend of Krantz. Zhou spent many years studying the problem of the yeren in China; his work is known internationally. The Sino-American author Paul Dong devoted a whole chapter to “Professor Zhou and Wildman Research” in
his book China’s Major Mysteries (1996).
Conversation with the Miao witnesses required the help of interpreters. Kranz spoke English to the Japanese translator, who translated into Mandarin for the local forester/policeman who, in turn, translated into Miao. The witnesses answered and the interpreters passed their answers back. The process was carried out seriously; the witnesses were impressed by the attention they were receiving and eager to do well. Here is a summary of the information obtained:
1. When standing up like a human, the yeren is two meters (6 feet 6 inches) tall.
2. Its legs are in the same proportion as those of humans.
3. Its arms appear longer.
4. Its shoulders are relatively broader.
5. Its face is also broad.
6. Its chin stands above its shoulders, a purely human trait.
7. Its nose is somewhat attened.
8. Its forehead is high, as in humans.
The nearest yeren was three meters (10 feet) from the witness. He walked away much like a man.
A Miao woman on a bus in Yunnan. PHOTO: Author The second testimony described a squatting yeren, seen a few metres away, which stood up as he felt a presence, before running away using both hands and feet. Krantz thought that it had perhaps helped itself in climbing the hill by grabbing at bushes. His conclusion was that this south China yeren was different from the American sasquatch: shorter and less massive, with thick and long reddish hair, especially on its arms. These features were suggestive of a kinship with the orangutan rather than descending from Gigantopithecus (a species extinct for 300 thousand years).
An evolved orangutan, adapted to walking on its hind legs, is what the Miao witnesses described. However, the kind of vegetation available in such a craggy area would not suf ce to feed a population of large apes. How could such a local variety of terrestrial orangutans feed itself, having adopted an erect posture and abandoned their arboreal habits?
Krantz thought that this was a new species, which he suggested could be called Pongo erectus: the standing orang. Alternately, it could be named Yeren sinensis, emphasizing its Chinese habitat.
Unfortunately, the 1995 expedition spent only 17 days in northwest Guangxi. The main problem was the dif culty of reaching the Miao village and the limited time available, circumstances outside the control of the reputable scientists who participated.
1 Some aras may weigh up to 10 kilos (22 lbs)! See Marie-Paule Raibaud, “Femmes d’une autre Chine,” Edi ons du Mont; also picture of tradi onal Miao headdress at: www.travelblog.org/.
25. The Wild Man in Modern China
What was known about the Chinese yeti in the 1970s? Only a few people were aware of the testimonies gathered, especially in Hubei province. Such reports were nevertheless enough to justify the creation of a protected area in Shennongjia Forest, dubbed the “Yeti Reserve.”
The local mountains are rich in legends. There was even a discovery of a 2000-year-old lantern depicting a maoren (hairy man) gure. In the fourth century BCE, a poet and statesman of the Chu kingdom spoke of the “ogre of the mountains.” During the days of the Tang Dynasty (618–907), there is a reference to a group of “hairy men.” Later, the poet Yuan Mei (1716–1798) describes a creature resembling an ape, without actually being one.
It was only in 1940 that the rst scienti c observation took place. Wang Zelin, a biologist and a graduate of Chicago’s Northwestern University, had returned to China and was working for the Yellow River Irrigation Committee. In the fall of 1940 he was traveling by bus between Baoji and Tianshui. At the sound of gunshots, the bus stopped. A hunter had just killed a two-meter-tall (6 feet 6 inches) wild man. Its entire body was covered with long reddish-gray hair, at least three centimeters (1.25 inches) long. It was a buxom female, with a narrow face and sunken eyes. Her unruly hair was more than a foot long. The creature looked just like the plaster copy of the Peking Man (the Chinese equivalent of Homo erectus), except for a thicker and longer head of hair. With its thick protruding lips, the creature was extremely ugly. Local people said there was also a male around. The pair had been seen in the region over the past month. All they could utter were howls.
Why was this creature killed? The book that quotes Wang Zelin is silent on this matter.1 During those warring years, many people with an itchy trigger nger were bearing arms. There, as in Russia, wild men were defenseless victims.
Let’s now leap forward to 1976, a year marked by a portentous sighting. In mid-May a group of six managers of the Shennongjia Forest Service were traveling in their car when there appeared in the headlights a creature covered with reddish fur. It was neither a bear nor a known animal. The Beijing Academy of Sciences was immediately noti ed by telegram. The sighting created great public interest and prompted a sequel of military and scienti c expeditions. Finally, the authorities set up an enquiry including scientists from Beijing and Shanghai and from the provinces of Hubei, Shanxi and Sichuan. In addition, the expedition included photographers as well as soldiers armed with sedative dart guns and accompanied by hunting dogs: altogether about a hundred people assisted by army scouts. Hundreds of people were interviewed between 1976 and 1977.
Together with local militiamen and commune members, the team
Major Wild Man Sigh ngs in China
organized several large searches, but (as is usual with such expeditions) they found nothing de nite.2 The Shennongjia is one of the rare remaining temperate virgin forests. The chalky soil is much eroded and harbors numerous dens and caves. The dense vegetation and the deep ground cover of rotting vegetation make progress dif cult. The area is replete with specimens that botanists consider living fossils. Animals nd easy refuge, for example, the takin, leopards, and the golden monkey, known locally as “snow monkey,” found nowhere else and of which three varieties have been identi ed.
Myra Shackley writes: “My own view is that this unique ora and fauna provide the perfect refuge for an unknown primate, whether Gigantopithecus himself or his descendant.”3
However, Suzanne Cachel, a professor of anthropology at Rutgers University strongly disagrees. In her review of Shackley’s book, she wrote:
Shackley is not the rst person to connect Gigantopithecus with the Yeti or Sasquatch, but I emphasize that no proof whatsoever exists for this connection. There is no fossil or skeletal evidence detailing such an evolutionary progression…4
The issue remains the subject of debate among both specialists and amateurs.
Myra Shackley, admired for her clear, lively writing style, is also appreciated because of her typically British sense of humor. She suggests a “less scienti c” hypothesis: In the days of the rst Chinese emperor, Huang-Ti, laborers were forcibly drafted to build the Great Wall. Some of them hid in the forest where, after many generations, their descendants became wild and hairy men, although still capable of speech. From time to time, they would leave the safety of the woods and ask, “Is the Wall done?” and then, without waiting for an answer, they would ee back to the forest.
The Shennongjia golden (or snow) monkey is reminiscent of the Himalayan langur, also of medium size (up to 1.4 meters [4.5 feet] tall). Father Armand David, a French missionary and naturalist, discovered the Chinese langur in 1865. He identi ed the animal, which lives above 3000 meters (10,000 feet), from drawings on a piece of
Snow monkey. ILLUSTRATION: Alika Lindbergh pottery. The snub-nosed ape was later given a zoological name: Rhinopithecus roxellanae.
With its thick fur and nearhuman nose it is easy to confuse the golden monkey with the snowman. However, the size and the shape of the latter’s feet can hardly be mistaken for those of the golden monkey, a rare and threatened species, endangered by industrial forestry and forest
res. The plan to build a tourist airport near Shennongjia will certainly not improve the situation. Unfortunately, the richness of the ora and fauna of this forest reserve seems to have been under appreciated. The importance of the life forms it shelters is to be measured by the importance given to it b
y scientists and cryptozoologists. For example, in 1982, Frank Poirier, a professor of anthropology at Ohio State University, went there in search of the wild man. He was accompanied by a pair of Chinese scientists: Hu Hongxing of Wuhan University, and ChungMin Chen, another anthropologist from Ohio State. The reports they collected were similar to those gathered in China since the 1950s. The concrete items agree with previous investigations: tracks, hair, excrement.
Poirier also noted that they had found dens, the lowest at 1500 meters (4800 feet). In the summer, the wild man migrates towards the summits, which reach 3000 meters (10,000 feet) in that region. The wild man migrates in response to seasonal changes and uctuations in the availability of food.
Animal bones were found in the dens, although analysis of the excrement suggested a mostly vegetarian diet, except for a few insects. In a natural shelter the wild man’s nest is made up of seven or eight uprooted bamboo stems, which requires great strength. On top of that, the bamboo is arranged in the form of seats with a higher side: the back. These nests are very similar to those of the giant panda, which however have not been reported in the Shennongjia forest.
Poirier and his colleagues made surprising discoveries, linking geographically remote creatures from the USA and Canada (sasquatch/bigfoot), Nepal (the yeti) and China (the yeren). They noted: “What is most interesting is that such reports from these different regions have many striking similarities, despite the fact that, until rather recently, there has been minimal contact among the cultures of the peoples making the reports.5
In this respect, one notes that in spite of their political differences, China and the USA managed to collaborate at a scienti c level in a domain that many “reasonable” people consider futile: cryptozoology. Poirier and his colleagues came to very conservative conclusions: concrete, irrefutable evidence remained insuf cient to establish with certainty the existence of the Chinese wild man.
The Asian Wild Man Page 12