Yeti- The Ecology of a Mystery

by Daniel C Taylor

  9.2 A Yeti Tracking the Human Search

  Source: Dan Piraro

  FROM THE NEPALI AMBASSADOR IN WASHINGTON comes a phone call. The Smithsonian is hosting a reception at the National Zoo to kick off fundraising for Nepal’s King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation. His Royal Highness, Prince Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, the king’s energetic brother, is the chief guest and there is a guest list that might have possible donors for me.

  The National Zoo is a great place for a wildlife gathering where the pandas prowl from across the wine table. The WWF has done a superb job of organizing this event. Ed Gould, the curator of mammals, introduces me to Jack Ziedensticker, the zoologist who used to run their tiger project in Nepal. ‘Jack, meet Daniel, the fellow who came up with the new information on Ursus thibetanus.’

  Jack is dismissive, claiming there is no way a new Ursus species could be out there. The Himalaya has been gone over scientifically for a century. This is not some tiny, drab-brown bird with a small localized habitat. A bear couldn’t hide undiscovered. Bears are not reclusive; they invade fields.

  I try to defend, saying that in a way this isn’t news—and that I am not suggesting a new species but new information. Villagers have talked of two bears for years. And now a skull is collected; additionally, nests and footprints have been observed and photographed. These describe bears in trees whereas previously we thought Himalayan bears were ground bears. These are differences needing study. And this contemporary evidence is supported by a citation in the 1869 Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society that talks about bear skin and a skull Oldham collected in Darjeeling, 60 miles from our site. Oldham named his bear Selenarctos arboreus, indicating presumably that it lived in trees, a connection to reports today that talk of ‘tree bears’.

  Blessedly, our conversation ends as a friend, Mary Wagley, and her uncle, Charles Percy, arrive with warm hugs. As Jack walks away, I’m struck again by how hostile some people immediately become to this bear. I suspect that if the proposal was about a rodent, there would be openness. Like the earth’s other large plantigrade animals, might bears walk too closely to humans? And though no one mentions it, might the thought lurking behind people’s consciousness be that I’m talking about the Yeti?

  But nobody knew or asked questions that made me talk about the lost suitcase.

  ON OUR MOUNTAINTOP, AS I WAS WASHING DISHES two weeks later, the phone rings. It’s the newspaper editor in Woodstock. ‘Dr Daniel Taylor? You remember we ran that second story last week on your lost bear artefacts? On my other phone now a caller is on hold; he says he has your suitcase. He won’t give his name or phone number but wants to know the reward. Ooops, the light just went out for his line.’

  The receiver in my hand is also suddenly dead, black cord curling into a black box that goes nowhere. My heart races. Where did I put the phone number of the Woodstock newspaper?

  The phone rings again. ‘Sorry, I was trying to salvage the other call. Yes, the guy seemed for real. He spoke simple English and seemed afraid. I asked him twice for his name. He wanted to know how much you’d pay. Then his phone went dead. I think he worried that when put ‘on hold’ I might be tracing his call. Maybe he’ll call back. How much will you pay?’

  ‘Pray he does. Tell him USD 250. I’ll pay more, obviously. But I think a higher price might cause him to think there’s something illegal among the stuff. Assure him this is legit—I won’t ask his name. Whatever, please, please get that suitcase.’

  ‘Let’s wait.’

  An hour later the editor calls again. ‘That guy called back. He has asked for you to show up at the ARCO gas station at the Shenandoah Caverns exit off Interstate 81 at 7:00 tonight with USD 250. He says show up and wait. He’ll get there as soon as he gets off work. I assured him there was nothing illegal done and the suitcase contains nothing illegal, but he’s worried you might show up with cops. I told him there would not be a car around except yours. I told him you wouldn’t ask a question and will hand over cash without opening your mouth.’

  Our small bank in the town is closed. We stop by Henry and Nancy’s whose business is on the way to the Shenandoah Caverns and borrow money. Racing down Interstate 81, Jennifer, Jesse, and I arrive at the ARCO station at 6:40. We wait: 7:00 passes, 7:05, 7:10, 7:15. At 7:20 an aging, once-blue pickup pulls through the station. The driver looks around and drives on. At 7:25, the truck comes back. ‘Kenny’ gets out—at least that is the name on the front licence plate with a heart sign above that says ‘Carla’. Kenny reaches into the back of his pickup and pulls out the suitcase. I hand over the money. No word is exchanged. Inside our car, the little green case sits in Jennifer’s lap.

  As we leave the gas station, she opens the case and starts separating family slides from bear slides. ‘In these pictures are too many memories of good times, good people, and events that will never happen again. Skull and paws can be found again, but not these deep days.’

  ten

  From Whence Knowledge

  10.1 A Cryptic Jungle Trail?

  Source: Author

  Verity of Darkness

  November 1983. We need more bear skulls. They need to be sympatric, from the same habitat—at least one ground bear and one tree bear. As I land at Tumlingtar, the ­airline agent informs me about available return flights to Kathmandu; with the Dashain holiday in two weeks, only one seat is left, and that flight leaves in six days. If I do not take that seat, no seat would be available for a month. So I start walking. Our previous trek to Shyakshila took five days, one way.

  Villagers loiter at the tea shop beyond the edge of the airfield. Over glasses of sweet milky tea at the end of the day, government officials and friends are catching up while watching the perpetual carrom game where four players flick their fingers to ricochet black and white discs into the four corner pockets on the board. From thorn bushes behind the tea shop a dove coos. I tighten my pack straps; the goal for tonight’s unplanned evening hike is 10 miles away. I must cover half the distance planned for tomorrow tonight, so sleep will be in Bhotebas, 6 miles beyond Khandbari. Then I must reach Shyakshila in two days to return for my flight to Kathmandu. For, in addition to the urgency of my airplane ticket, if adoption paperwork now started goes as hoped, a daughter will be waiting in Kathmandu.

  A visibly angry young man steps out of a dry-goods store and tromps off uphill. There’s no village before Khandbari, so he’s probably going that far. Maybe the miles to Khandbari Bazaar can be shared. I hustle to catch up; he’s walking fast and will make a good trail partner. His wife is probably beginning to cook lentils and rice for his dinner. As he turns the switchback above, I glimpse his profile which suggests he’s a Brahmin. His dress suggests he is probably a schoolteacher.

  I close in on him until 10 yards behind and then adopt the flow of his climb. Neither of us says anything. Westerners learn their climbing on staircases. As children we hold the banister, taking one riser at a time, each tread a stage to the next. By contrast, Nepalis learn climbing on slopes lacking symmetrical breaks, legs always adjusting with the hill. The foot placement does not get regimented with the consistency of a carpenter’s cut; step selection is what makes the climb easier. Legs prefer short strides and quick movement. Ascending, bodies bob as shoulders lean in and out to the slope to balance their weight over the feet, stride adjusting, flowing uphill like water running down—that is the Nepali way, though the city-bred, staircase-taught Nepalis can also be spotted by their clothing. In a land of mountains, the way of walking speaks volumes about where the person has come from as does the accent in one’s speech.

  The eager Brahmin knows I am behind. He can probably describe me even though he’s never looked straight at me; he did turn his eyeballs in my direction at bends in the trail. But together we’ve both settled into his pace. With the cadence of a shared stride, thoughts start connecting. I project his questions. Is the foreigner going to Khandbari? Probably. Where else could he be going? Who is he? Maybe Peace Corps. No, Peace Cor
ps people carry dark green packs; his is brown. Though carrying a pack, this foreigner can’t be going for a trek; the area past Khandbari is closed to foreigners.

  I smile. He knows he walks fast. Twice he briefly breaks his pace, about to let me catch up. The curiosity flowing from him is not surprising: I don’t fit. Nepali life is ordered like the caste you are born into. And here in Nepal not only am I out of position as a white among browns, but there is something else too, a puzzle for those who are not aware of my familiarity with these mountains. Is it the way I walk or the feelings that flow uphill from me to him?

  He explores his curiosity by starting the old porter’s game. I accept the challenge, and speed up my stride keeping the exact distance behind. The point of the game is to push each other to determine who cannot hold the pace. As in chess, where the king is never captured, only pinned in checkmate, the porter’s game is won by wearing the other person down—and that is first shown by forcing your opponent to suck for air. When you hear him opening his lungs, you’ve discovered his limits. Play with him; keep changing the rate of metabolism. Sucking for air shows that your opponent is using more energy than his lungs are easily getting in oxygen. As in chess when you are up by a rook, then start snipping off pawns, victory grows by trimming away. So, when sucking starts, speed up, slow down, get the person to pant. It’s like taking down a knight, then a bishop, after picking off pawns, the sign of the end game. Havoc has been caused to the body’s rhythm. The victim’s legs are tired, blood sugar down; the loser will soon want a rest.

  For young Nepali males this is a sport the way dragging their cars on Main Street is for young, rural Western males. When you can play by the delicate rules, you are ‘in’. I could concede now with some acknowledgment of his strength. Then we could walk and talk. No, this is a classic sport, let’s go toe-to-toe. I open my lungs, relax my throat, shorten my stride—and make my feet fly. That’s one secret: shorter strides use fewer calories than longer ones. The guy ahead is good, but he’s a schoolteacher, not a porter. And though he walks this hill every day, what he does not know is that I’m fresh from just having carried a 35-pound Jesse plus 20 pounds of emergency and camera gear through the Helambu Valley on a month-long medical expedition. I’m ready for a toe-to-toe, one that will also get me up the 2,000-foot climb faster. The Brahmin probably thinks the bulky pack I carry weighs 60 pounds. Actually, it is not even half of that: a loose sleeping bag, a sleeping pad, a change of clothes, and cameras.

  As we cross a jumble of rocks he kicks in with a spurt that almost makes me lengthen my stride. If I continue to do so, my legs will soon use my blood’s oxygen. I loosen my throat. Let the air get deeper into the lungs so that more oxygen can be pulled into the blood. The key is to hold steady my body’s burn rate.

  After picking up pace on a flatter grassy stretch, he slows down. I can’t pass him—that’s racing. My role is to always respond on the end of his string. I must now slow down too, knowing he’ll accelerate again. He’s gambling, thinking that I’m so tired I won’t be able to recover when he speeds up. I lengthen my stride to keep my muscles working at the same burn rate, strides that have disadvantageous leverage as legs reach rather than push. I’ll be ready for the spurt that will soon come.

  Twenty minutes later we reach a fig tree above a level spot in the trail. A thatched tea stall stands with a rock bench for travellers to set their loads on. Turning suddenly, the Brahmin stoops under the eaves, greeting the shopkeeper who squats beside the fire and a tea kettle. He studies me as I pass. The tea stall has given him an excuse to get a close look at me. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he knows he’ll learn something as he sees me pass. Rounding the next bend, I slow my pace (glad to have an excuse to slow down); he had me on the verge of breaking.

  Fifteen minutes later I hear him, each step reaching for extra distance. By the forcefulness of his walk, I guess his intent is to pass me. ‘Let us be friends,’ I think. So I greet him as he starts to fly by, ‘Kahan jani ho?’ (Where are you going?).

  ‘Mati’ (uphill) is his terse reply.

  ‘Rati pahele?’ (Before dark?) I keep my questions short to make him do the talking. Few folks walk, talk, and breathe well at the same time.

  ‘Yes, but you won’t get there before dark,’ he asserts.

  The fellow talks the way he walks—with a swagger. He confirms he’s a schoolteacher. Every morning he walks down to his mud-and-thatch school; the trip takes an hour. Every evening he climbs the 2,000 vertical feet home; the walk uphill takes an-hour-and-a-half. This evening he stayed and played cards—and lost thirty-seven rupees. He’s angry at the government worker who won his rupees. The more he talks about it, the more angry he turns at the government that employs that worker, shifting the blame to the king.

  The king of Nepal is also a god, a reincarnation of Vishnu. While European monarchs established their legitimacy through divine right, in Nepal rulers became divine, both potentate and pope; a divine monarch is not just absolute but also beyond challenge. Thus, Nepal’s king is the starting point of both legal and moral authority. Angry words like the Brahmin’s that just blamed the king are expressions by people who now feel victimized. As these once-isolated valleys get connected with an aspiring world, such words are new, and this Brahmin in a once-isolated village is caught, like all of us, in the modern onslaught of change.

  ‘That government worker took my money! Why must all my work contained in that money disappear?’

  ‘Because you played the wrong card, the knave, but forgot that the king was stronger.’ (The pun works in Nepali as it does in English.)

  The schoolteacher laughs. ‘Yes, the king is stronger. Not only does he take away my money, he is taking away my country too. Taking it and giving it to those beyond the law, even giving my Nepal to rich Indians.’

  ‘He is not taking away your country,’ I reply. ‘It is his country. You gave him the country when you crowned him the king. Gifting the country to the king is part of your custom; it is a gift the people give each time they crown the king. If you, the Nepali people, are honourable, how can you now take the gift back?’

  ‘I do not take the gift back. He gives it away. Actually not he—those close to him sell it. Maybe the king is good. These other people enter business with others and give away Nepal—our trees to India, our temple idols to Europe, our cloth to America. When we gave Nepal to the king, it was as a resource so that he could help us in return.’

  ‘No, you did not give him the country so that he could help you. That is a new idea, not part of your historical contract. Nepalis give Nepal each time to the king because the country belongs to him. You are his people; you belong to him. What he wishes must be your wish too. What he wants, you must provide. He is your king and your god.’

  ‘Who are you?’ the schoolteacher asks. ‘Why do you talk like this? I only speak how your man Thomas Jefferson taught me to speak.’

  I reply, ‘Why do you say “my man Thomas Jefferson”? Jefferson is an American. I’m a Russian. I’m …’

  ‘Then your man Lenin,’ he replies, unfazed. ‘I don’t care who you are. I talk now about people taking what is not theirs. You, Mr Russian, like all who come, take from Nepal. And what you give back are playthings for you. Just yesterday a French tourist, as she waited for her flight, walked to my school and tried to talk one of my girl pupils into going to France with her. She gave this girl a bag of bonbons and asked her name; then while the girl’s mouth was full of candy, she asked her parents if she could take the girl to France! Does she want a daughter? Or she wants a slave? Does she think her life is better than ours because it allows her to have bonbons? You all seek to take. You Russians are trying to …’

  ‘That is why you need the king,’ I interrupt. ‘Who else can hold Nepal together? Who but the king can bring a Brahmin like you here in eastern Nepal—a man with no fields because you are a younger son cursed with big ideas, a man who so desires money that he gambles even when it is illegal—togeth
er with a Brahmin from western Nepal, especially when you two do not even speak the same language? Who else but the king? Even your gods can’t, for despite being Brahmins you both don’t practise the same rituals.

  If two Brahmins are unable to get along, how can a Sherpa from the mountains get along with a Tharu from the flat jungles? Those Nepalis eat different foods, cannot talk to each other … but still when the sun comes through the dark night the next day, both respect the king. If Nepal ever enters true trouble, only the king will be able to rise above your hills and differences with the authority to act for national interests.’

  He is stunned. ‘How do you know so much about me—that I’m a younger son, so much about Nepal? You must be a spy. How do you know I’m a Brahmin? How do you know I want money? You’re a spy!’

  ‘I’m no spy. I was also raised in these mountains. My Himalaya mountains are in India to the west of the Nepal border, and I often come back to these mountains as a friend. I know you just as you now know the ideas of the West. Knowledge flows both ways in today’s world. Therefore, in this world with ideas that flow, we are brothers. I know you are a Brahmin the way any Nepali would. The shape of your face tells me, as also the string hidden under your shirt. You have no fields or you would not be a schoolteacher, but you have a good education, so you must be a younger son of someone who had fields. Of course you are hungry for money. Why else would you play cards?’

  He laughs. ‘You are a brother of Nepal, dear Russian.’

  I wince. With this fabricated layer to our conversation a new darkness has grown around us, the world of deception. The schoolteacher enjoys such a debate. In villages like his, among those with book learning, it is popular now to try on ideas they’ve read, even talk about revolution. In these isolated villages debate among new ideas and proposing new structures, like the changing seasons, gives hope. Now, though, started with a glib wordplay my Russian ruse could backfire on me.