Yeti- The Ecology of a Mystery

by Daniel C Taylor

  Politics in Nepal is more complicated than the picture the Brahmin paints. Players constantly change, not only in terms of their levels of influence but also in their colours. There is no black, no white. Shades of grey merge with the shifting influence to make politics impenetrable like the night covering the trail before us in darkness. The game of moving pieces goes on, but it is more than multidimensional chess. Politics heaves up and down like the Himalaya themselves. Here there’s no level-playing field, for the legal system in this fractured land functions without precedent, run totally on monarchical wish, and the king, as I know well, has a mercurial temperament.

  Our pace has slowed. Neither of us can see ahead. As we talk further, ideas lead to bafflement. Clarity as to where to go in social direction probes as my feet do about the trail. In both we learn from footfalls of those ahead, and from the lighter line of packed earth walked. In going through the dark, whether in life or daily trails, we find the path by walking it, discovering by feeling and not by seeing, ready to lift feet when there is no firmness beneath them. Answers come sometimes when no questions are asked, and questions linger pretending to be answers.

  Our strenuous walk has relaxed barriers of the mind, opening the mind to the night. Like the liberating high of long-distance running, when the body falls away and senses float, awareness opens. ‘I don’t like your Soviet bear,’ the schoolteacher states abruptly.

  ‘Why?’ I reply absently, concentrating on the trail, now on the back of a ridge where the moonlight has not reached. Around the next turn bamboo rises above the trail against a sparkling black sky swooping in from up high.

  ‘We Nepalis never trust the Soviets. We hear you talk about how you help people, but we know you do not. Maybe, as they say on the Voice of America, you seek to control the world as you control your own country. My cousin brother thinks you act big because deep within, you know you are small. You possess a big country, but it is filled with emptiness—you know that, and that is why you keep pretending.’

  ‘You are wrong,’ I reply. ‘My country helps people. We help by training Nepalis in Moscow. This year we sent forty students to become doctors, twenty students to …’

  ‘Don’t tell me about your Soviet doctor training. Another cousin brother studies in Moscow. Last month he returned for his father’s funeral. He told me that your training never permits him to touch Russian patients. Hah! You show him surgery only on TV. Never is he allowed to conduct a real surgery, except on animals. Never does he meet Soviet students, especially girls. Is that useful education?!’

  ‘But we are training doctors—that is helping Nepal.’

  ‘How can you say you are helping? You and the Americans play games with us. I have another cousin brother who works at the customs office on the Indian border. Two months ago trucks arrived loaded with boxes addressed to the Soviet ambassador. The inspector demanded that the boxes be opened; this cousin brother heard the argument.’

  ‘A customs inspector can’t open boxes addressed to an ambassador! That is a violation of diplomatic privilege.’

  ‘Our customs have the privilege of Gurkha soldiers! When Gurkhas suspect trouble, they do what’s necessary. The boxes were opened. They were full of electronic instruments, big antennas, expensive equipment. I have another cousin brother. He is a secretary at the American embassy. He, too, was at the funeral where we were talking. He said the Americans are laughing. The Americans say that the Russian equipment is for listening to telephone conversations, maybe even within the Royal Palace! You do not allow Nepalis to private talk even in their bedrooms!’

  We’ve arrived at the police check post; Khandbari Bazaar rises before us. A sentry calls, ‘Halt!’ This Russian is going to look mighty suspicious trying to walk past a check post at night with his flashlight off. To walk further, special permits are required. Knowing where the post was, my intent had been to walk around, but deep in the conversation I’d missed seeing the post. This Russian is going to look very much like an American spy when he shows his American passport in front of the Brahmin teacher.

  ‘You walk on while I fill out the papers,’ I say to him, worried that I might not even make it out of jail and to Tumlingtar to catch the plane—let alone to Shyakshila.

  The Brahmin calls to the sentry. ‘It’s OK. I’m Ram, the schoolteacher, walking with a traveller. We’re talking.’

  ‘Bistari janos,’ (go slowly) comes back from the sentry as in the dark it is not evident that a foreigner is also walking alongside.

  10.2 An Evening View of the Arun Valley

  Source: Author

  We enter the bazaar. A small restaurant is serving dal bhat (rice with lentils). Ram says goodbye. I place my pack against the earthen wall. In the middle of the room a hand-hewn wooden bench sits in front of a store-bought table. Others wait; some at the table, some sitting by the wall, talking and drinking tea, not yet eating. Only when the conversation is finished do Nepalis eat. The strict Brahmins among them will not eat, but will leave after sharing tea with the others. But with 6 miles to cover to reach Bhotebas, I hurry through my meal. The goal remains: reach Shyakshila by the day after tomorrow.

  Can the Priest Be Trusted?

  Two days later, as the evening shadows climb the valley, I walk the cobbled high trail leading into Shyakshila. The doorways are locked. Only chickens are on the walkways, cackling as they ­scatter in front of me, pebbles emptily clattering under my feet. Even the pigs are not rootling.

  Then a hum—to the right and down the slope. A child’s head pops up from behind a stone wall; the child runs away towards the sound. As I follow, a shout rises off the rock walls, and a crowd of hundreds comes towards me. People roll like a wave up the shore. Behind the crowd, in an open square are hundreds more. As the crowd closes in, phrases pass: ‘It’s father of Jesse!’, ‘Where is Jesse?’ In the middle stands Myang, smiling ear to ear. Then breaking from the crowd he approaches me with head bowed and palms pressed together. He grabs my hands and touches them to his head. ‘Where is Jesse, Jesse’s father?’

  ‘In Kathmandu with his mother,’ I reply, looking at the sea of people. ‘I’ve come alone.’

  Myang pulls me through the crowd. A temple rises with walls of freshly hewn grey stone. Atop glistens a tin roof; the only such in Shyakshila where other roofs are of woven bamboo. A year ago there were houses in the centre of the village. Now there is a temple! Light reflects from its new tin.

  ‘Where did this come from?’

  ‘This is our new temple, Jesse’s father. We built it. The king’s government gave us 80,000 rupees. More than a school, water system, or health post, what our village needed to engage the spirits of the valley was a temple. So with the government money we built this!’

  Approaching me through the crowd is the lama, a man who often came to sit by our fire. Two boys flank him as his assistants.

  ‘Welcome to our celebration, Jesse’s father. We were waiting for you,’ he says formally. ‘We heard yesterday that the guest we were waiting for is a white person. Come sit inside the temple.’

  ‘What? Waiting for me?’

  ‘Yes, we first decided to have this celebration after the cement to build the drain gutters arrives. Until now, we used no cement. When the cement arrives the temple will be finished. But my brother, a lama who can study astrological books, had told us two weeks ago that we must celebrate today. He said a guest was to come. We did not know who the guest would be. This morning when we gathered, news came that the guest was a white man. The people here have been waiting for you today. Thank you, Jesse’s father, for coming.’

  News of my arrival reached ahead of me? I thought I was the fastest walker on the trail. Open ditches wait for their cement. The lama waits for me to follow him inside, but I move to a pile of leftover rocks on the terrace. It will be smoky inside from yak-butter lamps and people packed into what I guess must be a 16-by-16-foot room. So, adjusting two rock slabs I make a seat, then two more to prop my pack to allow a mesh-woven backr
est. If I’m to be the chief guest, I should settle in.

  Was the date switched two weeks ago? Two weeks ago when the lama’s brother said that, I hadn’t bought my air ticket to Tumlingtar. In fact, it was two weeks ago on the medical expedition that I made the schedule adjustment to come here. How could people know this about someone in another Himalayan valley and predict the date of his arrival? They so trusted this knowledge that hundreds of people are here today waiting for me.

  Did I misunderstand anything? It would make sense if I just happened to show up for their celebration and they were happy. But they changed the date. I pull out my water bottle, and as I casually drink I ask from others the story. In a few moments perhaps I could request for boiled potatoes to get my gut ready for the home brew that the chief guest will be pressed on to drink.

  The people have opened a space in front of me, shaping it like a stage. On the other side of the packed earth is the temple. Precision holds together the 2-foot thick walls; no mortar has been used and each rock is snugly packed like the people crowded around me. Below the main temple roof, about halfway down, flares another roof, making a porch on all four sides—a roof that not only gives grace but will also flute out the monsoon away from undermining the building. Which architect designed this? Certainly no villager ever designed a temple before. No nearby temples share this design. The shape came from lines etched in someone’s mind; its construction came about because others trusted the one who was etching the lines.

  But there is no doubt among these people. I am frightened, for soon they will lose the trust acquired over millennia. They built a temple because they trusted ‘a way to engage the spirits of the valley’. Soon that may disappear as people forget the inner wealth they now have, that their ancestors have grown. The confidence, pieced from lived experiences, and the knowledge held across landslides, epidemics, and wars will come unglued. They will start believing that the outsiders will come, or the king will give them something. It will not be long before they learn to trust the telephone, believing in a call from folks like me saying that I’ll be there in two weeks. Had I so called, not knowing the flight schedule, expecting to walk more slowly, I would have foretold that I would arrive in two days from now. Did that astrologer also predict that all the aeroplane seats are booked?

  WOMEN GATHER IN A ROW ON THE STAGE awkwardly and shyly. With the cadence of the accompanying song, they start shuffling meekly. One by one, men drift in behind them, joining their rhythmic movement and making clear, suggestive remarks. What started as a song swells to a chant. I am still wondering how they knew that I was coming—discomfort rises as I fathom how men and women are treating the women on the stage, both men and women giving gestures of the women. I cannot understand their Loomi language, a variant of Tibetan and Nepali. Only when talking with me do they speak Nepali. However, you need not know a language to understand boldness. In these isolated mountains, people are more sexually open than in southern or central Nepal. Behind me a young girl turns with a short shriek and hugs her mother’s legs.

  In the dancing queue a girl wearing a pink blouse blushes; she might be fifteen, maybe sixteen. Her once-olive earlobes now turn crimson; titling her head she rubs a hot ear on one shoulder and then on the other. Lines continue to shuffle. The crowd chants faster and the dancers pick up pace. A man slides down the men’s row and steps directly behind another girl in a green blouse. He calls out something. The crowd snickers. The lass in the green blouse looks at the ground and blushes. Is the girl in green a younger sister of the one in pink? The man calls again; the crowd snickers more. Men and women seem to view this as fun—but not the girl in green.

  The man calls out again; the girl in green bolts, rushing into the crowd. He charges after her and from the crowd comes a cheer. The crowd arrests the girl’s flight, and she is spun around and thrown back on to the stage. The man catches her. She hangs handcuffed by his grip, her head bowed and shoulders limp.

  ‘Take her! Take her!’

  Straightening in his arms, she stiffens before the man, shoulders back, more erect. There is fire is in his eyes and mettle in her stance. She steps back, but her foot hits a rock. She slips from his reach, struggles to recover, and falls to the ground—arms out, legs apart, on her back spread-eagled. He lunges forward.

  Bodies surge around me. Doesn’t this girl have a brother or father to protect her? Anywhere else in Nepal a man would come forward. But maybe not. There is something everywhere about groups of people committing a wrong—regardless of their education or position or culture—that incapacitates even the well-intentioned. It takes uncommon strength to buck shared sin. The victim-to-be, the girl in green, lies knowing what will come in seconds. After it’s over, we call them martyrs, but who steps forward while it is happening? The temperature around me has increased. The sounds seem like laughter, but I wonder, in reality how many of them are crying.

  ‘Do it! Do it!’ someone screams.

  Coming down the man lands on her, presumably to snatch her away from the crowd. But he was moving too fast. Was it an enthusiastic push? With his fall, he slides forward on top of her with his stomach over her face.

  She bites hard. He gets up with a howl, grabbing his stomach through his thin shirt. He’s off, legs flailing, running into the crowd and holding his gut.

  Fifteen minutes later, the villagers still hold each other, weak from the hysteria as they retell the story. That man will be asked about his stomach for the rest of his life. His name might even change to ‘Stomach’. In time, the dancing resumes, looking as if it will continue through the night.

  I leave the party at eleven. Chanting and prayers continue in the temple: ‘Om mani padme hum, om mani padme hum …’ (O jewel in the heart of the lotus). On the hewn-plank floor of Myang’s house nearby, I unroll my sleeping bag; it was a long day. When I wake up, the dancing and chanting still continues outside. As I open my bag the sound of the zipper awakens Myang’s wife who is lying in her bedroll on the other side of the room. She kindles the fire from its embers as I watch. As she crosses the room minutes later to bring me a glass of tea, I notice that Myang is not around; he’s been with the party all night.

  I go out onto the porch. The sun has not risen yet over the ridge; the morning is light grey and cold. Sipping a second glass of tea, I watch women head to the edge of the village where they can privately perform their routines, watch children move to the fields to start their chores, and see men stagger home. As the village comes to life, I let out the news that I’m looking for ground-bear skulls.

  A long talk follows with Lendoop. ‘It is dangerous to kill ground bears,’ he says, ‘and there are no skulls in the village right now.’ And he tells me how aggressive these bears are and how big they can be.

  As the day goes on, I am told that even tree-bear skulls are not available. Everyone’s denying that they kill the bear, indeed both bears. But when the night falls, out of the darkness people come and speak of how months ago a new government rule was announced, according to which they can no longer kill bears. And in the protection of the dark is exposed for my inspection the guardians from grain storehouses. They explain how it is okay to sell because they will kill new bears and the vermin will get to know the new skulls. To worried but eager sellers I explain that I have permits. The villagers don’t care about the international treaty on trade in endangered species; what worries them is that the police post is a half-a-day’s walk away. A few months ago in Hatiya village, someone was arrested for selling bear gall bladders. When I leave Shyakshila at predawn the next day, in my pack are two more tree-bear skulls that are clearly not juveniles. My permit will allow only two skulls. I’ll return next year for the ground bear, and to get its skull they say that I’ll have to go to other villages.

  There are sixteen hours each day from predawn to full night. I work backwards from my flight ahead in Tumlingtar, setting times to places, planning a pace that I shall force myself to keep. Two passes must be crossed, one with a 4,000-foot gain.
Four more hours are available in the two days ahead as compared to the time it took me while coming in, so I plan an hour of relaxation at the top of each coming pass.

  I wrestle with puzzles that have no real answers. What is the relationship between an American man and a Nepali village? What are the pressures bears in the Barun Valley face from Nature and from men? The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, did it get to these valleys because of law enforcement or someone seeking to break the law? In secret markets in these hills, what are the other unknowns beyond bear gall? I know a single musk-deer pod sells for USD 50 in Khandbari and also that it can be further sold in Hong Kong for USD 500. A man exploiting a girl, a bear exploiting a man’s cornfield—what are the driving forces in these challenges as well as those across the earth?

  For me, an American, it is tempting to consider these to be issues extending across the oceans—but growing in the shade of hardwood trees in my USA home is the ginseng root, which is in demand as a sex elixir in the same Far East markets that sell gall and musk. My mountain neighbours sequester ginseng patches for these markets where the plant is sold legally. But they also illegally sell the gallbladders of bears chased down by their dogs. The taxidermist back home was taken in four months ago and his shop shut down. What is the difference between my town and a Nepali small town in global systems?

  However, how did 1,000 people know that I was coming? How did a fact that was unknown to me even until three days before become known to them? Some patterns take shape beyond the realm of our knowing, yet are known to others. How did that squirrel now on the tree limb above know, as it darted off, that a hawk was overhead which I could see while the squirrel appeared to be looking at me. Or, was it happenstance that the squirrel darted? Tree bear, ground bear, Yeti—what are the communications among us of our knowledge about these?