Yeti- The Ecology of a Mystery

by Daniel C Taylor

  Two passes and fifty hours later, I arrive in Tumlingtar three hours ahead of my flight, hours to stretch having tea in the thatched hut watching the carrom game. On entering I placed a special order with the shopkeeper for his fried bread, and he could have made it then. But the time was not right; waiting to make the dough, kneading it, and letting it rise. So now, three hours later, having waited until his customary time came, he fries up the bread. As it sizzles, the Twin Otter drops down from the clouds and buzzes the field to disperse the goats. With both my hands filled with greasy bread I pass through the bamboo booth that is the security check. I learnt eight months before that this bread, when hot and sprinkled with bazaar sugar, is tastier than a Dunkin’ doughnut.

  As the aluminium capsule ascends into the clouds, Myang’s words return to me, ‘More than a school, water system, or health post, what our village needed to engage the spirits of the valley was a temple.’ Myang lives in a world that believes in the power of temples and that these must be prioritized over schools, water systems, and health posts. The theologian Karen Armstrong helpfully clarifies this:

  We tend to assume that the people of the past were (more or less) like us, but in fact their spiritual lives were rather ­different … evolving two ways of thinking, speaking, and acquiring knowledge, which scholars have called mythos and logos. Both were essential; they were regarded as complementary ways of arriving at truth, and each had its special area of competence. Myth was regarded as primary; it was concerned with what was thought to be timeless and constant in our existence.... Myth was not concerned with practical matters, but with meaning … [which] provided people with a context that made sense of their day-to-day lives.1

  Myths are not to be taken literally. Literal interpretation removes their ability to bring the obscure into understanding, to show their dimensionality. The obscure is not only inside a question but can also be outside people, giving perspective of collected of events not quite clear in the complex world. In contrast to myths, logos pushes understanding into a logical order. Again, Armstrong says:

  Logos was the rational, pragmatic, and scientific thought that enabled men and women to function well in the world.… Unlike myth, logos must relate exactly to facts and correspond to external realities if it is to be effective.… Unlike myth, which looks back to the beginning and to the foundation, logos forges ahead and tries to find something new: to elaborate on old insights, achieve a greater control over our environment, discover something novel.… Logos could not answer questions about the ultimate value of human life. A scientist could make things work more efficiently and discover wonderful new facts about the physical universe, but he could not explain the meaning of life.2

  10.3 Bear Skull and Paws for Sale in Shyakshila

  Source: Robert L. Fleming

  Riding the plane back to Kathmandu through the cumulus of ideas, I understand how these ideas of myth and logic are at play in the skulls I carry. I went to Shyakshila seeking a logical explanation regarding the two bears; on my arrival I discovered a mythical explanation for my trip. Of course, neither explains the Yeti—but the Yeti grows more strongly as a being which speaks powerfully as a myth and also a scientific fact. Mythos in Nature is wildness. Logos in Nature is science. In each of these are worthy, truthful meanings.

  Truth from Intuition

  Back in Kathmandu, I walk up behind Jennifer who is talking to Jesse in a hotel garden, ‘Today, Papa leaves Shyakshila. Remember the village where all the people looked at you?’ She turns startled; no astrologer has told her of my arrival. She skips asking me why I’ve returned so soon and starts her story. Two days earlier news had come that paperwork had cleared and we could adopt a Nepali orphan.

  ‘Jesse and I went to see this girl. The orphanage matron does a splendid job, but her resources are so limited. A large closet serves as the nursery. That’s it—a large closet. At one end, a window lets in light. There are baskets lined up in two rows on the shelves against the wall. Each contains a baby. Picture a walk-in closet and baskets of babies rather than clothes on the shelves. Not a single baby was making any noise.’

  ‘A space so small will probably be warmer in winter, Jennifer,’ I insert.

  ‘As we walked into that room, Jesse held me tightly—he, just like me, sensed something. Mrs Shrestha, the matron, pointed out our baby. She’s lovely, three months old. But at my first sight I felt that this baby’s not mine. She is like a picture far away, not part of our family. Lifting her from that basket was like reaching across a chasm. I’m sure she will grow to be part of our family, but now we’re going to reach the other side of the world.’

  Just having walked from Shyakshila, my head spins. We pushed hard, Jennifer and I, to get our papers prepared in the US to have our second child an adopted one. Is Jennifer’s sixth sense making her reject that baby? Is this her way of telling herself (or me) that she doesn’t want to adopt?

  ‘We’ll not take the girl,’ I say. ‘I’m going over to tell them that our request is cancelled.’

  ‘You can’t do that, Dan’l. They’ve made a lot of effort to arrange everything, and done so fast. An orphan who is alone in the world has been assigned to us. We’re her parents now. You’re her father!’

  ‘First, you say she isn’t ours and then you say we must take her. You’ve been thinking about this for two days—and you’re still not sure? That says a lot. What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘It’s worse than what I’ve told you. There’s another girl in another basket. Walking into the nursery my heart went to that girl. This one, two baskets away, felt right even as I picked up my own. As I entered, this other little head turned straight at me, a thin smile on her sweet lips.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes, I asked about her. Mrs Shrestha said she was taken; she has another sponsor. Oh, what a sweet smile she had.’

  ‘Maybe we can have the girl changed. If you like one baby more than another, I’ll talk to them.’

  ‘Stop being like that, Dan’l. These are babies! It’s not like exchanging clothes. Didn’t you hear that the other girl belongs to someone else. You don’t just take someone else’s baby.’

  ‘OK. OK. But if you don’t feel right about this, we’re not going through with it. I’m going over to talk with them.’

  Reaching the orphanage, I follow Mrs Shrestha down the hall. I mention how many other people want a child. Turning into another corridor in the old refurbished palace, I say that Jennifer and I are unsure about adoption; maybe we still want another of our own. Mrs Shrestha leads on. The nursery is indeed an old closet that once held the clothes of wannabe royals. Baskets line the shelf, looking like parcels of clothes; no noise from any. I step over to one. This girl’s head had turned as I entered. I run my finger across her cheek. A smile flicks up, lips tight across her face, her eyes intent. There’s discipline in her body. Then I notice how thin that body is. Undernourished, maybe even malnourished? She has no hair. Her smile flicks again. Are those dimples? I pick her up while Mrs Shrestha talks with the matron.

  ‘Your girl is here,’ Mrs Shrestha interrupts, pointing two baskets beyond.

  My face flushes as I put the first baby back. The girl I turn to is better nourished, the skin of her face looser. She gives a strong kick, smiles widely, kicks again—is that kick her trick? But as I cradle her, I feel that Jennifer is right: this baby does not feel like ours, as right as the other one, yet I know love and time will bring her close. She kicks again.

  ‘What do you know about our girl?’ I ask of Mrs Shrestha, ‘How was she orphaned?’

  From the other room Mrs Shrestha brings the file: ‘Girl. Born September fifth, caste Maharjan. Mother, aged thirty-two, died from haemorrhage during childbirth at Thapathali Maternity Hospital. Father, who has no relative or other children, turned the baby over to the hospital saying, “If I care for the baby, my fields will die. If I care for my fields, the baby will die.” The girl arrived here six days ago, very underweight. She needs special care; t
hat’s why we think you are the right parents, and because of her malnourished condition you must take her immediately.’

  Mrs Shrestha looks at the plump baby I hold, then again at her file. She looks again at the baby, then back at her papers. She calls for the matron. The two go to the matron’s office. Another woman joins them. The three talk excitedly in the next room. They come into the nursery, look at my little girl, then go through the other baskets. They’re talking fast in the Newari language, and I can’t follow. In my arms, our baby starts crying. I rock her and walk around the room as she continues to cry. Mrs Shrestha comes back holding two files and goes to the basket with the girl who has tight skin and lips. Looking in, Mrs Shrestha is visibly distressed. The other two women stand close, talking softly.

  ‘It must be. It has to be,’ the matron says nodding.

  ‘Yes,’ says Mrs Shrestha. ‘But how did it happen?’ The matron takes my baby, and our little girl quietens immediately. Throughout, other babies in the room have been quiet.

  Pointing to the first basket, Mrs Shrestha says, ‘We made, I think, a bad mistake. That is not your child; yours is malnourished. Your child is this one.’

  I look towards the first basket. Is she the same girl Jennifer was attracted to? That tiny baby with tight lips looks too weak to smile, but she does. Yes, those are dimples. I look at the women and understand. It’s like Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore: they mixed up the babies!

  ‘Wait. I must get Jennifer,’ I say and rush out excitedly.

  Back on my motorcycle I race through Kathmandu’s streets, the thumping pistons of that old BMW whining as I twist up the throttle and coax seconds off the trip, snaking the big bike through the crowds, accelerating on the open road. Collecting Jennifer and Jesse, we weave back to the orphanage with Jesse astride the gas tank, holding the handlebars.

  Mrs Shrestha explains, ‘The well-nourished girl belongs to a Nepali businessman. A-month-and-a-half ago, he was on a bus with his wife and three children on his way to Kathmandu to see his relatives. On a steep turn the brakes failed and the bus went over the cliff. His wife and children died. He was one of the few who survived. Lonely, he walked through villages looking for someone to call his family. He found this girl who, for some reason, also had no family. Now she is his. He left her with us while he arranges for a woman servant to care for her.’

  10.4 Our Daughter Tara at the Orphanage—Smiling to Come Home

  Source: Author

  The matron picks up the thin baby from the first basket. ‘This girl is yours, the one that needs urgent care. We think the ­mix-up between baskets happened when the hospital people came last week to immunize all the babies. All were out of their baskets then and crying because of the needles. This little girl whose mother died from bleeding is your daughter.’ The woman places the tight-lipped girl in Jennifer’s arms.

  CHANCE—WHAT IS IT? HOW DOES IT WORK? There is a fable of a man who fired gunshots at a wall. After emptying his gun he went up and painted outwardly concentric circles around the cluster of ­bullet holes, claiming that by having the cluster inside his painted circles, he had perfectly hit the centre of the bull’s eye.

  Do we sometimes create our own accuracy? Was there a real telepathic exchange between the Brahmin and me while walking uphill with our minds truly sharing the same mental groove? Might my knowledge have been purely deduced from the shape of his nose and the way he was walking, assembling prior similar conversations and putting a circle around those points?

  The Shyakshila village changed its inaugural date; that was certain. However, was doing so true precognition? The lama did not predict my arrival; he had just predicted the arrival of a guest. Coincidentally, I reached the village on that date, but it could have been anyone, or the astrologer having said a special event would come then presented as evidence perhaps a remarkable bird that landed on top of the temple, or something else. Such signs then would have been validation. The lama would have to make multiple such predictions to know for sure.

  A child’s telepathic exchange with her new parents—is such a thing possible for a baby? Astronomer Carl Sagan spoke of the ability of infants to describe events and places in prior lives; not that he was certain of its veracity but he claimed that their accuracy was so uncanny as to warrant scholarly study. Our new daughter’s communication, Jennifer-to-her and me-to-her, is the most convincing of these three astounding occurrences—for the awareness came separately to both of us and so firmly that neither of us had any doubt. Science might not accept such evidence, but it is so strong that parents act (and are willing to die) on its basis.

  Supra-understandings have been happening, as best as can be known, since the dawn of human life. Knowledge that is not conveyed through the five senses—but is somehow transmitted—has come too many times, filling lives of communities or of parents knowing something terrible (or wonderful) about their children. Such knowing does not counter science. Science does not claim to be all-knowing; it is only error-catching and this distinction is important. What is striking about this process is how such knowledge also dawns upon the hardboiled sceptic who insists on working from facts—then eureka, an answer arrives totally unrelated to the scientific processes the scientist had been following. Science does not explain this, but assigns it the name ‘intuition’. Evidence itself did not create the knowing because data was not yet collected; also the hypothesis had yet to be postulated. Only the idea passed—from that, knowledge was reverse engineered—then proven correct by backward calculus.

  With our daughter, the reason that drove our knowing could have been anything from sympathy evoked by her malnutrition, to the smile that, at some level, was a family feature, perhaps a feature that our son Jesse already had. Or, it could have also been some family bond speaking across genetics of global difference. Whole cultures are convinced of reincarnation while science has yet to prove it.

  In the three instances in this chapter, I possibly picked some random coincidence. Perhaps I appear to be developing a line pointing to extrasensory communication because I am drawing circles around random bullet holes. But then, maybe something is communicating with us about which knowledge has not been discovered as yet. Perhaps thoughts radiate using waves or channels yet undiscovered; these are then partially picked up by our partially developed senses, the way some people have more sensitive ears or eyes. Because a sixth (or more) sense has not been defined yet, who can guarantee that humans have only five senses?

  For Grandpa and Jim Corbett, their ‘sixth sense’ saved their lives in the jungle on repeated occasions. And because their lives had been saved, both men believed in it. Perhaps what alerted Grandpa and Jim Corbett was not a ‘sixth sense’, as these two men were deeply attuned to jungle messages. But what they were gathering was a call that a bird some distance away had made and was then picked up and passed by another. Information may be coming, and perhaps the explanation is that we are improper in its attribution.

  We walk on paths in life that more than half the time are darkened trails to the unknown. We seek light. We enter communities of living where events are happening but we do not know why. For example, our children always surprise us with new traits—from where do these actions come with some genome imprinting to that specificity? We are individuals, but beyond ourselves exists a great cosmos of both that is known and not known. To many people, such a cosmos feels as though it is there, the way we felt about our daughter.

  One striking feature of science is its certitude. But today’s science may be wrong simply because it is so sure. It looks for cause and effect, seems to identify connection, but the world it operates in is complex with dynamics beyond those being defined. What may be a cause today will not have the same effect tomorrow, because the interdependencies around the relationships between cause and effect relate in new ways on a new day. How can it then be a cause—rather, it was a one-time explanation. There is a conceit in science (at least in its certitude) that is as blind as the conceit in religio
us belief, both of which postulate truth. Questioning is always valid, and certitude must always be suspect.

  When science is humble, then comes value—just as there is value in religion when it sits in awe, not judgment (when it does judge, it usually commits a grave sin). It seems that understanding comes when religion is humble. In the words of Søren Kierkegaard: ‘Life must be understood backwards. But it must be lived forwards’ 3—the corollary to this being that in going forward we walk into mysteries where explanation comes to us after the experience.

  Each age will inevitably have its respective disciplines of alchemy, for each age has its conceits grown from false starting points in which people deeply believed in those times. In them, adherents become certain when actually they are incorrect. Proto-scientists in the Middle Ages developed theory, terminology, experimental process, and laboratory techniques, but their assumptions were flawed, for gold cannot be created from lead. Robert Boyle, who developed the science of chemistry, began as an alchemist. His brilliance is that he learnt—the method worked, he concluded (and because of his questioning we today have science), but the assumptions he was certain of in the beginning were wrong. Similarly, the twentieth century believed societal systems could be planned, and such planning would create productive societies. But the societal-planning discipline crumbles (to wit the Soviet Union). Similarly, the financial world believes its numbers describe global transactions, but they cannot predict an economy (to wit the missing prediction for the Great Recession of 2008).

  In life are there patterns we do not detect yet? Or, are random events simply being grouped together? We know not what we know. We walk down trails in the dark, feeling for our route when not seeing it, getting messages though we do not know how they come to us and from where. But we are always sufficiently certain of the patterns of life that each day we get up and start anew—for from somewhere knowledge comes.