Yeti- The Ecology of a Mystery

by Daniel C Taylor

  The bear weights 52 kilos (119 pounds); cusp wear indicates that it is middle-aged. It is a female and she indeed possesses something of a thumb—it’s unclear how it would look splayed out in the snow, but it splays nicely in dung. All in all, a promising tree-bear suspect. But the series of casts we make is most intriguing. With slight changes, positioning the hind foot on top of the front foot, we have a bear making gorilla-like prints, and casts where with a different positioning of the hind paw on the forepaw we achieve prints with thumbs like ours on the Barun ridge. Also, longer cast prints are similar to Shipton’s except for its puzzling wide middle toe.

  The great 1951 footprint mystery now has its first hard explanation in sixty years since Shipton’s photograph. A known animal is shown to be able to make the unknown prints. Using a tranquilized bear, with further moving of feet in the dung, it was possible to position hind feet on to forefeet such that not only the 1951 print but also the other Yeti ‘mysteries’ are explained.

  Through the morning one man was particularly creative. It was his idea to order hot tea, his idea to cast the footprint in malleable cow dung to form a smooth mould. This talkative man of today was mute yesterday in the palace; Bishou Bikram Shah is a relative of the king, the deputy private secretary to His Majesty, the master of the royal hunt, and the keeper of the king’s private lands.

  A few evenings later, some of us who were at the zoo, plus three others, gather at Bishou’s house. Among them are Hemanta Mishra, the chief ecologist for the Department of National Parks; Tirtha Bahadur Shrestha, Nepal’s leading botanist; Rabi Bista, a hotshot forester; and Kazi, a bird expert whose field time exceeds that of any Nepali scientist. Looking around the room I realize that here are the kingdom’s most informed jungle experts, plus each has had a little to drink. Casually, I ask, ‘What do Nepali villagers think the Yeti is? Not what you think, but what do the villagers think?’

  ‘Dan’l, the Yeti is our mascot the way the bald eagle is America’s,’ says Hemanta. ‘Nepal is a land of Mount Everest, the tall snows—these things which no other country has make our small country well known. But Nepal is also a land of mysteries, of Shangri-La, and it is for these that westerners come. The biggest mystery is the Yeti. If Nepal explains what is unknown about the Yeti, we lose a lot of our magic. When I fundraise for tigers, rhinos, or pristine jungles, the Yeti is my ally. I don’t mention its name, but it’s on everyone’s mind, the most endangered animal of all. If the interest in my speech is dying, Nepal’s wildness is immediately strengthened with a passing joke so that they do not think I truly believe in it. A joke confirms that Nepal’s other animals must also be rare.’

  From one end of the sofa, Tirtha Shrestha breaks in: ‘But Dan’l’s question is not whether Nepal needs the Yeti. His question is about what Nepalis think of the Yeti?’

  Rabi jumps in, ‘In my experience, it depends on the ethnic group you ask. Firstly, in the Nepali language we didn’t have a word for the Yeti until maybe ten years ago. Yeti is a Sherpa word. We didn’t directly bring this word to our language, but as Mishraji said, we brought ‘Yeti’ into Nepali from English. Dan’l, if you ask a Nepali about the Yeti, a different answer will come depending on whom you ask. Villagers may not even know the word.’

  Tirtha waits politely, not permitting his argument to be sidetracked. ‘While helping write the fourteen volumes of From Mechi to Mahakali that describe all of Nepal, I talked with many people, and my thought coincides with Rabi’s. On the Yeti, different Nepalis have different thoughts. But there is one belief that is common to all. All Nepalis believe our jungles contain the bun manchi, a jungle man. Is the bun manchi the same as the Yeti? The answer is no. I have asked for descriptions of the bun manchi and the Yeti, and the descriptions differ. But consistent across Nepal is the idea of wild men living in the forests.’

  ‘The idea is strong,’ Bishou acknowledges. ‘In fact, sometimes I believe in the bun manchi myself. But when I ask hunters to show me the bun manchi, I get nothing. Never have I met anyone who has seen the bun manchi. Villagers only see their crops damaged by the bun manchi. For this damage an explanation is needed … and often they ask His Majesty for compensation.’

  ‘Maybe the bun manchi is like our Hindu gods,’ Rabi suggests. ‘I cannot describe our gods in English because your language lacks the needed ideas. Hindu gods live in another world, spirits that have moved into places around us. We have this idea that in an idol it is possible to be real and not just a symbol, but real in a nonphysical way. The idol is God; yet the gods are not idols. Ideas overlay; they are different faces of one god. Maybe the Yeti is part of that world that overlays into this world. In your English insistence on logic, you cannot accept different real realities—physical and historical and spiritual and something else—among which there is a disagreement even though we see consistency. I need more beer! I didn’t say it right, but I am right.’ Rabi fills his tankard from an open one-litre bottle on the coffee table.

  ‘I understand,’ I say to Rabi in Nepali. ‘English talks about nonphysical realities, but does so as though reality is a physical product, that reality can move between the physical and nonphysical. When I get off the aeroplane while returning to Nepal and start using Nepali, not just my words but my feelings also change. The Nepali language has room for every idea, like a bus has room for whatever people bring—animals or baggage or new people. People who know only English are seldom aware of how product-oriented their ideas are because of the nature of the language in which they are conceiving those ideas.’

  Rabi claps. ‘Nepali as an overcrowded bus! Good, Dan’l, very good.’ Hemanta and Bishou laugh. But I know I use flimsy allegory.

  Having politely waited, Tirtha resumes, ‘Your question was what Nepalis think. I say that Nepalis agree that there is a bun manchi, but the bun manchi they describe differs from one valley to another.’ Looking directly at me, Tirtha says, ‘Remember, everything is shaped by caste. Our system is built on each position always having a lower caste. Yeti, like the bun manchi, dignifies the villager. For each caste, it is more important to have lower castes than higher. For a villager on the hillside who is struggling with people with bigger fields, having the bun manchi raises their otherwise low status. It makes a man feel more civilized. With the bun manchi, even though it is a wild creature it is also a human of sorts, and so that man in a caste society is no longer at the bottom.’

  Tirtha continues, ‘Who are these low-caste people? They have land near the jungle; though the land is being cleared, it remains a jungle. Maybe, technically, they are Brahmins, but they are poor and live on bad soil. They want to be civilized. The bun manchi makes them more civilized than that jungle person they talk about.’

  ‘Very good, doctor sahib, very good.’ Hemanta has been listening intently. ‘Maybe such poor villagers also find the bun manchi convenient to explain why their fields are so often eaten, because they are poor and cannot afford to make fencing. The bun manchi gives them an excuse for being poor.’

  ‘Ah, Hemantaji, you keep coming up with the economic explanation,’ I say, having learnt years ago that as a white person I must never comment on caste. ‘Maybe Hemanta is wildlife’s chief economist as well as chief ecologist!’

  Bishou roars with laughter. ‘Very good, very good. Wildlife’s chief economist.’

  ‘A good thing, too,’ I add, ‘for Hemanta has raised a lot of money and saved a lot of Nepali wildlife with it.’

  ‘I have another point,’ Tirtha continues, looking at me. ‘I said that Yetis make the villagers appear more cultured. A part of not being an animal means having stories to explain who we are. I give an example. Americans characterize Russians as “bears”; doing this makes you “not-bears”. You spend billions of dollars projecting the Russians as bears because of your belief, while the rest of us believe the Soviets will not attack. Maybe the Russians are dangerous bears or maybe not, but there is no doubt that you have grown a mythology that favours how you want to see yourselves.


  ‘Likewise, Nepalis have mythologies to explain who we are. If I convince villagers that there is no bun manchi, I take away some of their self-identity. You just heard Rabi bhai—Nepalis have answered the Yeti question, also the bun manchi question, even the tree bear/ground bear question. It is you that made the Yeti into a mystery; you who are trying to fit it with science. The mystery would be answered if you accepted our context.’

  Bishou sets down his beer. ‘Good, Tirthaji. The bun manchi to us is an answer, and to the westerners, a question. Let us go to other room. I have some special meats. You must guess what they are.’

  ‘Give us a hint, Raja,’ I ask. ‘Which jungle do these meats come from?’

  ‘That is your mystery, Dan’l. All I say is that there is no bear meat on my table. Please come.’ Vijaya, his lovely wife who is skilled at cooking the exotic animals of the jungle, opens the doors leading into the dining room. At the table are two types of yogurt and a platter piled high with garnished rice. I count five meat dishes. Two are fowl and one, I bet, is partridge. Two others are red meat: the greenish grey may be wild boar and maybe the other is sambar stag. Is that fifth one the tiny barking deer?

  In the midst of Nepal’s problems, as human population pressure reduces animal habitat, wildlife conservation has been very successful. The diversity of meat on this table confirms recent data according to which in areas under management, there is almost a surplus of wild animals. (Seven per cent of the land had been protected then in 1984; with additional land protected by 2016, now a quarter of the country is conserved.)

  WHAT WOULD THE YETI’S LANGUAGE BE? In searching for footprints and exploring legends, explorers sought an animal. As this search continued, local people connected increasingly to an outsider idea about the Yeti rather than their knowledge. The outsiders assumed that they pursued a reality that was locally known—their error was in not understanding the original meaning. What followed then is shown by the quest overlooking the role of language. And the idea of discovering this wild man can be explored across many language landscapes.

  First, consider if the Yeti exists as a true wild hominoid—it must have a language. So what would the Yeti’s language be? Moreover, if a wild hominoid has succeeded in staying secluded despite a century-long search, it must have a sophisticated language. Such supreme crypto-locational seclusion would be impossible unless the language allowed it to understand people and communicate among themselves; the animal moves and eludes as explorers and villagers keep coming. So a real Yeti not only has its own language, it probably also understands ours, at least Nepali and Sherpa languages, maybe even more languages. This is a lot more than guttural grunts and primal screams.

  Moreover, its language will equip it to ‘read the jungle’ with accuracy. For, in order to hide in a diminishing habitat, it must be using that habitat with sophistication not only for hiding but also as its home. The awe-inspiring abilities of Lendoop would be child’s play for such an animal—and the creature would need to share these abilities among its kind, hence requiring developed linguistic skills. It would not only be a genetic ‘missing link’ between humans and their ancestors; it would be a polyglot professor.

  Thus, should a true hominoid be discovered, apart from zoologists and anthropologists, the linguist community would be euphoric. Languages that function in jungle dynamics would be understood beyond the frames of words, hand signs, tones, and possessions. Such a hominoid might open a Rosetta Stone-like path so that humans could understand the wild. If the Sami people of the Nordic lands have about 200 words to describe snow, the linguistic skills used by the Yeti might be broader.

  A Spanish speaker makes every noun carry a masculine or feminine character imbuing sexuality into life. Indians and Nepalis locate verbs last, causing their sentences to end with action. We know, for example, that in languages using touch, new worlds open beyond words. Understanding by touch is much more than the opportunity for a Braille speaker. For think of the understanding that comes to a cat that navigates by pressure on its whiskers to food, or a snake whose ears do not hear but feels sound through the ground. Smell gives a language for ants that assemble a lexicon from four simple scents. Dance also speaks where bees tell each other of pollen-rich flowers and starling flocks communicate by wingtips. Ponder, then, what language levels a Yeti who has been so magnificently hiding would offer.

  Language maturation has been underway since the beginning of genetic evolution, not only for hominoids but for all life,. Multidimensionality of language is a facet of all life forms as is the process of living. We know a little about this dimensionality of language in the worlds beyond humans (for example, between whales or between elephants), knowing that these beings speak in the present individual-to-individual and across generations carrying messages from individuals then dead but speaking to individuals now living. Languages are being continually developed. Watching a string of ants communicate as they move is clear, but what is it like in comprehending the world to live in a language framed by mere pheromones?

  To believe that human language is supremely sophisticated, or that one of our languages is more so than others, is potentially proof of ignorance. It also overlooks an important fact: each life form is continually evolving its language to fit its evolving circumstance. Languages, to state the obvious, speak from the scope of their experience. The incentive to evolve language for all beings is a requirement of life, for if a language is made more capable, its users experience a rising quality of life.1

  But then, at some point, languages also die. For the Yeti, I wonder how its language would be dying as its habitat so evidently diminishes. As languages die, more collapses than just words and syntax. In this extirpation, the paths to understand life are disappearing. Language withers before the physical species becomes extinct. A withering language will parallel the deflating of that species as the relationship-building function of language declines faster than the decline in numbers, driving lost opportunities for communication. The separation from use of one’s language is akin to an individual that may remain locked like an animal in a zoo, where excluded from the exuberance of once-enjoyed appreciation, the dynamic disappears that caused language to bind its members into a whole.

  Language is, of course, larger than words. A language is not defined by its components but by what it accomplishes. So language mutation advances as life circumstances change. This is shown by the evolution of the phrase used in Nepal to greet someone. In 1961, on meeting a person we would say, ‘Kahanh jane ho?’ (Where are you going?) But as Nepali interactions changed from the greeting exchanged on rural trails to urban connection, the word used now is ‘Namaste’, an expression that entered Nepal from outside its mountains, drawing on the Sanskrit ‘namah’ (I bow) and ‘te’ (to you). Not only did language expand geographically (like the word ‘Yeti’ going from Sherpa to English and then Nepali) but it also began to include action with words (a slight physical bow and palms pressed together).2

  For humans, the great language enabler came when brains got larger, a change written in the fossil records. Simplistic steps of communication had been progressing. But when brain capacity expanded, new types of language grew, because on to the fossil record was documented the historical record shown in artefacts and art. As collective expression grew across generations, cultivated by intra-species communication, a further expansion of evidence mounted: civilization.3 A collective brain such as the hive-mind that is civilization that talks by behaviours speaks perhaps most authentically as aggregated actions.

  Thus produced is the ability to create groups and function as groups. The function of language is connection. Languages of behaviours gather this process. While mutual protection and sex are other relationship-creating functions, the multidimensionality of language is the primary gathering frame of civilization. (Sex, it must be said, does not appear to be growing more sophisticated through the ages, and methods of protection appear to be growing mostly in technology.) Through homo sapiens’ use of language
we reshape the world from what we knew to that which is new.

  Language growth for each individual is striking. Language grows through one’s life. While physical ability decreases after one-third of most beings’ lives, language abilities mature until the narrowing years before our physical death. Elephants grow in wisdom.4 Grandpa observed older tigers and leopards that he termed ‘cagey’. Wisdom is accrued to almost all life as it ages, as understanding layers with complexity; the connecting matrix that brings this together being language. Such language growth—of expression of our behaviours in engaging the world—functions on different planes from the biological, while profoundly intersecting.

  Even the word ‘Yeti’ has changed its meaning. A remote Sherpa word from isolated glaciers now animates a wild possibility for humans. In this, footprints across wild snows became like punctuation marks, giving emphasis, but the ideas laid down were extensions of human desire from our early DNA. The message brought through this language of connection moved out of the remote Himalaya to new life in London, Hollywood, Bollywood, and the markets of Kathmandu. For in our brave new world the definition of real does not require real existence. It requires the ability to present a reality on a glass screen and in the imagination; that is, reality becomes real in the world of human manufacture rather than in the real world.

  The Yeti became a projection of an inside reality. It did this through a language of desire. The human experience in London, Hollywood, Bollywood, and Kathmandu developed a means to speak from inside homo sapiens about a relationship with the wild that was otherwise lost from a world where those people in London, Hollywood, and Bollywood had long been separated. Language enabled reaching out from that inside, creating expression. If not by language, how else do we bring that which is inside us out into an engagement with others?