Bhutanese Tales of the Yeti

by Kunzang Choden

  Sarphula could feel the energy emanating from the two bodies locked in a fight or die encounter.

  Trying to restrain himself with caution, he kept a good distance between the unusual duo and himself. Suddenly there was bright light everywhere for they had reached the open field which had so recently been cleared. He stood at a discreet distance and watched a scene that was surreal; the two-legged creature clumsily scrambled up a rock face near a stream and clung to a tree nearby. Its huge feet balanced precariously on the tip of the boulder and its long arms clung around the trunk of a tree. Its face was nothing like anything he had seen; it was so human like and yet the fangs made it look so wild and sinister. Its small deep-set eyes darted nervously in all directions and it was rasping for breath. It had an animated but lost look. The mass of red and black stripes he had seen a while ago was a massive tiger in all its majesty. Fully in control of the situation it sat on the ground in front of the tree, like a cat waiting for a mouse. Its ears were pricked up, taking in all the sounds and sensations in the area as it thrashed its tail on the ground, baagh baagh. Sarphula waited and watched from the safety of his hiding place, a tiny crevice under the gnarled roots of a huge tree that grew near an immense rock.

  The tiger roared in a lazy, casual sort of a way but its eyes were fixed on its prey, impatient yet attentive. Sarphula studied the tiger, he had never seen one at such close quarters. Herders do not even dare to call it by name; they refer to it as Phama or parent and sometimes as “Semchen chedpo” which means big animal. The herders dread no other predator more than the tiger! Sarphula suddenly felt sorry for the two-legged creature who fidgeted, obviously very distraught. With every roar from the tiger, the monster’s body tensed and it clung more tightly to the tree and bared its teeth, so like an agitated monkey! The waiting went on and on and Sarphula was just beginning to wonder what he should do when he heard a great commotion and saw a flash of movement and then a big splash in the stream.

  The two-legged creature had made a final attempt to get away and the tiger had sprang after it and caught it in the stream. Sarphula could feel the energy emanating from the two bodies locked in a fight or die encounter and he began to tremble uncontrollably. The vibrations from the stream filled the entire area as the sprays of water splashed everywhere. Sarphula’s body became rigid and his heart began to pound loudly as he felt a suffocating sensation in his chest. It was too much, he could not watch this supernatural match any more. He had to get out of this crevice where he had to crouch so tightly that he felt his organs jammed and his limbs locked into numbness. He struggled out of his hiding place, took one deep breath and raced through the forests, following the path he had cleared. He would definitely not talk about this bizarre sighting to any one. He would also try not to think of what he had just seen. It was surely a bad omen. Seeing what, he believed was a migoi was a bad enough omen, but to see a migoi being hounded by a tiger was surely worse. Fortunately it is believed that if the person who sees such an inauspicious sight does not tell anyone about it and also tries not to show any fear, the significance of the omen is substantially lessened.

  He kept his secret deep in his heart, trying to push any memories of it out of his mind until Pringmo, another cow herder caught up with him several days later. Pringmo, who had a herd of about thirty cows, usually followed the other herders and grazed her cows in the pastures from where other herders had already moved away. She had no pastures of her own and the others allowed her to bring her cattle to glean in the pastures after them. She had followed Sarphula’s herd. She camped with her family in the clearing in the maize field and let her animals roam freely in the forests. The red fern grew with such vigor, that only a few days after being eaten, new growth sprouted back.

  From the moment that they set up camp the guard dog had barked strangely and pulled and strained at its chain until it broke loose and sprinted off towards the stream, at the edge of the forest, in a mad fury. “Run after the dog and bring it back. If it confronts a wild boar he’ll get killed,” Pringmo instructed her seven-year-old son as she continued to milk her cows. The boy rushed off after the dog and soon she could hear it snarling, it was no longer barking.

  Long after Pringmo had milked the cows, churned the milk and made the butter and then cooked the cheese and made it into rolls, her son and dog had still not returned. Rather concerned, she headed towards the stream and soon she saw her son sitting on a rock and and looking across the stream, intently watching something. On the other side of the bank she could see the dog tearing and pulling at a massive object. She called to her son irritably and he turned to her excitedly, “Come, Ama, quick, our dog has found something.”

  With feigned fear she teased her son, “It may be a migoi and I don’t want to see it. You too had better come back to the camp”

  “Ama, please come. I will come with you, just take one look before you go back,” he begged her, tugging at her hands and actually pulling her towards the dog and the heap on the ground.

  Totally perplexed, Pringmo studied the creature that their dog was protectively eating from. The dog snarled, its paws on the remains of an unrecognizable body. The upper portion of the body was nowhere to be seen, it was the lower body of some enormous creature. The toes of the gigantic feet had already been chewed off. Its shins were as big as tree trunks and some of the vertebrae were still there. These were as as big as a damaru (a hand-held ritual drum approximately

  10 cm in diameter). The hair on the body was rather long. The roots were dark, almost black, but the tips were lighter brownish-yellow. The flesh was blackish in color. Pringmo suddenly remembered something from her childhood, “there is a hollow in the migoi’s back.” She went closer and looked, there wasn’t a gaping open hollow as she had imagined it, but there was definitely a deep depression. This confirmed her suspicion, it was indeed a migoi!

  A sense of fear and repulsion gripped her and she felt faint. She quickly extracted the nutmeg she always carried in the pouch of her kira, a common remedy for bouts of dizziness, and sniffed it deep and long. She felt a little better. Without a word she grabbed her son and drew him away from the scene and hurried back to her camp. She was sure she had seen the remains of a dead migoi!

  “I thought it was a bad omen intended for me, a supernatural sign from the nyadag shidag because I had cut down trees and rolled away boulders while trying to clear a path to the newly cleared pastures in the Yamalung region. I actually saw the migoi being chased by the tiger and I watched the terrible fight between the two. So all that must have been real,” said Sarphula with relief after Pringmo had narrated her experience one evening at the camp fire at their hut.

  Sarphula’s family begged him to tell them all he had seen and he did for he was now sure that it was not an ominous supernatural experience. Soon the story spread around and one day an enterprising business man who traded in the Indian border towns was seen stumbling through the forests with his servants, trying locate the place of the fight between the migoi and the tiger. Several months after the fight that Pringmo had seen, there were just a some gigantic bones scattered in the area. What the tiger had not finished the herders’ dogs and the wild animals had fought over and feasted on.

  Not Even a Corpse to Cremate

  Every evening when the girls came home with their cattle they would each carry a load of firewood and invariably the village boys would stand around and quip, “Where did you find the raven’s nest?” or “How many ravens’ nests did you steal today?” Raven’s nest, of course, alluded to the small useless twigs that the birds use to build their nests. The girls were fed up with the teasing and taunting and they had long ago realized that it was no use fighting back with words. The only way to fight back the bothersome boys was to show them that they were as strong and as able to carry big, heavy logs of firewood as the boys themselves.

  As the boys engaged in their usual ritual of loud badgering one evening, the girls walked home in silence, with only traces of mysterious smiles on
their faces which reflected nothing of their resolve. Failing to achieve any communication with the girls, the boys left their strategic posts in silence, peeved and disappointed. The teasing was only an excuse to talk to the girls, for this was the only way that these gawky teenage boys knew how to interact with girls. Phurba Lhamo and Pem Doikar were certainly the most attractive girls in the village and they realized that even if they brought home the heaviest logs of wood the boys would still find a reason to tease them.

  Next day, as soon as the cows were milked, Phurba Lhamo and Pem Doikar took them and headed towards the pastures. The girls wore, as head bands cane ropes, which were made into rings over their heads, around their necks were a medley of colorful strings and beads and their faces were flushed with secret excitement. The big sickles called gila were stuck into their belts in the back. Over their arms they casually tossed the coarse cloths which they would use as protection for their own clothes against the roughness of the branches and logs they would carry on their backs. Phurba Lhamo had a long and slender willow branch with which she guided her cattle along the track and Pem Doikar was already busy spinning with a drop spindle as she walked. There was nothing unnatural about the duo except, perhaps, only a keen observer would have discerned a small difference; these girls did not stroll along in their usual leisurely way but seemed to walk with a resolute purpose.

  The girls drove their animals past the other curious herders, telling them that they expected the grass to be more plentiful and tender further up the mountainside. Once they reached the forested area they let their cattle graze freely and they themselves immediately ventured into the forests, searching for the thickest branches, pulling and dragging them into an open space where they began to chop them into lengths that they would tie into bundles to be carried on their backs. When the loads were ready it was time to take the cattle home; for they had to start back a little earlier than the others as they had come a little further than the other herders. “I’ll help you with your load first and then you can help me,” suggested Pem Doikar.

  Phurba Lhamo covered her back with the coarse cloth and then sat with her back against the load of firewood. She carefully pulled her arms through the straps made from the rope that was tied around the firewood and began to adjust them, all the time saying, “Wait, wait, I’ll be ready in just a moment.”

  Pem Doikar had suddenly became quite impatient and extending her hands towards her friend said, “How long do I have to wait to help you up? Can’t you hurry up?”

  “Look, the rope is all tangled, if you want me to hurry up you better help me to untangle the rope first.”

  With an impatient intake of a quick breath, Pem Doikar bent forward to help her friend when she was suddenly swept off the ground. Phurba Lhamo looked up and screamed an endless scream; her friend was being carried away by some gigantic monster that walked on two legs. Phurba Lhamo saw her friend as she struggled, throwing her arms about and kicking wildly like some one about to drown. Strapped to the heavy load of firewood, all she could do was watch on helplessly as her friend’s mouth opened and closed with silent cries for help before she disappeared into the thick forests.

  There was nothing unnatural about the duo.

  “Are you sure it was not a bear?” “What was the color of the animal?”

  “Did it bite on to Pem Doikar as it dragged her away? Think carefully and tell us all the details”.

  In spite of the horrifying experience Phurba Lhamo seemed to remember everything with clarity and she replied to all the questions patiently and carefully. “I am sure it was not a bear. I have seen plenty of bears. This creature was not even black; it was grayish-brown. It did not bite her and drag her. It carried her in its arms like we carry children,” and she demonstrated how.

  The people were shocked and mystified, “What could this creature have been?” they asked, but found no answers.

  All the men from the village volunteered to go and search for the missing girl. They quickly devised torches out of old shingles and moved out of the village, climbing the same mountainside where the girls had been earlier in the day. Darkness had descended and as the anxious villagers looked towards the mountainside they could see the spots of light from the torches spread over the entire area. For those who had remained in the village, the wait was long and strained and every now and then Pem Doikar’s mother broke into uncontrollable sobs. Phurba Lhamo sat by her, trying to reassure her but she herself was now crying more than actually easing the old woman’s anxieties. The men returned one by one, their torches burnt out, their faces serious and tired. They had not found the missing girl. Although nothing definite was known about the fate of the girl, a heavy solemnity descended upon the village. Everybody seemed to huddle near their hearths and speak in hushed tones, as if in mourning. With the first light of day Pem Doikar’s father organized another search, party and at the end of the day, after a thorough search they came home with the girl’s sickle and her drop spindle. They had called for her until their throats were sore and hoarse; at least they were relieved that there were no evidence of any violence or blood. For the family it is often better to have no evidence of a missing person than to have to deal with a mangled and mutilated body. Although nobody could come up with a plausible explanation as to what might have happened to the girl the village was at once buzzing with speculations and rumors.

  “The girl has fallen into the hands of the spirits of the mountains. She has left the realms of the humans and has entered the world of the lhaende,” intoned the astrologer after he had consulted the book of divinations.

  The years went by swiftly but the incident was not forgotten and Pem Doikar’s mother when referring to her daughter’s mysterious disappearance always lamented, “Aie, my Pem Doikar, if she is still alive there is nothing to prove her existence and if she is dead there is not even her corpse to cremate. What fate is this?”

  Fate was indeed unfathomable. Many years later still, unknown to the villagers of Pem Doikar, a strange woman appeared in a distant village, many valleys away. The woman was not young. Her hair was long and wild, she was clothed in the furs of wild animals which were stitched together roughly. Around her neck was a string of colorful beads. Her face was dark and gaunt; her arms and legs were criss-crossed with scars and bruises and she had a wild yet frightened look. She held her hands under her chin and stepped backwards in fear when people approached her. She uttered sounds that were incomprehensible to all. The people of the village stood around this woman talking and gesticulating excitedly, the children laughed and teased her and the village dogs ran wild and barked in disorderly agitation. The vulnerability of this strange woman immediately melted the aged hearts of Mimi Tashi and Aei Lhamo and they broke through the crowds and took her hands gently, led her to their house at the end of the village and she let herself be guided.

  After many months of patient and loving kindness the strange woman was able to learn to speak again and then she was able to tell her story. She recalled screaming and crying for help after she was abducted by the migoi. She must have become unconscious after a while because when she woke up she found herself in a cave with the strange creature next to her, staring at her curiously. She remembered that she began to holler and shriek in sheer fright and confusion, until she passed out again. She must have drifted in and out of consciousness because she remembered very little of what happened over the following days. As time passed the creature sat by her side continuously and left her side only to go and bring her different kinds of game which it piled up beside her. She could have run away during the time it went hunting but she was simply too starved and weak to move. In the beginning she was repulsed by all the meat that had accumulated in the cave in various stages of decay but finally she realized that she had to eat something if she were to survive. For the rest of her time with the creature she lived on the meat that it brought her and covered her body with the furs from these carcasses. The vegetation of the area was not familiar to her and she dared
not eat it although she grew tired of the meat diet. Later she learned to use sharp stones and wooden splinters to cut the meat into strips and dry them before she ate them. The dried meat provided some change from having to eat raw meat all the time. The creature would sit and watch her all the time and became agitated and intense every time she tried to run away. Whenever she went a little further from the cave than the creature thought was necessary it grabbed her gently and carried her back to the cave. She was a virtual prisoner of this creature. In the depth of the wilderness surrounded by unfamiliar dangers lurking everywhere, she, in the course of time was compelled to turn to the only familiar and unchanging object in her entire environment; this huge, hideous creature who was gentle and caring in its own strange way.

  Pem Doikar watched the seasons change and she guessed that many years had passed. She had no orientation of where she was and how far she was from the nearest human settlements. Every direction she looked there were thick forests on layers and layers of endless mountains. For many years she longed to hear a human voice or see a human face but she couldn’t even hear the distant bark of dogs at the herders’ camps and she realized that they were far out in the deepest depths of the wilderness. She wondered if she had actually died and it was only her spirit that was bondaged to this creature, but when she tested this idea, she found that her body still created a shadow and her feet left imprints on the stones after she had walked through streams and brooks; spirits do not cast shadows and leave imprints, that much she knew. But she also knew that she was lost to the human world and was as good as dead.

  In the course of many more years she learned to accept the creature as her companion and a baby was born to her. The baby was more human-like than the father and she immediately felt a strong bond to this helpless and strange-looking thing that suckled furiously at her breasts. She nursed it and nourished it in the best way she knew. The baby provided some of the human companionship that she had yearned for and she was grateful. But Pem Diokar’s heart cried out for human company, after all these years she never stopped scheming and plotting how she could run away from her guard. Escape had become her life’s purpose and challenge; perhaps it had become her reason to go on living and hoping.