BOOKS-GERMANY: The Abominable Snowman Unmasked

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Yojana Sharma

FRANKFURT, Germany, Oct 20 1998 (IPS) - Yeti jokes did the rounds at the recent Frankfurt Bookfair when famed mountaineer Reinhold Messner presented his book ‘Yeti’, which debunks the centuries-old myth of an abominable snowman stalking the Himalayas.

Example: two yetis meet atop Mount Everest. One says to the other, “Hey, you know what? I just saw Reinhold Messner.” The other Yeti replies, “Wow! You mean he really exists?”

Messner laughs off the jokes saying he is not just a serious mountaineer but also a serious naturalist, intent on separating legend from facts.

Intensely secretive while writing the book, he first presented his findings to the quasi-scientific and prestigious Alpine Society last month. Messner says the beast known as the yeti, should now be studied “scientifically” and protected.

Messner climbed Everest without oxygen in 1978, as well as all the world’s peaks that tower more than 8,000 metres. But it was while trekking in eastern Tibet in 1986 that he says he came face- to-face with a yeti, an “indefinable, big, stinking, exotic animal” walking on two legs.

“The stench! It was like frozen garlic, rancid fat and yak dung. The skull was a big as that of a yak but without horns,” says Messner. But the legendary man-beast is extremely shy. “I stood still and he walked off.”

The Chinese government has offered a reward of 45,000 dollars since 1995 for anyone bringing back a live yeti, 4,500 dollars for a dead one. For photos or video shots, 3,250 dollars.

Messner is not laying claim to any prizes because he is adamant ‘his’ yeti is not the one of myth. But he’s hoping for a fair return on his book unveiled at the five day international book rights fair at Frankfurt which ended Oct. 12. Already published in German, the English language rights were sold to the MacmIllan publishing house last week for publication next year.

According to Messner, the yeti, or the abominable snowman of popular myth is not some kind of giant ape-like humanoid with long hair all over his body. And they’re not as rare as one might suppose. Some 1,000 or 2,000 of them wander around Tibet, mostly at night, he says.

In Nepal only few survive, possibly only three, while others may well exist in Mongolia, in the Himalayan region of Pakistan and in Bhutan usually at a height of more 5,000 meters, Messner says.

The yeti really is a large Tibetan bear, a kind of long-haired grizzly that can grow to almost 3.5 metres, with footprints and droppings similar to a humans’. In Tibet they are known as chemo. “The yeti is is a brown bear, there is no doubt about it,” Messner says.

A yeti can climb in mountain areas 6,000 metres high “without any problem” and can bear temperatures up to minus 40 degrees, hence the legend of the abominable snowman.

Some can weigh 300 kgs – judging by the depth of its footprints and from the remains of yaks strewn about the Himalayas it is thought that a yeti can fell a 500 kilo yak and break its neck, he says.

It carries its young on its back and eats “what we eat”, meat fruit, berries, vegetables and roots. “It follows humans and steals their food. It’s easier.”

Messner says his research has been extensive and painstaking over a period of 12 years. He made several trips into Nepal, Ladakh, Bhutan and Eastern Tibet – where he was once pursued by Chinese border police.

The intrepid explorer covered 12,500 miles of Himalayas and claims to have had five encounters with the yeti in those areas. The yeti may well have habitats further afield. Border troops of the Russian KGB maintain they saw the yeti in the Caucasus, describing him as a “monster with glowing eyes”.

Chinese scientists have been sent on the yeti trail to prove or disprove its existence. They had helicopters and infrared detectors to assist their search but came back empty handed. They had been prepared to use the latest of high-tech methods to test yeti DNA and ascertain exactly its origins.

Messner maintains he was rewarded with a glimpse of the famous yeti where others were not, simply because “I’ve been in the Himalayas far more often than anyone else.”

The Tibetans have followed the tale with interest. Messner has already presented his findings to the Dalai Lama. “We’ve had ‘chemos’ in the Lhasa zoo in the past,” the Dalai Lama conceded in an interview reproduced in a popular German magazine.

“You mean the chemo and Yeti are one and the same thing?” The Dalai Lama asked the mountaineer. Messner says he is sure chemos and yetis are one and the same but is unable to explain why Tibetans haven’t agreed on this in the past.

He says only: “imagine the scene. When the being stood right in front of them they could see it was a bear. When it was far away, appeared in the night, or if no one had really seen it properly, then they would think it was a yeti.”

His findings are unlikely to stop people believing the myth. “We still know too little about the cave-bears of Central Asia to sift out all the yeti legends,” concedes Messner. “But the footprints, the eating habits, the habitat match only the bears known as ‘chemo’ in Tibetan.”

Messner agrees that it is still possible, that somewhere in the world there is a yeti-like animal. And there have been many who have pointed out that the long-haired bearded, large-framed Messner, fond of roaming the Himalayas looks remarkably like a smallish yeti.

Messner has brushed aside the ridicule that has greeted his discovery. “I can’t help it if people expected King Kong and didn’t get him!”