 |
 |
 |
|
In the footsteps of the yeti: the hunt for Mande Burung
Posted on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 (CDT) by Thoth
 Amid the dense greenery of the jungle, throbbing with the hum of insects, the young boy lifts his arm and points: the creature was there. It was sitting on a rock in the cleft of a cave, said the 11-year-old, and although he only saw it for a few seconds, he is adamant that it was like nothing he'd seen before. "Its face was like that of a monkey," Tengsim Marak recalled, as we stand and peer into the murkiness of the cave. "But the creature was much bigger than a human."
For generations, the people of the state of Meghalaya in the far north-east of India, have whispered stories about the Mande Burung, or the Man of the Jungle. At night, when darkness falls like a black cloak thrown across the forest, they sit and share stories of a creature living among the trees, half man and half ape, occasionally glimpsed through the foliage or more often heard, its strange call echoing across the rice paddies. It is said to stand 10ft tall and weigh up to 45 stone.
Forest department officials and most serious scientists have always dismissed the reports as tribal folklore and considered them a local variant of similar stories told elsewhere in the world about the yeti, Bigfoot or Sasquatch. Yet the story of the Mande Burung has an intriguing and, just maybe, remarkable twist.
Earlier this
year, a group of amateur "yeti-hunters" from Meghalaya gave two hairs
they say they discovered in a "nest" of the Mande Burung to a renowned
British primatologist. Having examined the hairs, Ian Redmond said they
were like that of no other creature known to live in these jungles.
Even more teasingly, Dr Redmond said that under the microscope the
hairs most closely resembled those of a human, a chimp, a gorilla or
else the purported "yeti hairs" brought back by the late Sir Edmund
Hilary's 1953 Everest expedition.
The hairs are now
undergoing DNA tests. Dr Redmond was cautious about what the creature
may be. The most mundane explanation is that it is an already-known
species, but one whose existence in the jungles of Meghalaya had not
previously been recorded. "We have not ruled out every known species
but we have looked at those species known to live in that area," said
Dr Redmond, a senior consultant to the UN's Great Apes Survival
Project. Alternatively the hairs could belong to a previously unknown
species. As Dr Redmond points out, just five years ago, a "new" species
of macaque was discovered in the nearby state of Arunachal Pradesh.
Beyond these explanations, of course, there is the seemingly unthinkable.
Not surprisingly, the
merest possibility that a yeti-like beast may be living in the jungles
of India has triggered a huge buzz in the world of cryptozoology, the
usually derided study of uncatalogued creatures.
Jon Downes, of the
British-based Centre for Fortean Zoology, said he believed the
creatures might be the last remnants of a giant ape called
gigantopithecus, believed to have died out 300,000 years ago. "There
are so many reports of yeti-like beasts across south and central Asia
that I would not be surprised if there are still some pockets of these
very, very rare and shy creatures," he said.
The enthusiasts who handed
in the mysterious hairs said they found them in the West Garo Hills, a
remote area in the west of Meghalaya populated by tribes who until the
arrival of Christian missionaries a century ago were notorious
head-hunters.
For the past 10 years, Dipu
Marak (no relation to Tengsim) and his friends have been investigating
reports of the Mande Burung, dashing off from their base in the town of
Tura to interview possible witnesses and photographing whatever
evidence may exist, such as the scratches on the bark of a tree or an
area of forest where trees have been broken in a way that is different
to the damage made by elephants or other known animals.
Though the group calls
itself the Achik Tourism Society, Mr Marak insists they are not hoaxers
seeking to draw in tourist dollars with tall stories. "We would welcome
[more tourists] but we don't want to lie to them in the name of the
Mande Burung," said Mr Marak, sipping Indian tea one recent evening in
a small hotel in Tura. "I believe 100 per cent there is something. I
will not say it is Mande Burung because we have not found it. But as
long as there is no proof we will keep looking."
Mr Marak, who says he is a
documentary filmmaker, unrolls a map of the Garo Hills. To the south
lies the border with Bangladesh and to the west runs the broad
Brahmaputra river. Most of the alleged sightings have taken place in
the state's Nokrek Biosphere Reserve and the Balpakram National Park,
but Mr Marak reaches over the map and points to a place close to the
border with Assam. In the past few days they have learnt of a possible
sighting in a remote village there. Tomorrow, at first light, his team
is going to investigate and there is a spare seat in the truck.
The road through the Garo
Hills twists its way past scenery painted a million hues of green.
Coconut palms, banana trees and towering teaks line the narrow road. It
seems as though the entire landscape has somehow overdosed on
chlorophyll.
After two hours, where the
road reaches Assam, there are paler shades as the hills give way to
terraces of paddy fields. Women, bent double, work planting rice while
men walk behind ploughs pulled by oxen. We pass young girls cycling
with umbrellas held up against the blistering sun.
The half-dozen yeti-hunters
are a friendly bunch. There is a policeman, a couple of teachers and a
few younger men without jobs. They have all grown up hearing their
grandparents tell stories of the Mande Burung and are passionate about
discovering whether there could be any truth to them. "Everybody in
Garo Hills believes in this creature," explained Galbraith Sangma, the
policeman. He draws a distinction between the region's folklore and the
reports of the creature living in the jungle. "There are many stories
in our myths about elves or whatever, but the Mande Burung is not part
of that folklore," he said.
The team members roll off a
list of sightings. In 2003, Nelbison Sangma, a local hunter, said he
had watched the Mande Burung from across a valley for three consecutive
days. In 2005, at a village called Rongri, the creature was said to
have entered a hut occupied by a widower and her young child. The
creature had stamped out the fire and sat down but had not harmed the
woman, who was too terrified to run. Another man told them how, as a
boy, he had seen the severed hairy red arm of an unknown creature for
sale in a remote market.
Today, the team is in
search of a teacher in a remote village who – word had it – saw a
creature matching the description of the Mande Burung in late May.
After driving for three hours, we turn off the main road and head back
into the mountains.
Ten miles later the road
becomes increasingly difficult. Monsoon rains have created heavy mud
and the boulders on the road seem impassable but we bump and barrel our
way uphill in the lowest gear, the truck's engine roaring.
The track ends at a village
called Tingba, set in a valley of rice paddies cut through by a briskly
flowing river. Two team members set off to speak to the headman. When
they return, they say the person we are looking for lived in another
village, several hours away, but that there is a man in Tingba whose
son had seen the creature.
We find Mohin Sangma and
his son, Tengsim Marak, on the far side of the river. Mr Sangma is
wearing little more than a loin cloth and his frame is small and wiry,
his body not betraying a spare ounce of fat. The pair lead the way the
way through the jungle, hot and humid and filled with blood-sucking
leaches, cutting back the foliage with a machete. After 20
lung-bursting minutes they stop at a cleft set in the hillside. One
team member sets up a video camera and films as Tengsim recalls what he
had seen.
"The creature was on the
rock. He was playing with a stone, hitting it against the rock. It was
black," he said. "It was just a few seconds [that I saw it]. I was very
scared."
Having initially been
excited, the team now appears a little sceptical. Given the space in
the cave, the creature would have had to have been quite small. Also,
all the previous reported sightings of the Mande Burung suggested it
was red, not black. The creature that the young boy said he had seen
sounded more like the Asiatic black bear, known to live in the jungle.
Some of the team climb down into the cave to search for clues. There is
no shortage of spiders and bats but no evidence of anything else, be it
a bear or something more remarkable.
Again led by the boy and
his father, the team walk back to the village. The yeti-hunters are
obviously disappointed but not down-heartened. One senses that much of
their time is spent chasing shadows.
"We have to check out all the reports," said Pimpto Marak. "We are not going to give up until we find it."
It is getting dark by the
time we reach the truck and soon the forest is enveloped in blackness.
Occasionally we pass a village set amid the trees, hidden but for a
glimmer of light from a cooking fire. As the truck bumps its way out of
the jungle, back towards the world of electricity and paved roads, I
ponder on the team's unlikely pursuit. It is a thrill to think there
are still parts of the world where a large, previously undiscovered
mammal might conceivably exist but surely it is a leap of faith to
think there is more to the stories than just legend.
And then I remember
something Dipu Marak had said the night before. I had asked whether
there was something within the human psyche that found a need to
believe in yeti-like creatures. After all, such legends existed in
almost all indigenous communities of the world. "They can't all be
right," I'd suggested. "No," he had replied, "but they can't all be
wrong."
Copyright: The Independent
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
| |
|
