The Yeti

In the high Himalayas, hidden valleys remain shouded in mists and ancient legends. This is the abode of gods and an abominable snowman known as the yeti.

These remote places, still deeply forested and uninhabited are said to be the yeti's home. They are so remote and secret that the yeti can still remain hidden and so is believed to be a mere myth. Only in the nearby areas were small scattered villages mark the beginning of human civilization, where the peace loving communities of Sherpas dwell, is a different truth known.

The yeti lives, allbeit a private life, being notoriously camera shy. I wonder if just because something is rarely seen and never photographed does it mean it doesn't exist?

A shaggy brown beast, with an unfortunate appetite for blood, brains and innards, it is feared by the Sherpas. A full-grown yeti can measure up to three meters high and is a strong and smelly creature. Intelligent and perhaps even clairvoyant, yetis are skilled in mimicry, prowl at night and fill the valleys and forests with strange roaring sounds. To see one is not considered to be a good omen. Not only might they eat your livestock but you too. At the very least even a glimpse of one may foretell of misfortune, sickness and a shortened life.

There are many tales of the yeti. The one closest to Tengboche is about the herd of yak and female nak that the monastery used to keep. They would graze in the valleys below the monastery close to the river edge. Some of these valleys are remote and forbidding places with the sheer rock walls of high Snow Mountains soaring steeply on either side. It is a place of deep shadows and hidden caves, pleasant on a summer's day but not a place to linger at dusk.

Here during the day the animals would graze peacefully, but one day when they came to collect the yak in the evening the herd was decimated, thrust by their horns in to the earth with their innards ripped out. The whole herd bloodily slaughtered and savaged. The local people knew it was the yeti because only the yeti kills by sticking the poor beasts horns in to the ground and eating the still living, still warm innards.

To confirm whether this story could be true we asked the Abbot of the monastery, who is a dignified and learned monk. Oh yes, he replied it is completely true, except that the yeti killed only 3 yak not the whole herd! The slight twinkle in his eye was surely only a reflection of a kind and compassionate nature. We ventured to ask if the yeti still existed. Yes, The Abbot thought so, even though rarely seen. Is it a kind of human or animal we enquired further? That received the slightly shocked answer "it's is human of course!"

The yeti is not always harmful. One was believed to have helped the realized meditation master Lama Sangwa Dorje and is also mentioned in the autobiography of Thangtong Gyalpo to have helped him carry his luggage. But there are believed to be different kinds: the mhi-te, which is very horrible and dangerous, and the Chuk-dre, slightly smaller and less ferocious version that only eats animals.

In the 1950s the famous climber Eric Shipton took photographs of yeti footprints which were published in England. Indeed yeti footprints are still occasionally sighted, but most spectacular is the yeti skull still kept in Kumjung Monastery. It looks like a shaggy rugby ball and not much like any known species of animal.

A few years ago there was also a yeti skull and a hand kept in the monastery in Pangboche. It was quite famous and all the tourists would pay a few rupees to have a look. This provided a small income that helped to support a community of nuns who lived there. Unfortunately it was stolen and that precious piece of evidence of the yeti lost forever.

But the legend lives on and perhaps so does the yeti!