As koalas and kangaroos are emblematic of Australia, tigers of India, pandas China, so yaks and yetis have a similar totemic function here in Nepal.
For me, however, the beauty and mystique of the high Himalayas is ever symbolised by the reclusive snow leopard, which, alas, I was never able to see. They roam the high snowy mountain heights and rarely ever venture into the lower elevations. But at least we know they do exist and I have enjoyed many wildlife documentaries about them. Yaks too, although uncommon below the high cold regions of places like Mustang, are very much a part of the local scene and valued for their wool, meat, milk and particularly transport. On my way to Jomsom, we actually passed a man with three yaks on the road, my first ever real life sighting of one. They’re huge animals with immense carpets of hair for warmth in these cold lands. But they are still a species of cattle and have been domesticated for centuries.
The being that remains yet shrouded in mystery and superstition is our friend the Abominable Snowman, a bogey man character that haunted my dreams as a child, alongside other mythical, if urban terrors like Springheeled Jack. Otherwise known as the Yeti, it has generated a wider global network of believers that now includes sightings of kindred creatures as Big Foot, the Sasquatch of North America.
As a child, before the world had become less mysterious and accessible to remote sensing devices, infra red cameras and such, faded, grainy, indistinct photos of an odd humanoid form half shrouded by a snowstorm generated as much speculation and interest as the grassy knoll photo of John Kennedy’s supposed assassins. You saw (or didn’t) with the eyes of belief.
But real or unreal, the Yeti lives on in the imaginations of Nepali and tourist visitors nonetheless and can be found in many an urban setting: shops, hotels and even local airlines. It is distinctly Himalayan and the name stamps any product as being such. It is now an important ally of the advertising world.
Yaks enjoy a similar commercial popularity and although many people many never actually see one, they can nevertheless still buy yak wool clothing and even eat yak burgers.
Times are changing. As I write, microlights buzz across the sky and paragliders, sometimes by the dozen, drift in the high airs, vying with the eagles for that bird’s eye view of the immense Annapurna range as it undulates across the horizon.
Whatever starts its life as a traditional culture’s icon, can be sure to be appropriated by the modern world of advertising and used as a lure to draw in the tourist punters. So perhaps it’s as well that snow leopards retain their enigmatic elusiveness that they don’t go the way of the Bengal tiger and become more a symbol of impending extinction, than a conservation success story. Yaks, as I understand, are also under pressure and their populations in the wild are decreasing.
So long live the Yeti! Lurking, as it does, along the liminal boundaries between real and unreal, haunting the imaginations of country folk and visitors alike, it will never become extinct, if only, like Scotland’s Loch Ness monster, because we never knew that it ever existed. Yet, if only in spirit, a figure of the dark fantasies of lonely trekkers and mountain climbers caught in snow storms, it has a strange, if horrific, almost elvish appeal. Perhaps there really are humanoid relicts of Ice Age times still hanging out in these high snowy places; until, that is, global warming and adventure tourism flush them out of hiding and Disney signs them up for the next blockbuster. Himalayas, in a cinema near you now …
The urban Yeti in the featured image can be found in the garden of the Hotel Ganesh Himal, Kathmandu
Photo of yak by Daniel Prudek, Fotolia via https://www.britannica.com/animal/yak