A myth caught in mist

Now hair from this elusive beast has been dispatched for DNA analysis to Oxford Brookes University in central England. With the results eagerly awaited here, local lore and ‘first-hand’ accounts are all that interested parties — including several well-regarded news publications from the West — have to go by.

Take for instance Julius Marak’s story. A curator in the Arts and Culture Department of Meghalaya, he claims that way back in 1988, his son Renting Momin and his friends had seen Mande Burung in the nearby jungle of Rongjeng in the East Garo Hills. “They said Mande Burung seemed to be about 5 feet tall even when he was sitting down and he resembled an ape. When they saw the creature, they pelted it with stones and it fled from there,” recalls Marak.

Although Marak is not certain whether the beast sighted by his son was just a large monkey or the fabled Mande Burung, he is convinced that the jungle man exists. “The creature disappeared after its mate was booby-trapped and killed by Bachok Sangma. I wanted to take a picture but Bachok had already eaten it and sold the skin.”

When questioned about this, Meghalaya Principal Chief Conservator of Forests V K Nautiyal found it difficult to conceal his impatience. “In 1988 I was the Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) and frequently travelled to Garo Hills. Then how is it that I was not aware if somebody trapped a Mande Burung?” He adds that Bachok might have trapped a tailless hoolock gibbon and mistaken it for the jungle man. “Nobody has come with any credible proof or information, and in the absence of any scientific evidence, the Mande Burung rightfully belongs to Garo folklore and mythology,” he insists.

What many reporters covering the Mande Burung story seem to have overlooked is the fact that in 1982 the Meghalaya government had entrusted the task of finding out whether the jungle man really existed to the then chief conservator of forest P C Gogoi. Upon completing his investigation, Gogoi submitted a report that stated that there is no indication of a jungle man running wild here.

Not that this has dampened public interest in the story, which has fascinated locals and foreigners alike for decades, especially with ‘eyewitness’ accounts popping up at regular intervals. According to Nautiyal, the story sustains itself on clever gimmickry. “It’s an interesting story that the print and electronic media finds will sell,” he says. “It also provides Garo Hills a mysterious aura. It makes it sound like an unexplored territory and that, of course, is inviting to the outside world.”

And it’s not as if Nautiyal has a closed mind. When he was conservator of forests, Nautiyal had equipped his forest guards with cameras so that they could capture anything unusual, but no shaggy beast ever showed up for the photo op. He adds that most of the 6000 sq miles of forest land in the Garo Hills is always under observation, but officials have never come across anything resembling the Mande Burung.

Nonetheless, at the very least, the ‘animal’ could belong to an as yet-undiscovered primate specie. Preliminary tests done on hair belonging to the purported monster have certainly ruled out that it belongs to any known animals in the region — interestingly, scientists have said that the hair resembles ‘yeti’ hair collected by Sir Edmund Hillary.