WILDMAN IN VIETNAM

*DAO VAN TIEN  

[Vietnamese diacritics in VIQR format: DA`O VA(N TIE^'N]

* This is an edited translation of the instalment dealing
specifically with Vietnam in Prof. Tien's series of articles
"The Facts About Forest Man" (hereafter rendered as
'wildman' in accordance with recent usage in English) which
appeared in Tap Chi' La^m Nghie^p (Forestry Review), Hanoi,
Nos. 3-7, 1990. The present translation is from No.6,
pp.39-40 and No.7, p.l2.

The editor of this report wishes to thank Mrs Oanh Collins,
<collins@coombs.anu.edu.au> Research School of Pacific 
Studies, Australian National University, for the initial
translation and the author for agreeing to minor amendments 
of his original text. H.L.-W.

Elements of this document are to appear in the Newsletter of
Cryptozoology (in press), however the editor of the Journal
of Cryptozoology did not accept this article on the
principle (apparently) that the Journal publishes only
original articles. To our knowledge, B. Heuvelmans and B.
Porchnev's fascinating description, "L'Homme de Neanderthal
est toujours vivant," has not been published in English.

Whatever foreigners might think of this article, written
without access to a comprehensive library, it is the
product of the best recognised and most senior Vietnamese 
field biologist. There have been at least two Vietnamese 
expeditions in search of this ape. And a number of veterans
of both sides (including my highly respected wife) claim 
to have seen them. Yet the publication of this information
is surprisingly limited. [I note a brief but important
mention by Ciochon, et al., in "Other Origins", which dealt
mainly with _Gigantopithecus_.] Even as a skeptic, I am
surprised, after being encuraged by Dr Loofs-Wissowa to
check in Vietnam, at the number of reports emerging,
some of them from reputable scientists.

If you know of reliable sightings of an ape in Indochina,
you may respond to Dr Loofs-Wissowa or me at 
<vern@coombs.anu.edu.au>. Vern Weitzel

----

WILDMAN IN VIETNAM

DAO VAN TIEN  

[Vietnamese diacritics in VIQR format: DA`O VA(N TIE^'N]

Department of Zoology, Faculty of Biology, University of
Hanoi, Hanoi, Vietnam.

edited by

HELMUT LOOFS-WISSOWA

Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University,
Canberra, Australia.

While spending the night at Thuan Chau (1) on a zoological
research trip to the north-western region in 1963, I was
given the following information. In an area named Son La
there existed a type of wildman called Pi` Cang Co'i (2) who
always went out foraging at night and sneaked into houses to
steal food. My informant had himself seen him on a moon-lit
night through a crack in the window. This wildman was about
1.50m [about 5ft.] tall, hairy all over, walked on his legs
and had a human-like face. Disturbed by a noise he quickly
jumped to the ground, ran off and disappeared into the bush.
Commenting on this matter I wrote in my diary with a
question mark: "All monkeys and apes in Southeast Asia, with
the exception of the loris, are active during daytime and
sleep at night, just like humans; thus, this Pi` Cang Co'i
is perhaps only a burglar disguised as a wildman so as to
frighten people?"

On another research trip in the Sa Tha^y (3) area (Gia Lai -
Kon Tum), in 1979, I was also told that local people here
discovered there was another type of wildman: taller than an
ordinary person, ferocious looking, hairy, and walking
upright on his legs. He uses his hands and fingers to pierce
the trunk of banana trees to get juice and often lets his
blood drip on the trunk. I recorded this in my diary again
with a question mark.

In 1981, coincidentally, Prof. Pham Huy Thong lent me a book
entitled "Neanderthal Man is Still Alive", written by
Heuvelmans and Porchnev (B. Heuvelmans and B. Porchnev,
"L'Homme de Neanderthal est toujours vivant," Paris:Plon,
1974). It was a book which gathered all the information in
the world about wildmen from the past to the present.
According to Prof. Thong, when Dr Heuvelmans sent him this
book, he wrote: "try your hardest to provide more
information about wildmen in Vietnam to the science world,
because you have the perfect opportunity".

After reading over and over the part of the book dealing
with wildmen in Vietnam, I had come to single out the
following points as being the most important to mention:

1. In 1968, at a county fair in America, there was a
wildman's body shown in a glass coffin preserved in ice. The
exhibition was held to make money.

2. The owner of this wildman's body was an American Air
Force Captain, Capt. Hansen, who fought in Vietnam. In his
book, Prof Heuvelmans was able to hypothetically reconstruct
events leading to the body being exhibited in the U.S. As
was reported in an American newspaper in 1966, U.S. Marines
once shot and killed "a huge ape" in the Highlands not far
from Danang where Capt. Hansen had been stationed; as there
are no huge apes, such as the gorilla, in Vietnam (only
small gibbons), this must have been a wildman 4 Hansen then
arranged for the body to be flown to the U.S. in the same
manner as the bodies of American soldiers killed in action,
refrigerated it and, having retired from the Air Force,
showed it on country fairs.

3. This exhibition created world-wide public interest after
having been visited by many scientists, among whom was Dr
Heuvelmans, who published a scientific article on it. Hansen
only allowed ordinary photos to be taken, not X-ray photos.

4. According to Dr Heuvelmans, the wildman was covered with
hair except for his face and palms, he had a big face, a
short forehead, massive brow ridges, no lips and hardly any
chin, a big chest, long arms with big hands, slender fingers
and long thumbs, normal legs having human-like feet with
curved-in toes; the toe nails were thick and pale yellow.
Body height: 1.80-1.84 metres (about. 6ft.), hand length
26cm (10 inches), width 12cm (almost 5 inches) (see 
illustration) (5). Coming closer to where the ice had melted,
Heuvelmans could smell the characteristic odour of 
putrefaction. After his return home, Heuvelmans wrote an
article about this wildman in a scientific journal, and 
gave it a scientific name: _Homo pongoides_ (ape-like man) 
(6).

5. There was a lot of confusion in Hansen's theories about
the origin of the body; at one time he said he bought it in
Hong Kong, at another he shot the creature in America... A
number of magazines suggested that the whole matter was a
fabrication, the more so when Hansen refused to sell the
body to the Smithsonian Institution for any sum of money.

6. Many years ago, the Australian journalist Wilfred
Burchett, after a visit to a revolutionary area, wrote about
the wildman in Dac Min that according to a Dac Min official,
not long ago on an assignment, local people caught a wildman
and wanted to bring him back to headquarters; as he refused
to eat or drink, the officials in charge decided to release
him back to the forest. But he died and was buried on the
side of the road. (7)

When I finished Heuvelmans' and Porchnev's book, my doubt
about the wildman's presence in Vietnam had begun to lessen.
The body which Hansen exhibited could well have been that of
a genuine wildman. However, the unclear origin of the body
and the fact that Hansen would not sell it to the
Smithsonian Institution, could be because he was worried
about breaking some kind of law and would be caught.
Eventually, Hansen closed down the exhibition and announced
that the body had been destroyed. It is a great shame!

Since 1980, a number of zoologists have carried out further
research in the areas of Gia Lai and Kon Tum. They
interviewed some local officials who had worked in the
jungle for many years. It could be possible that a group of
wildmen still survive, not many, only a few adults with
their children. Occasionally, they come back to the jungle
late at night and make noises, although this could not be
understood and did not sound like human language.

One official came to headquarters to look for the person who
was with Burchett at the time; he was the one who really met
the wildman, but unfortunately he was away.

With all the reports on wildmen, especially those from
China, Vietnam and Russia, to conclude that wildmen do not
and cannot exist, is clearly premature. There is still hope
for our generation to be sure of the existence of wildmen
without even actually touching them, as they have been seen
and described in an almost perfect way. It is very sad for
many reasons that Capt. Hansen was responsible for
preventing scientific research into this matter. Maybe an
exhumation of the body of the wildman in the Dac Min area
mentioned by Burchett, would confirm thee above expressed
hope?

We could conclude as follows:

Science has proved that the relationship between the
Neanderthal and modem man is almost like that of first
cousins.

Whoever shot the wildman during war time, had committed a
"murder".

If we are lucky enough to meet these wildmen, face to face
in the future, we should respect them and treat them as our
fellow men.

The Dac Min local government should reorganise the search
for the remains (bones) of the wildmen who was buried on the
side of the road. These bones would attract a lot of
scientists throughout the world to Vietnam.

If local people happen to meet wildmen, they should report
immediately to the government officer in charge and the
government should create some sort of reward to encourage
people to do so.


Notes:

1. A small town about 20km (12.5 mi) north-west of Son La,
in an area inhabited by the Black Tai ethnic minority, with
pockets of Miao groups.

2. These words do not make any sense in Vietnamese and are
very probably from the Black Tai dialect, with Pi` being the
Vietisized rendering of Phi (= "ghost", "spirit" - as in Phi
Tong Luang -"The Spirits of the Yellow Leaves", title of a
well-known ethnographic work by Hugo Adolf Bernatzik); the
meaning of cang and co'i is not yet elucidated.

3. A small town about 20km (12.5 mi) west of Kon Tum, in the
Central Highlands of Vietnam; the area is mainly inhabited
by Halang and Rengao (Austro-Asiatic speaking) Mountain
Tribes.

4. It may be worth noting that this location is only about
l50km (not quite 100 mi) distant from Sa Tha^y near Kon Tum,
where the large wildman was observed (as opposed to the
smaller one in the north).

5. This illustration (not reproduced here) is a somewhat
free rendering of pl.48 of "L'Homme de Neanderthal est
toujours vivant", being the reconstitution of a living _Homo
pongoides_ drawn by the painter Alika Lindbergh. It has been
modified in certain aspects (penis) since, but not yet
republished.

6. Bernard Heuvelmans, "Note preliminaire sur un specimen
conserve dans la glace, d'une forme encore inconnue d'un
Hominide vivant" _Homo pongoides_ (sp.seu subsp.nov.),"
Bulletin de l'Institute royal des sciences naturelles de
Belgique. Vol.45, No4 (1969), pp.1-24, 5pls.

7. This obviously is a reference to a passage (pp.161-167)
in Chap.10, "Du yeti aux elephants", of Burchen's book "La
seconde Resistance Vietnam 1965", Paris: Gallimard, 1965.
Inexplicably, in the "original" American edition,
"Vietnam-Inside Story of the Guerilla War", New York:
International Publ. 1965, this entire chapter is omitted.
Investigations with the publishers, the translator into
French, Michael Deutsch, and other people involved, as to
the reason of this omission remained to far unsuccessful but
are continuing.