On the Tracks of Forest People from Tay Nguyen

Xuan-Quang.

From the township of Buon Ma Thuot we go on national road 21
in a southeasterly direction to the summit of the Lac Yang
Tao Pass. We then go off to the left into the deep forest.
Here there are some mountain villages of the Ede and M'Nong
people.

About forty years ago a man of the M'Nong went into the
forest and got lost without a trace. After three years the
village believed that he had lost his way and must have
died. But suddenly one day he returned to the village with
long hair and totally naked. He tells a true but very
strange story which is hard to believe. When he went into
the forest to gather rattan rope he was taken prisoner by
creatures looking like apes. But they were not apes. They
were larger and had very long hair. He was forced to live
together with a female 'ape' in a cave deep in the forest.
During the day this female ape locked him in the cave by
putting a large stone in front of the entrance of the cave.
Then she went out to collect food or fish or steal embers in
the fields outside the forest. After more than one season of
corn, he and the wife had a girl baby (if one can use this
human name for it). So life passed for these people for
three years. One day he took advantage of a negligence. He
escaped from the cave and found his way back to the village.

Whether this story which he told is true or not we do not
know. But in the course of the following days, the people in
the mountain village often heard long tragic laments of the
female ape. With the permission of the elders of the
village, villagers followed the traces of the man who had
returned to the village, back to the cave to where he had
lived with the female ape. When they arrived they beheld a
horrible sight. The entrance to the cave was destroyed. The
little girl had been killed. The female ape was gone...

A man of the name of Recom Hiun (a Gia Rai), still living in
the mountain village of Ky, the community of Ea Nuhoi,
township of Buon Me Tuot (Dak Lak province) told another
story. "The story happened in the mountain village of Ae
Thi, M'Drak district (Dak Lak province), probably in the
year 1971. One day, Ai Thi tribes people went as usual into
the forest to far away streams to fish. They went in a
southerly direction to a mountain chain of Cu Yang Sinh,
which extends between Dac Lac and Khanh Hoa to the area of
Nam Cat Tien and where there is the source of the spring of
the Ba River (Phu Yen Province). Over a certain stretch of
time the Ae Thi could not understand why their traps
remained without fish. Then they discovered a strange
footprint one and a half times as big as a normal human
footprint. They decided to make an ambush so as to capture
this creature there and then. Some days passed until one
night, before dawn, the saw a strange sight. From out of the
interior of the forest came two apes, a bigger one and a
somewhat smaller one (soon after it became clear that they
were male and female). They were rather slim. They both went
into the direction of the ambush. They had long hair on the
entire body, with a fur which had a violet glimmer,
including the face, except the eye sockets, mouth, palm and
sole. As the male lifted the fish trap and began to tip it
over to get the fish, everyone went towards the apes,
captured them, tied them up and took them to their village.
When a team of scientists in Duc My got news of this event,
they went immediately with some South Korean soldiers to
visit this place. Recon Hiun was at this time the director
of the Department for the Development of Ethnic Minorities
of Khanh Hoa province. He was also there and was an eye
witness. The captured ape couple were bound onto two house
posts with ropes. The South Korean soldiers then carefully
shaved all the hair from their faces and also thoroughly
washed both apes. The male was then put by his guards into a
striped suit and the female was put into a sarong and Yeng
of the Ede women. Both apparently did not know the use of
language. Mr Recom Hiun said that after that the South
Korean soldiers took the captured ape couple directly by
airplane to their base at Duc My (Ninh Hoa - Khanh Hoa).
Where they were taken from there, nobody knows..."

Mr Ngo Hoang was in the years 1950-1952 an armed agent of
the Ministry of Propaganda in the hostile hinterland of Dac
Lac and later was a member of an MIA in the years 1988-1991.
So he was well acquainted with all the forest areas of Tay
Nguyen. He tells the following story: "We were able to
discover these forest men in about 1950 in an area in the
vicinity of the Chu Bia mountain chain (which now belongs to
the district of Dak Nong - Dak Lak). The footprint this
forest man leaves behind is one and one half times as big as
that of a normal man (length: about 30 cm, breadth about 20
cm). The big toe is slightly separated from the others. In
the middle of the sole of the foot are many folds. After
that, some of my comrades of a Pioneer unit saw a big 'man'
entirely covered with grey hair. They thought it was an
orangutan and wanted to kill him. Fortunately, at that time
we had strict orders not to shoot. That is why this man
could escape. My comrades told me that he ran very fast, as
fast as only a forest creature can run, but no man can run
..."

The track which Mr Ngo Hoang described could be seen by his
own eyes in a photo by the biologist Tran Hong Viet,
Director of the Department of Zoology at the Pedagogic
University of Hanoi No 1. This led him to the statement that
"In Vietnam there are forest men, there could be no doubt
about that."

In the years 1977-78 Mr Tran Hong Viet had the opportunity
to examine the fauna of Tay Nguyen. In the course of this he
told people stories about the forest man. After people
listened to these stories some Thai people told him they
knew such creatures and they led him straight-away to
another such set of footprints which were clearly preserved
on a narrow path leading over a mountain, at the base of
which was a valley which nobody had ever visited. Mr Viet
took a plaster cast of this footprint after having
photographed it. This cast is still in the collection of the
Pedagogic University of Hanoi No 1.

Professor Vo Quy , Director of the Centre for Environmental
Studies (CRES), says "Indeed I have for a long time believed
in the forest man in Vietnam. Unfortunately we do not have
the financial means to look for it. According to the newest
information teams of scientists will come here with
zoologists primarily from Japan, Russia and America. They
will go to Tay Nguyen to continue the search for forest man.
We hope that the question of whether or not there is a
forest man will soon be clarified.

Source: Thieu Nien Tien Phong, 1996, Xuan Binh Ty: 8-9