Yeren

Inscription at the entrance to the "Yěrén Cave" in Shénnóngjià

The yěrén (Chinese: 野人, "wild man") is a cryptid apeman reported to inhabit remote, mountainous regions of China, most famously in the Shénnóngjià Forestry District in the Húběi Province. Sightings of "hairy men" have remained constant since the Warring States Period circa 340 BCE through the Táng Dynasty (618–907 CE), before solidifying into the modern legend of the yěrén. Generally, they are described as savage, strong, and fast-moving, living in mountain caves and descending only to raid villages for food or for people to wed or rape.

Scientific interest in such apemen erupted in the 1950s and 60s in conjunction with pseudoscientific discoveries relating to Bigfoot and the yeti, but pressure by the Maoist government to leave behind these kinds of legends and folk stories repressed further interest in the yěrén until its dissolution in 1976. Afterwards, large expeditions were launched by the Chinese Academy of Sciences to investigate alleged eyewitness accounts, footprints, hairs, and bodies as "yěrén fever" took hold, combining scientists with one of the largest utilizations of peasant and villager knowledge in scientific endeavors. The yěrén was often speculated to be a far removed human relative, such as Gigantopithecus or Paranthropus robustus. All forwarded evidence of the creature originated from known animals — namely bears, monkeys, and gibbons — and scientific interest waned by the late 1980s. Nonetheless, organized yěrén research still persists, though no serious scientific institutions recognize such apemen.

The creature has become an artistic icon of wildness and nature, and was used in the wake of the Cultural Revolution to challenge sexually restrictive and egalitarian ideals, as well as to address deforestation and other environmental issues in China.

Antiquity[]

Oral traditions and literature of "wild men" (Chinese: 野人; pinyin: yěrén) and similar creatures have persisted for millennia in Chinese folklore. Their oldest ostensible appearance in writing may lie in the Jiǔ Gē ("Nine Songs") by Qū Yuán who lived from 340 to 278 BCE in the state of Chǔ during the Warring States period. His 9th Song speaks of a "mountain spirit" (Chinese: 山鬼; pinyin: shān guǐ); these characters generally refer to a human figure. The shān guǐ has variously been interpreted as a humanlike creature clad in a fig leaf, a yāoguài (a demon), or an ogre.^[1] In 1982, Zhou Guoxing discovered a 2,000 year old lantern with an ornament apparently depicting a máorén, which similarly speaks to an ancient tradition surrounding wild men.^[1]

Depiction of two xīngxing in the Sancai Tuhui, 1596 CE

Written reports of "wildmen" become more frequent in the Táng Dynasty (618–907 CE), though they are quite inconsistent in how visually human these creatures are. Other supposed early descriptions of hairy wildmen include:^[1]

• The Yì Zhōu Shū and Ěryǎ compiled in the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE mention a fast-moving, long-haired creature using a character commonly translated as "baboon" (Chinese: 狒狒; pinyin: feifei) that supposedly ate people;

If you drink the blood of the feifei, you will be able to see ghosts. It is so strong that it can shoulder one thousand catties [500 kg (1,100 lb)] … its upper lip always covers its head. Its shape is like that of an ape. It uses human speech, but it sounds like a bird. It can foretell life and death. Its blood can dye things dark purple, and its hair can be used to make wigs. Legend has it that its heels face backwards … hunters say that it has no knees

— Duàn Chéngshì, Yǒuyáng Zázǔ, 853 CE^[1]

• The Ěryǎ also mentions a creature using a character translated as "orangutan" (Chinese: 猩々; pinyin: xīngxing), an animal not native to China, or more generally "ape"; In 139 BCE, Gǎo Yù described the xingxing in the Huáinánzǐ as having the face of a human but the "body of a beast";
• In 650 CE, Zhào Yánshòu detailed a band of "hairy men" Chinese: 毛人; pinyin: máorén who scaled a city wall.

On account of their "wild" nature, these creatures were often portrayed as lustful, capturing and raping villagers, the latter especially if the victim was female. Usually referred to as the jué (Chinese: 玃), these apemen purportedly lack females entirely and need to abduct and rape women to breed. The reverse is said for the "wild women" or "wild wives" (Chinese: 野妻; pinyin: Yě qī) or sometimes xīngxing where they would abduct and sling men over their backs, carrying them up the mountain to wed.^[2]

Her lips had giant bite marks, the area around her genitals was broken open and torn apart [to the point that] all her bones could be seen, and there was more than a pint of blood mixed with white semen on the ground.

— Yuán Méi describing an alleged "hairy man" victim from the Shǎnxī Province, What the Master Would Not Discuss, 1788 CE^[2]

The yěrén is often associated with the forests of Shénnóngjià (above)^[1]

The exact name "yěrén" has typically been used in the mountains of the Shénnóngjià Forestry District in the Húběi Province. Though, the earliest written reports of the yěrén are from Fáng County 90 km (56 mi) north of Shénnóngjià. In 1555, during the Qīng Dynasty, its local newspaper Fángxiànzhĭ published a story about a group of yěrén sheltering in nearby mountain caves which preyed on their dogs and chickens.^[1] In Fáng County, the yěrén were rumored to be the descendants of the runaway laborers conscripted to build the Great Wall of China. Other newspapers as well as Chinese natural history works, such as Lǐ Shízhēn's 1578 Compendium of Materia Medica, frequently mention yěrén or similar apemen.^[2]: 429

Description[]

Testimonies of the alleged creature typically agree the yěrén walks upright and stands over 2 m (6 ft) tall; is covered in tawny hair all over the body, especially long at the scalp; and has a face reminiscent of both an ape and a human.^[1] Other common descriptors include black-red hair, distended eyes, long arms hanging all the way down to the knees, and big feet.^[3] The yěrén supposedly laughs when coming across a human.^[2]

Scientific interest[]

Máo era[]

Reported sightings of apemen increased during the 20th century, prompting scientific investigations in the 1950s and 60s. The first such expeditions focused more on the yeti, a similar apeman cryptid from Tibet, funded by the Soviet Yeti Research Commission. The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) headquartered in Běijīng followed suit and included the yeti as part of its survey of Mount Everest in 1959. Prominent paleoanthropologist Péi Wénzhōng communicated to Soviet colleagues a small collection of similar apeman reports across China. Separately, Professor Máo Guāngnián linked the yeti with the yěrén. His interest in the topic began when he heard his colleague Wáng Zélín's story of an apeman shot dead in 1940 while in the field on behalf of the Yellow River Water Control Committee. In 1962, another prominent paleoanthropologist, Wú Rǔkāng, led an investigation of reports from Xīshuāngbǎnnà in the Yúnnán Province, but dismissed them as a misidentified gibbon.^[2]

During the Máo era (1949–1976) under chairman Máo Zédōng, fervent government campaigns aimed to squash superstitious beliefs quelled debates surrounding mysterious apemen. Such stories of yěrén, ghosts, and spirits were held to impair productivity, such as by scaring farmers from tending to their fields, and circulating them were sometimes punishable. Scientific interest quickly dwindled and Guāngnián became one of the only scientists researching the yěrén, and used primarily recent scientific reports and ancient literature (as opposed to contemporary eye witness accounts). Other scientists, such as Péi, ascribed apemen testimonies to scientific illiteracy and strong superstitious beliefs among villagers in these remote areas, though they remained affirmative of further study. Guāngnián, nonetheless, argued by studying yěrén he could replace superstitions with scientific evidence. He speculated they are the source of Chinese ghost and spirit folklore, much like how manatees inspired some mermaid stories. Soviet historian Boris Porshnev suggested these apemen are a relict population of Neanderthals, but Guāngnián believed the yěrén to be far too primitive, more likely a descendant of the giant Chinese ape Gigantopithecus.^[2]

Post-Máo "yěrén fever"[]

Location of Shénnóngjià in the Húběi Province

In 1974, historian Lǐ Jiàn, the vice secretary of the Prefectural Propaganda Department of Shénnóngjià recorded testimonies from locals regarding the yěrén, the oldest occurring in 1945. This earned Lǐ the nickname "The Minister of Yěrén". His work attracted the attention of Liú Mínzhuàng, a professor at East China Normal University, as well as several IVPP scientists in 1976. As the Máo Era ended on the downswing of the tumultuous Cultural Revolution, the taboo against superstitions diminished, and popular Western works regarding the yeti and the similar North American Bigfoot were translated into Chinese. Coupled with Lǐ and Liú's work and increasing commercialization with newly wrought publishing freedoms, interest in apemen surged as "yěrén fever" took hold. In subsequent years, Liú would become the most prominent worker on the yěrén, earning the nickname "The Professor of Yěrén".^[2]

In 1977, Zhou along with 109 military personnel, zoologists, biologists, and photographers launched a yěrén expedition in Shénnóngjià on behalf of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (though the group size was probably counterproductive, generating too much noise).^[1] Subsequent expeditions comprised scientists, technicians, government officials, and local villagers collected alleged footprints, hair samples, and sightings of the yěrén, published in scientific journals, pop science magazines, and newspapers. Yěrén hunts were some of the largest involvements of peasants and common people in scientific endeavours.^[2] In 1981, the China Wildman Research Society formed with the help of the famous Chinese paleoanthropologist Jiǎ Lánpō, and offered a cash reward for a yěrén body, ¥5,000 dead and ¥10,000 alive (at the time, $1,750 and $3,500).^[1]

Much like Máo, the majority of scientists worked to prove these apemen were undiscovered early offshoots of humanity rather than supernatural entities, while a minority maintained they were misidentified ordinary animals. The most popular candidates include a descendant of Gigantopithecus or an undiscovered Chinese variant of the African Paranthropus robustus (at the time considered to be gigantic like Gigantopithecus). Another notable hypothesis, though not the most popular among scientists, was that the yěrén are a backwards and unevolved race of modern humans, often supported by racist comparisons with local ethnic minorities. In 1984, local Lǐ Míngzhí, when detailing his yěrén sighting, remarked that at first he "thought it was a local Wa woman climbing the mountains to collect pig food."^[2] The yěrén being a far removed human relative would have confirmed several popular Chinese theories of the time, which depended strongly on Marxism. Most notably is Friederich Engels' concept of "labor created humanity", because, despite being bipedal with hands free to labor, the yěrén did not organize into a laborious society and remained evolutionarily stagnant. It would also support the Out of Asia theory (that modern humans evolved in Asia) which was being overturned by the now-popular Out of Africa hypothesis. Consequently, hypothetical yěrén society was often characterized using Marxist feminism, a polygynous and matriarchal one. Though, this was not a ubiquitous notion; for example, in 1976, a pregnant yěrén was rumored to be searching for her "husband" in Shénnóngjià.^[2]

By the 1980s, whole books about the yěrén were being published, and a substantial collection of such literature has since amassed. Some yěrén hunters — generally men —dedicated their lives to the chase, leaving their families behind. In 1981, Lǐ received funding by the Chinese Anthropological Society to found the Chinese Yěrén Investigative Research Association. Four of their exhibitions that decade garnered audiences upwards of 400,000.^[2]

Conclusion[]

Some yěrén sightings may be misidentified Asian black bears (above)^[3]

As all expeditions had failed to turn up convincing evidence, scientific interest plummeted by the late 1980s.^[2] Alleged bodies, hairs, and footprints actually came from various known animals, including humans, brown bears (specifically Himalayan brown bears or Tibetan blue bears), Asian black bear, macaques, goral, and serow. Purported "monkey boy" skulls, supposed evidence of yěrén/human hybrids, actually belonged to fully human children who suffered spinocerebellar ataxia.^[3] Since they usually are reported to have occurred at a distance, eyewitnesses may have misidentified bears, gibbons, and monkeys. Additionally, many eyewitness accounts were likely completely fabricated or embellished.^[1] Nonetheless, further study is still not ubiquitously reproved in Chinese academic circles.^[2] In 1994, the Strange and Rare Animals Exploration and Investigation Committee was organized to continue yěrén research, though mainstream academia does not consider the yěrén to be real.^[1]

In popular culture[]

Owing to their mysterious yet humanlike atmosphere, the yěrén became a popular symbol in fiction writing of wildness and savagery. Kidnapping stories from antiquity have inspired modern, though usually far less graphic, imaginative tellings. Among the more popular was Sòng Yōuxīng's A Yěrén Seeks a Mate which erotically described an attractive female yěrén with big breasts and long hair, as such a subject is often portrayed both in literature and by eyewitnesses. It was particularly significant as the yěrén was described as a loving wife (to an abducted husband) and mother, and the story juggles feminine sexuality with traditional family values, concepts under much discussion and evolution subsequent to the egalitarian and sexually conservative Máo Era. Ascribing such qualities to a normally savage subject makes for easy contrast with "civilized" people with differing values, popular in the midst of the "primitivism" trend of the 1970s and 80s in China, which encouraged "primitive" ethnic minorities. In Post-Máo China, the yěrén became an ideal of humanity in its natural state, untainted by the malices and vices of civilizations, especially in reference to the humanitarian crises of the Cultural Revolution.^[2]

Alongside the giant panda, the yěrén was also used to spotlight environmental issues in China in the 1970s and 80s, specifically widespread deforestation which many researchers were worried would lead to the extinction of the yěrén before it could be discovered. "Yěrén fever" may have been at play, among many other factors, in the establishment of the Shénnóngjià National Nature Reserve in 1983.^[2]

Húběi capitalizes on the creature's infamy to attract tourists to remote villages within the province.^[4] A statue depicting a female yěrén and her child exists within the nature preserve, serving as another popular tourist attraction.^[5]

See also[]

• Almas
• Bigfoot
• Hibagon
• Orang Mawas
• Orang Pendek
• Skunk ape

References[]