Forest People from Tay Nguyen
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 don't 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 that had a violet
glimmer, including the face, except the eye sockets, mouth, palm
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 eyewitness. The captured ape couple was 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 orang-utan
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 is able. This led him to the
statement that in Vietnam there are forest men, there could be no doubt
about that."
©Xuan-Quang.
