Chinese launch search for elusive ‘man-beast’

Press, 14 May 1981, Page 24

Chinese launch search for elusive ‘man-beast’

NZPA-AP Peking The ' search is on for China's smiling man-beast of the mountains: FeiFei,” the great baboon. In north-west Hubei province, the peasants talk of a smiling “dull giant, a hairy 3m-tall creature which strides vigorously through the forest. In the mountains of c °astal Zheijiang, the folk talk of smaller “man bears and “wild men.” For hundreds of years man-apes have figured in Chinese legends. One researcher says that 25 people in remote Hubei have sighted, encountered, and even' fought with the creature.

Last (northern) summer an expedition said that it had found 7000 human-like footprints belonging to a creature standing about 2.7 m tall.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences has organised a research team to hunt the creatures. Researchers say that the snow of winter will help in the tracking. The latest clue .to the mystery of the “Fei-Fei” comes from the Nine Dragons Mountains in Zheijiang, o n the central coast. Shanghai’s “Wen Hui” newspaper . reported on December 3 that the hands and feet of a * “wild man” cut off 23 years ago had been recovered. The specimens, intact but shrivelled, had been hidden and forgotten during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

A newspaper photograph shows human-like hands with five fingers [ and clearly defined finger- • nails. The feet appear apei like, with five toes and an •' enlarged foretoe. The newspaper told a ■ bizarre tale of the capture ; and display of the man- : beast 23 years ago. It said ’ that on May 23, 1957, ■ Wang Cong-mei, aged 13, was grazing a few cows near a creek in Zhuatang ■ village. The afternoon was

dark and drizzling when a human-like creature appeared and headed towards the girl. She cried for help and the startled beast panicked, stumbled into a bog, and was beaten to death with sticks by the women of the village. The peasants thought they had found the legendary manbear. They lopped off its hands and feet and sent them to the local government for a reward.

. The creature was a sensation. The corpse was displayed at the village and hundreds of people came to look at it. The hands and feet were displayed at the gate of the county capital and thousands streamed to see it.

The beast was male, about 1.5 m tsll, and it was covered with long, silky, black hair. As it walked, its arms frequently swept the ground. A local biologist preserved the hands and feet. Since that time, scientists have said that the creature was not a monkey but “an unknown animal with a human shape,” according to the nevyspaper. Local researchers now are studying the specimen, while in Hubei province, to the west, the regional “Fei-Fei” is receiving more attention.

Peking’s “Guangming Daily,” the newspaper of science and education, reported on December 1 about the continuing search for the giant. Last June, researchers found and publicised 1000 footprints of the creature in the Shennongjia forest area. They also found two heaps of excrement and a nest believed to have been built by the creature on' Knife and Spear Mountain. The leader of the expedition, Dr Liu Minzhuang, reported that the tracks were found near a cliff in an area of jagged peaks, far from human habitation. The prints were 46cm long and the

creature stood about 2.6 m high and weighed 250 kg, according to Liu. The footprints were like those of humans, said researchers, except for the great toe turned outward. They also discovered a nest made of woven bamboo, shaped like a huge cradle: clearly not the work of a wild beast. Later, laboratory tests showed that the excrement was different from that of any known animal and that the hair was more human than ape-like. Dr Liu, a biology lecturer in Shanghai, ' has been probing the mystery of the creature since 1956, studying myths, local records, and forbidding terrain.

Researching Hubei’s “smiling dull giant,” ’ he

came across a bizarre case of a woman in Sichuan 1939. The woman was reported missing for 20 days in the mountains. When she returned, she said that she had been carried off by the beast.

Nine months later she gave birth to a “monkey baby,” although the woman denied having sexual relations with the beast. The boy died of illness in 1960.

Dr Liu obtained a picture of the child from the county cultural centre and exhumed the skeleton. He determined that it had features of both human beings and monkeys. Since humans and monkeys cannot produce offspring, Dr Lui speculated that the father was “Fei-Fei,” paper report.