译林牛津版高中英语必修二教案（湖南专用）案：Unit 1 Tales of the unexplained 背景材料 文章.doc

yeti: abominable snowman of the himalayas a tibetian fortress below the mountains were the yeti is supposed to roam. the himalaya mountains, the highest range on earth, have been referred to as the roof of the world. if that is so, there is a mystery called the yeti in our attic. in tibetan the word means magical creature and truly it is a seemingly supernatural enigma in the shape of a hairy, biped creature that resembles a giant ape. the himalayas lie on the border between india, nepal, and tibet (now part of china). they are remote and forbidding. large stretches around these rough valleys and peaks are uninhabited. the tallest mountain in the world, everest, 29,028 feet high, lies half in nepal, half in china. it is from nepal, though, that most attempts to climb everest, and the surrounding mountains, are made. in katmandu, the capitol of nepal, a visitor finds himself immersed in the yeti legend. he is a commercial money maker for the tourist industry (theres even a hotel named the yak and the yeti) as well as legend, religion and fantasy to some of the nepalese people. the first reliable report of the yeti appeared in 1925 when a greek photographer, n. a. tombazi, working as a member of a british geological expedition in the himalayas, was shown a creature moving in the distance across some lower slopes. the creature was almost a thousand feet away in a naira with an altitude of around 15,000 feet. unquestionably, the figure in outline was exactly like a human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to uproot or pull at some dwarf rhododendron bushes, said tombazi, it showed up dark against the snow and, as far as i could make out wore no clothes. the creature disappeared before tombazi could take a photograph and was not seen again. the group was descending, though, and the photographer went out of his way to see the ground were he had spotted the creature. tombazi found footprints in the snow. they were similar in shape to those of a man, but only six to seven inches long by four inches wide at the broadest part of the foot. the marks of five distinct toes and the instep were perfectly clear, but the trace of the heel was indistinct. there were 15 prints to be found. each was one and one half to two feet apart. then tombazi lost the trail in thick brush. when the locals were asked to name the beast hed seen they told him it was a kanchenjunga demon. tombazi didnt think hed seen a demon, but he couldnt figure out what the creature was either. perhaps hed seen a wandering buddhist or hindu ascetic or hermit. as the years went by though and other yeti stories surfaced, tombazi began to wonder if hed seen one too. yeti reports usually come in the form of tracks found, pelts offered, shapes seen at a distance, or rarely, actual face-to-face encounters with the creatures. face to face encounters never come with researchers looking for the yeti, but with locals who stumble into the creature during their daily lives. some of the best tracks ever seen were found and photographed by british mountaineers eric shipton and micheal ward in 1951. they found them on the southwestern slopes of the menlung glacier, which lies between tibet and nepal, at an altitude of 20,000 feet. each print was thirteen inches wide and some eighteen inches long. the tracks seemed fresh and shipton and ward followed the trail for a mile before it disappeared in hard ice. some scientists that viewed the photographs could not identify the tracks as from any known creature. others, though, felt it was probably the trail of a languor monkey or red bear. they noted the tracks in snow, melted by the sun, can change shape and grow larger. even so, the bear/monkey theory seems unlikely as both of these animals normally move on all four feet. the tracks were clearly that of a biped. shiptons and wards reputations argue against a hoax on their part and the remoteness and height of the trails location argues against them being hoaxed. shiptons footprints were not the first or last discovered by climbers among the himalayas. even sir edmund hillary and his sherpa guide, tenzing norgay, on their record ascent to the top of mount everest, in 1953, found giant foot prints on the way up. one of the more curious reports of a close encounter with a yeti occurred in 1938. captain dauvergue, the curator of the victoria memorial in calcutta, india, was traveling the himalayas by himself when he became snow-blind. as he neared death from exposure he was rescued by a nine foot tall yeti that nursed him back to health until dauvergue was able to return home by himself. in many other stories, though, the yeti hasnt been so benign. one sherpa girl, who was tending her yaks, described being surprised by a large ape-like creature with black and brown hair. it started to drag her off, but seemed to be startled by her screams and let her go. it then savagely killed two of her yaks. she escaped with her life and the incident was reported to the police, who found footprints. several expeditions have been organized to track down the yeti, but none have found more than footprints and questionable artifacts like scalps and hides. the london daily mail sent an expedition in 1954. american oil men tom slick and f. kirk johnson financed trips in 1957, 58, and 59. probably the most well-known expedition went in 1960. sir edmund hillary, the same man that had first climbed everest in 1953, lead the 1960 trip in association with desmond doig. the expedition was sponsored by the world book encyclopedia and was well outfitted with trip-wire cameras, as well as time-lapse and infrared photography. despite a ten-month stay the group failed to find any convincing evidence of the existence of the yeti. the artifacts they examined, two skins and a scalp, turned out to belong to two blue bears and a sorrow goat. at the time hillary and doig wrote off the yeti as legend. later, though, doig decided that the expedition had been too big and clumsy. they didnt see a yeti, he agreed, but nor did they observe such animals like the snow leopard which was known to exist. after spending thirty years in the himalayas doig believes that the yeti is actually three animals. the first is what the sherpas call the dzu teh. large shaggy animals that often attack cattle. diog thinks this is probably the tibetan blue bear. a creatur