Yaks

	Yaks "Another [curiosity] is the wild kutas [yak]. This is a very wild and ferocious beast. In whatever manner it attacks one it proves fatal: whether it strike with its horns, or kick, or overthrow its victim. If it has no opportunity of doing any of these things, it tosses its enemy with its tongue, twenty gaz into the air, and he is dead before reaching the ground. One male kutas is a load for twelve horses. One man cannot possibly raise a shoulder of the animal. In the days of my forays I killed a kutas, and divided it among seventy persons, when each had sufficient flesh for four days. This animal is not to be met with outside the country of Tibet." From the Tarikh-i-Rashidi of Mirza Muhammad Haidar (16^th c. AD) 1. Tame yaks. 2. Wild yaks. 3. A yak caravan in the Himalayas. Tame yaks "To be in the saddle, on that broad, powerful back, with its upholstery of thick wool is like sitting in an arm-chair. The yaks are black or white, tawny or piebald; they have large heads and small deep-set eyes like the bison, with great curved horns, which, however, are sometimes lacking altogether. The withers are high and prominent, covered by a tuft of hair which develops into a small mane; short legs, which seem so ill-suited to the enormous bodies, carry them up the high rocky ledges and the steepest slopes with wonderful ease and surefootedness. They climb slowly, however, with lowered heads and muzzle almost the ground, painfully panting, with strange wheezings and grindings of the teeth, and spasms of asthmatic coughing; giving the impression of tremendous effort. The nostril is perforated to admit a rope tied with a slip-knot; by this means they are easily led." (From de Fillipi's description of riding yaks over a pass impossible for horses.) Here is a description of a yak (or kash-gow, which was the local name) in the Oxus valley, Afghanistan. It stood about three and a half feet high, and was very hairy and powerful. Its belly reached within six inches of the ground, and its bushy tail swept the earth behind it; the long hair streaming down from its dewlap and forelegs gave it the appearance of a huge Newfoundland dog. Only the horns belied this impression! It was harnessed with a light saddle with horn stirrups, and its bridle was a cord through the cartilage of its nose. The yak, to the people of the Himalayas, was what the reindeer was to Laps. Anywhere a man could walk, a yak could be ridden. Yaks are high-altitude creatures, adapted to the highland plateaus of the Himalayas when no other large beast of burden will thrive; where horses and cattle and camels died, yaks flourished. Even Tibetan ponies, which can live above 1400 feet in altitude, are small and do not bear as much cargo as a yak will. If the road was dubious, travelers drove a yak up it before them; the beast, being surefooted, would detect any ravines and crevasses. Deep snow could be cleared for men and horses, by driving a score of yaks ahead of the caravan; they trampled the drifts down and made them a regular highway. If driven to warm pastures, the yaks were said to perish. Their favorite habitat was wherever the temperature stayed below freezing, on mountain slopes and summits. If the snow on the elevated flats was too deep for a grazing yak to dig through, it rolled itself down the slopes and ate its way up again. When it arrived again at the top, it merely somersaulted down, and started again at the bottom! In the mountains of Afghanistan, life revolved around yak herding. In spring, the yaks' wool was clipped, and the women of the Afghani tribes separated the adult beasts from their calves, and took the grown yaks up to the heights, to graze through the summer months. The calves stayed in the lowlands, while the women wandered in the high valleys with the yak herds and devoted themselves to dairy-duty. Meanwhile their menfolk tended their farms below and occasionally went visiting their wives. The tail of the yak was the well-known chowry of Hindustan. But in Afghanistan, the tail-hair was plaited into ropes, and proved as strong as hemp. The wool was woven into mats, and also into a strong fabric for riding-mats. Its milk was richer than cow's milk, but the total yield was less. Kirghiz herders never churned butter from this milk, but they used it to make a first-rate kurut. Kurut was the most indispensable food of the rural Afghanis; it was used in everything they cook, even their soup of beans or wheat-flour is flavored with kurut. It was made from cow's milk as well as yak's milk, and this is how: the fresh milk was allowed to curdle (at which point it is called joghrat) then churned (producing a buttermilk, named doagh) and then well-boiled and poured into a loose-woven cloth bag. The whey drained off, and the clotted residue was kurut. Elsewhere, nomadic yak herdsmen wandered through the Himalayas. In the Kham province of Tibet, these yak herders were wild-looking men in grey sheepskin coats, driving herds of black and brown yaks over from mountainsides. They circled about their animals, sometimes whistling, sometimes making peculiar shrill sounds which cut the thin air of the highlands. They raised sheep as well, and rode small hardy ponies. All through their working days and around the campfires at night, these men occupied themselves with spinning thick threads or strings of sheep wool - rolling it between the palms of their hands and then twirling the thread on a stick. The Kirghiz nomads of the east Pamirs (in what is now the western extreme of Sinkiang) also kept yaks and sheep and goats; their main food was mutton and milk products. They kept several different kinds of milk and cheese, and especially enjoyed drinking kaimak, yak's cream of the most delicious description--it was said to be thick and sweet and yellow, with a flavor of almonds. Note: by the end of the 19^th century, yaks could be found in zoological gardens in London, Paris, Antwerp, etc. These were all Chinese beasts. One yak authority of this era, Mr Blyth, claimed that the true wild yak was not to be found anywhere in Europe; this breed could be distinguished from domestic yaks by the horns, which in all wild cattle project forward beyond the muzzle, but in all tame yaks, buffalo and other cattle do not. Wild yaks The domestic yaks of the Himalayas are like small cattle with long flowing hair. They can be crossbred with cattle, producing a hybrid called a dzo; seen in pictures, they resemble long-haired goats. They stand waist-high or sometimes chest-high on a man. Their tails are very long, like horse-tails; they have humps; they have forward-projecting horns. The wild yak of the Himalayas, on the other hand, is a monster resembling a bison or musk ox. Sven Hedin (Through Asia, vol 1) left a vivid description of one such yak's vitality. Though shot over and over by an enthusiastic Kirghiz caravaner with a rifle, it only fell after the seventh bullet went home. The caravaner left it for dead and went to get his fellows. When they arrived at the spot a day later, they found the yak bull had gotten up and walked away. They followed it. When they got within shot of the bull, it turned and faced them. They shot it again, which enraged it to such fury that it charged straight at them--they were about to beat a hasty retreat, when it halted, grunted and rolled its eyes and flung up such sand with its nose and horns that it was enveloped in a huge cloud of dust, all the while lashing its sides furiously with its tail. Only after three more bullets were fired into the beast did it fall down and die. Sven Hedin sketched the yak and measured it thoroughly. It was old: its incisors were worn almost to the gums, and the horns were slightly burst open on the inner sides, a sign of advanced age. The caravaneers declared it to be about twenty years old. From the upper lip to the root of the tail, it measured ten feet eight inches; its tail from the root to the tuft at the end, was three and a half feet. From base of horn to upper lip, 28 inches; between eyes, 17 inches; length of horn on the outside, 30 inches; on the inside, 19 inches. The horns were very curved. Circumference of horns at base, 14 inch; distance between tips of horns, 12 inches. Circumference of head round muzzle, 24 inches; ditto over eyes, 44 inches; girth behind forelegs, 8 ft inch; girth of neck behind ears, 4 ft 1 inch. Its fore-hoof was 16 inches around, 4 inches across. Its long hair was dead black, and thick enough to actually provide a cushion against the snowy ground. Length of hair on flank, two feet; above the foreleg, slightly less than two feet; under the jaw, 4 to 6 feet. It would sweep the ground when the yak stood erect. Its tongue was set with extraordinarily hard, sharp barbs. A single man was hard put to lift the head, so heavy was it; when the skin was flayed off, the hide with attached head took four men to lift to the back of a waiting camel. In the Tsaidam area lived yak hunters called pavans, professionals whose whole livelihood came from hunting yak. Their hunting grounds were the Arka-tagh and Chimen-tagh mountains in northern Tibet. In general, a hunting party was made up of several hunters and a donkey to carry the skin; the skins were sold to merchants in Cherchen, Charkhlik, and Achan; and the merchants then carried them to Khotan, to sell to tanners and saddlers. It was important for hunters to work in groups when shooting yak, because the wild yak is very dangerous; when injured, its first impulse was to attack, and it took a great deal to kill one of them. The hunters used muzzle-loading rifles from West Turkestan, long heavy weapons with flint locks, which they rested when fired on the forks of an antelope's horn. (Rifles much like these were used in the Pamirs to the west of Tsaidam, by the folk of the mountain villages.) When stalking a yak, they fired at not more than sixty paces' distance, and aimed at a spot behind the shoulder--meaning to hit the heart. If they hit the heart, the yak dropped; hit the hindquarters, and the yak might run off and die in two or three days; hit anywhere else, and the yak was merely enraged. To aim for the head was a total waste of the hunter's time and powder, for no bullet could penetrate the thick bone of a yak's skull; hit it, and the yak did nothing but shake its head and grunt. Breaking a foreleg with a bullet was considered a good thing because it slowed down the yak's escape and hampered it when it charged the hunter, who would meanwhile be trying to catch up and put in a second shot at close quarters. After the yak had been killed, the hunters skinned it on the spot. The skin was divided into three, two slits made along the upper edge of the hair fringe along the beast's sides, and a third along the line of the belly. The best leather came from the yak's hump; this section (and the leather thereof) was called sirit. (The other sections were used to make the same sorts of leather goods, but of less quality.) The skin was portioned because no single donkey could carry a whole skin; the smaller cow and calf yaks were also portioned when skinned, but only into two parts. A full-grown yak's hide fetched about 17s. 9d. From yak-leather, the local people made saddles, girths, reins, whips and so forth, as well as the best kinds of boots. The soft boots called churuk which the Taghlik people (and pretty well all the other people of the north Himalayas) wore were made from the skin of yak-legs. The tails were generally hung up as a religious offering--at a saint's tomb, say. Yak-leather was highly valued because of its extreme durability . . . Sven Hedin remarked it was all but impossible to wear out anything made from a yak. From George Roerich comes a description of hunting wild yaks in southern Mongolia. It was considered unwise to fire into a grazing herd. Canny hunters targeted a solitary animal or a running one instead. If the herd fled, they would fire on the last animals, because a yak herd always charged straight ahead. A wounded yak would (they said) spin and charge instantly after the hunter, knowing no obstacles, and often overtake the hunter's horse; wild yak could run with surprising speed, and experienced hunters said it was difficult to get away from a charging yak across open ground. Nevertheless, yak-hunting was a way of life. Tibetan yak-hunters wandered across the northern Himalayas. They moved from valley to valley with their felt tents, taking tame yaks, goats and sheep along with them, and rode little ponies to hunt the highly dangerous wild yaks. In one such camp visited by Sven Hedin, the tent was an old (and very ragged!) felt carpet, held up by two tamarisk-wood poles; at each of the long sides of the tent were three more poles, holding the walls up, and fastened to upright stakes driven into the ground outside, by means of ropes passed through holes in the tent-cover. In the middle of the tent, there was a long slit for a smoke-vent. Just inside the entrance was a shrine to Buddha: a budkhaneh. There was a yak's tail to dust the shrine, in which was a bundle of Buddhist books each wrapped in cloth, plus a few basins of brass or wood. There was also a Chinese porcelain bowl, a leather pail and a leather jug, an iron cooking-pot, a copper saucepan with a lid, a brass teapot, knives and bellows, and steel for striking a fire; saddles and bridles; ragged clothes; lastly a bag of some aromatic dried plant whose leaves were tossed on the fire like incense, a sheep's bladder filled with yak fat, and a bag of tsamba, ground barley. The flesh of wild yaks filled all the free space in the tent and lay in great heaps on the ground outside; there were legs, hams and chines of drying meat. (Hedin's men had to tie up their dogs to keep them away from it.) The flesh was simply left in the open air till it shrank and turned dry and black, as hard as wood. Three large stones in the middle of the tent supported the cooking-pot. Yak dung to feed the fire was piled up in a circle all round this. When the mistress of the tent wanted to make fire, she caught the sparks from her steel on a handful of vegetable fluff or down, which she then placed on the hearth amongst dry, powdered horse dung; she blew it alight with the bellows, and then heaped yak dung upon it. Even her lamp--a hollow stone, set up on a low tripod--burned yak fat as fuel. Other hunters struck out with nothing but their ponies and supplies; having no tents, they slept outdoors in the snow--crouched like dogs on the ground; more than one western traveler witnessed this--without complaint. Their ponies shared their food with them: brick-tea and dried yak meat. In 1896, M. S. Wellby (Capt. 18^th Hussars, stationed in India) crossed the Himalayas from Srinagar to China, with a small train of mules and horses. His route went through Leh and northern Tibet--the Chang-tang desert--and Tsaidam, eventually arriving at Beijing. While crossing the northern Himalayan plateau, through barren wastelands (imagine the combination of high altitude, utter bleakness, and salt lakes) the caravan were deserted by most of its mule-drivers, who took the last twenty pounds of flour. Luckily, the deserters forgot to take along any of the expedition's cooking-pots (though they stole all the tobacco) and also left behind three days' worth of rice. They had gotten by now to more welcoming terrain, and found fresh water, plenty of grass, and wild rhubarb and onions growing profusely; there were also the tracks of many animals. Captain Wellby was an experienced hunter, and he and his companions went out each day and shot meat for their little caravan. He found fat hares, yaks, goa, kyang (that is, wild asses) and antelopes. He also writes, quite solemnly, "I happened for a few moments to be taking shelter under a rock from a storm of sleet, when I saw, sitting up below me, some huge marmots. They were of an enormous size, as large as men. I could resist watching them no longer, for even a marmot is good food when one is hungry. On making my way to them some fine hares got up, and, thinking that the game in sight was better than the marmots out of sight down below, I killed a couple of them. This fusillade must have driven the monstrous marmots home, for they never showed themselves again. The holes down which they must have hidden were so large that I could have crawled down them myself." In this country, he observed herds of yak, kyang and antelope literally in their thousands; in one place, so many yak that the hillside on which they were grazing seemed more composed of yak than hill. He remarks that the yak seemed to carry its heart very low (compared to other game animals) because after dropping several with shots behind the shoulder, he opened the carcasses and never found the least damage to the heart. This he thought a good thing, as he thought yak-heart a real delicacy, so tender that it could be eaten directly after death. Yak-kidneys were invariably excellent, yak-liver was fairly good, but yak-tongue was as hard and tough as a stick of wood. (Wellby remarks that this was probably due to their method of curing it, not to the tongue itself.) The flesh was tough, even after several days, but close-grained, sound and nutritious. However yaks also possessed plenty of fat, which the expedition found so precious that they boiled it all down and kept it in their old cocoa-tins; they used to knock off bits of the rendered fat, and eat them like candy. One yak that he shot was very large, with horns over three feet long. Wellby remarked: "Although Colonel Prjevalsky writes that 'wild yak shooting is as dangerous as it is exciting, for a wounded beast, especially an old bull, will often attack the pursuer,' yet, personally speaking, I never found a yak attempt to charge, wounded or not, and consider there to be absolutely no more danger in shooting a yak than an antelope." A yak caravan in the Himalayas Later, Wellby's party ran across a Tibetan merchant-caravan traveling from Lhasa to China. The caravan-beasts were domestic yaks. Wellby traveled with them for some time, and described the experience: "THE general management and internal economy of this wonderful caravan was sufficiently full of interest to merit a small space being devoted to its description. The head of the caravan was a very fine-looking Tibetan from Lhassa; he must have stood well over six feet and was exceedingly well-built, decidedly the biggest Tibetan I have ever seen. In the camp he was, always known as the "Kushok," and all attempts to find out his real name resulted in failure; I very much doubt if more than one or two member of the caravan knew it, and they dared not disclose it. The title "Kuchok" was originally applied only to living Buddhas, but latterly it has become merely a term of respect or affection, and no longer has any religious significance. Next in importance to the Kushok came another big merchant, who lived and slept in the same tent with him ; besides these two there were numerous small merchants, some of whom owned, perhaps, as few as half a dozen yak; and, lastly, a lama or priest. Altogether they made up an imposing caravan of close on 1,500 yak, as near as we could calculate. We were told that one herdsman was employed to look after every sixty yak, but I cannot help thinking that, in reality, there were rather more; every man in the party, merchants, herdsmen, as well as the cooks and servants, was mounted, so that, when on the march, they presented a striking contrast to our sadly reduced little party. Their daily routine was somewhat as follows. About 4 A.M. the inferior of the two big merchants would wake up and call to the head cook that it was time to get up, the latter would then give a lend shout, which sounded like "Chou-chou, chou-chou, chou-chou-ou-ou !" and which was promptly echoed by men on guard all through the camp. In a few moments every one was astir, tents were being struck and yak being loaded ; in an incredibly short space of time this work was completed and the ponies were being saddled, and in rather under an hour from the word to get up being given the vast caravan was on the move. The 1,500 yak were divided into seven distinct companies and moved in column, each company superintended by the merchants to whom the animals belonged, and kept in order by the servants and herdsmen under them. These seven companies were again divided into two wings, one consisting of four, the other of the remaining three companis. Every day they marched in the same order, generally with a considerable distance between the two wings, one moving off some time before the other, but everything was managed without the slightest noise or confusion. From the time the watchmen aroused the sleeping camp till the moment of marching off scarcely a voice was heard; it might then be necessary for some one of the mounted men to scream at a refractory yak to make him fall into his proper place ; but so little, even of this, was there that, after the first day or two, we slept peacefully on while our Tibetan friends passed close by our tent. I am sorry to say that we were never able to witness their arrival in camp, but we saw enough to convince us that everything must have been conducted in the same systematic manner as the morning start. On arrival in a fresh camp each company drove in its picketing pegs with ropes attached, so as to form a good large rectangle; in the centre of this the baggage belonging to the company was carefully piled. Every load was lifted off the yak, and left ready tied up, so that it had merely to be placed on the brute's back in the morning, for as each load was accurately balanced no further tying was necessary. Over the pile of baggage an awning was pitched, and the servants made themselves snug little shelters in the middle, where they spread their bedding. The saddles were removed from the yak, and placed near the baggage, and then the animals were sent out to graze, a certain proportion of the attendants being told off to look after them. Then, and not till then, food was prepared for the first time during the day, for to save time in the cool of the morning, when only yak can travel with any comfort, the start was always made on empty stomachs ; but now the cooks had got their fires going, work was over, and the cravings of hunger could be attended to. We had no opportunity for seeing what arrangements the lesser merchants made for rationing their own men, but they were, I imagine, the same as those made by the Kushok. His plan was as follows :-Each man was provided with a leathern bag, which held about forty pounds of tsamba, that is, twenty days' rations. On ration days this was filled up for him by the cook, and he was at liberty to eat as much or as little as he pleased. He also had butter in proportion, but whatever he chose to do with his food no more was issued till next ration day. The cook brewed tea for all the employes in a large cauldron, and when ready he gave a peculiar cry, upon which every man came round the fire, bringing his own tsamba, butter, and perhaps a little cheese (chura), sugar, or other delicacy provided out of his own pocket. Bowls were then produced from the ample folds of the sheepskin gowns, filled up with tea by the cook, and the meal began. When satisfied, bowls were licked perfectly clean and replaced in the gowns, and pipes produced. This took place twice a day, usually about midday and again about half-past four in the afternoon. About dusk the yak and ponies were brought in from grazing, and this, too, was a sight well worth seeing. I was enabled one day to get a photograph with the kodak, but my space does not allow me to reproduce it here. Most interesting it was to watch how cleverly a very small number of men could control a vast herd of semi-wild animals. All the herdsmen were armed with long slings, with which they slung stones or clods of earth at any stragglers, and the accuracy and strength of the practice they made, up to about seventy yards, was astonishing. Once in camp, a very few minutes sufficed for saddles to be adjusted, and for every yak to be picketed in his proper place ready for a start in the early morning. If by any chance an animal was missing, his absence was promptly discovered and reported to the Kushok ; but, while we were with them, the absentees were always brought in before nightfall. If there was one thing more than another which aroused our wonder in connection with this caravan, it was the extraordinary knowledge the Kushok had of every little thing that went on within it. Outwardly, he appeared to tale scarcely any interest in anything. He rarely came outside his tent, and seemed to spend most of his time in drinking tea and praying. Nevertheless, nothing occurred without his knowledge, and he certainly had managed to inspire the lesser merchants and underlings with the greatest awe of, and respect for, himself. No doubt he was kept carefully posted in all camp details by his private servant, a regular little prying busybody; but, even allowing, for that, the way he kept his subordinates in order, without appearing to know or care what went on, was very remarkable. Another thing that surprised us considerably was the civility of everybody in the caravan. Few, if any, of them had seen a European before, but we were strangely exempt from any offensive curiosity. Later on, in China, we often wished that we could move about with the same freedom as we had done in the Kushok's camp, and I am sure that many a foreigner in England has experienced far greater annoyance from the inquisitiveness of our fellow-countrymen than did we among these rough Tibetans. Equally strange was their respect for our property. While we had been in the wilds we had got into the way of leaving a lot of baggage outside the tent, the space inside being very limited, and to our delight we found that we could still do so with perfect safety ; for, although the whole cortege passed our tent every morning, our cartridges, ropes, saddles, tent pegs, etc., were every bit as safe lying outside as if they had been inside with us. Enough has been said of this particular caravan and of its management to show that years of experience have resulted in an almost perfect system, but a few words about these caravans in general may not be out of place here. To begin with, on the Lhassa-Sining route there is no regularly defined road, but every year the caravans renew various old landmarks, and set up new ones on prominent features, especially in the vicinity of the camping grounds. It may sometimes occur that there is no one in a caravan who has done the journey for two or three years, and if these landmarks were not carefully kept up, great difficulty might be experienced in finding sufficient grass and water for the animals, on whom so much depends. As it is, they frequently have to make long marches from one camp to another, there being no grass between the two. The greatest distance they did while we were with them was eighteen miles, but they told us they often did twenty-five, and even more, miles in a day. One caravan only leaves from each end every year.* (The annual tribute from Lhassa to the Chinese Emperor does not travel by this road, but goes by Labrang.) They usually start in May or the beginning of June, and arrive at their destination, whether it be Lhassa or China, in October, thus getting the warmest time of year to travel, when grass is fairly plentiful, the ice is melted, and water easily obtainable.* (When we first joined the caravan on September 8^th, they said they had been two months and twenty-five days on the road. They were expected to reach Tankar soon after we left, which was on October 17^th.) The loads are very light, rarely being over 120 pounds, and the marches are regulated entirely by the supply of grass and water. They make the yak travel a great pace, close on three and half miles an hour, so as to get in before the sun is very hot, as they say that travelling fast takes less out of them than travelling in the heat. A caravan going from Lhassa into China brings the famous pulo cloth, and great quantities of dried dates (kasur). These come into Lhassa from Calcutta, so that by the time they reach China they are naturally very expensive, running, as they do, about fifteen for a rupee, in Chinese coinage thirty cash a-piece, or a penny each in English money. When with the caravan we bought a hundred of these dates for two rupees, and thought we had paid a most exorbitant price, but on arriving in China we learnt that we had really got them very cheap. Caravans from China into Lhassa are mostly employed carrying tea, the main staple of food in Tibet, and a certain amount of tobacco. The reason why only one caravan goes each way in a year is, that all the merchants are very much afraid of encountering robbers on the road. They therefore prefer to wait for one another, and travel in one large body, to running the risk of being looted en route. Very often these large caravans are employed trading for the Tale Lama, or other high officials in Lhassa, but whether this is invariably the case, or whether it was so on this occasion, I am unable to say. In matters of business, as well as of geography, the Kushok and his servants were very reticent after the first day or two. At Tankar, the frontier town of Kansu, there are four Tibetan officials appointed by the Tale Lama to look after the interests of Tibetan merchants, and to arrange any difficulties that may arise between them and the Chinese, in addition to which duty one of the four has to accompany the tribute to Pekin each year. They thus have plenty to do, as there are many Tibetans on the Chinese frontier and a big merchant, such as our acquaintance was, might stay three years or more trading in China before returning to Lhassa . . ." (Wellby, Through Unknown Tibet, p. 204-210) Main Sources: De Filippi, Himalaya Karakorum and Eastern Turkestan Sven Hedin, Through Asia, volume 1 and 2 (written in 1898) George Roerich, Trails to Inmost Asia (1931) Captain M. S. Wellby, Through Unknown Tibet (1898) Captain John Wood, A Journey to the Source of the Oxus (19^th century) Return to the Asia page Last updated on June 14, 2001 by Lisa and Sylvia.

Yaks

"Another [curiosity] is the wild kutas [yak]. This is a very wild and ferocious beast. In whatever manner it attacks one it proves fatal: whether it strike with its horns, or kick, or overthrow its victim. If it has no opportunity of doing any of these things, it tosses its enemy with its tongue, twenty gaz into the air, and he is dead before reaching the ground. One male kutas is a load for twelve horses. One man cannot possibly raise a shoulder of the animal. In the days of my forays I killed a kutas, and divided it among seventy persons, when each had sufficient flesh for four days. This animal is not to be met with outside the country of Tibet."
From the Tarikh-i-Rashidi of Mirza Muhammad Haidar (16^th c. AD)

1. Tame yaks.

2. Wild yaks.

3. A yak caravan in the Himalayas.

Tame yaks

"To be in the saddle, on that broad, powerful back, with its upholstery of thick wool is like sitting in an arm-chair. The yaks are black or white, tawny or piebald; they have large heads and small deep-set eyes like the bison, with great curved horns, which, however, are sometimes lacking altogether. The withers are high and prominent, covered by a tuft of hair which develops into a small mane; short legs, which seem so ill-suited to the enormous bodies, carry them up the high rocky ledges and the steepest slopes with wonderful ease and surefootedness. They climb slowly, however, with lowered heads and muzzle almost the ground, painfully panting, with strange wheezings and grindings of the teeth, and spasms of asthmatic coughing; giving the impression of tremendous effort. The nostril is perforated to admit a rope tied with a slip-knot; by this means they are easily led." (From de Fillipi's description of riding yaks over a pass impossible for horses.)

Here is a description of a yak (or kash-gow, which was the local name) in the Oxus valley, Afghanistan. It stood about three and a half feet high, and was very hairy and powerful. Its belly reached within six inches of the ground, and its bushy tail swept the earth behind it; the long hair streaming down from its dewlap and forelegs gave it the appearance of a huge Newfoundland dog. Only the horns belied this impression! It was harnessed with a light saddle with horn stirrups, and its bridle was a cord through the cartilage of its nose.

The yak, to the people of the Himalayas, was what the reindeer was to Laps. Anywhere a man could walk, a yak could be ridden. Yaks are high-altitude creatures, adapted to the highland plateaus of the Himalayas when no other large beast of burden will thrive; where horses and cattle and camels died, yaks flourished. Even Tibetan ponies, which can live above 1400 feet in altitude, are small and do not bear as much cargo as a yak will.

If the road was dubious, travelers drove a yak up it before them; the beast, being surefooted, would detect any ravines and crevasses. Deep snow could be cleared for men and horses, by driving a score of yaks ahead of the caravan; they trampled the drifts down and made them a regular highway. If driven to warm pastures, the yaks were said to perish. Their favorite habitat was wherever the temperature stayed below freezing, on mountain slopes and summits. If the snow on the elevated flats was too deep for a grazing yak to dig through, it rolled itself down the slopes and ate its way up again. When it arrived again at the top, it merely somersaulted down, and started again at the bottom!

In the mountains of Afghanistan, life revolved around yak herding. In spring, the yaks' wool was clipped, and the women of the Afghani tribes separated the adult beasts from their calves, and took the grown yaks up to the heights, to graze through the summer months. The calves stayed in the lowlands, while the women wandered in the high valleys with the yak herds and devoted themselves to dairy-duty. Meanwhile their menfolk tended their farms below and occasionally went visiting their wives.

The tail of the yak was the well-known chowry of Hindustan. But in Afghanistan, the tail-hair was plaited into ropes, and proved as strong as hemp. The wool was woven into mats, and also into a strong fabric for riding-mats. Its milk was richer than cow's milk, but the total yield was less. Kirghiz herders never churned butter from this milk, but they used it to make a first-rate kurut.

Kurut was the most indispensable food of the rural Afghanis; it was used in everything they cook, even their soup of beans or wheat-flour is flavored with kurut. It was made from cow's milk as well as yak's milk, and this is how: the fresh milk was allowed to curdle (at which point it is called joghrat) then churned (producing a buttermilk, named doagh) and then well-boiled and poured into a loose-woven cloth bag. The whey drained off, and the clotted residue was kurut.

Elsewhere, nomadic yak herdsmen wandered through the Himalayas. In the Kham province of Tibet, these yak herders were wild-looking men in grey sheepskin coats, driving herds of black and brown yaks over from mountainsides. They circled about their animals, sometimes whistling, sometimes making peculiar shrill sounds which cut the thin air of the highlands. They raised sheep as well, and rode small hardy ponies. All through their working days and around the campfires at night, these men occupied themselves with spinning thick threads or strings of sheep wool - rolling it between the palms of their hands and then twirling the thread on a stick.

The Kirghiz nomads of the east Pamirs (in what is now the western extreme of Sinkiang) also kept yaks and sheep and goats; their main food was mutton and milk products. They kept several different kinds of milk and cheese, and especially enjoyed drinking kaimak, yak's cream of the most delicious description--it was said to be thick and sweet and yellow, with a flavor of almonds.

Note: by the end of the 19^th century, yaks could be found in zoological gardens in London, Paris, Antwerp, etc. These were all Chinese beasts. One yak authority of this era, Mr Blyth, claimed that the true wild yak was not to be found anywhere in Europe; this breed could be distinguished from domestic yaks by the horns, which in all wild cattle project forward beyond the muzzle, but in all tame yaks, buffalo and other cattle do not.

Wild yaks

The domestic yaks of the Himalayas are like small cattle with long flowing hair. They can be crossbred with cattle, producing a hybrid called a dzo; seen in pictures, they resemble long-haired goats. They stand waist-high or sometimes chest-high on a man. Their tails are very long, like horse-tails; they have humps; they have forward-projecting horns.

The wild yak of the Himalayas, on the other hand, is a monster resembling a bison or musk ox.

Sven Hedin (Through Asia, vol 1) left a vivid description of one such yak's vitality. Though shot over and over by an enthusiastic Kirghiz caravaner with a rifle, it only fell after the seventh bullet went home. The caravaner left it for dead and went to get his fellows. When they arrived at the spot a day later, they found the yak bull had gotten up and walked away. They followed it. When they got within shot of the bull, it turned and faced them. They shot it again, which enraged it to such fury that it charged straight at them--they were about to beat a hasty retreat, when it halted, grunted and rolled its eyes and flung up such sand with its nose and horns that it was enveloped in a huge cloud of dust, all the while lashing its sides furiously with its tail.

Only after three more bullets were fired into the beast did it fall down and die.
Sven Hedin sketched the yak and measured it thoroughly. It was old: its incisors were worn almost to the gums, and the horns were slightly burst open on the inner sides, a sign of advanced age. The caravaneers declared it to be about twenty years old. From the upper lip to the root of the tail, it measured ten feet eight inches; its tail from the root to the tuft at the end, was three and a half feet. From base of horn to upper lip, 28 inches; between eyes, 17 inches; length of horn on the outside, 30 inches; on the inside, 19 inches. The horns were very curved. Circumference of horns at base, 14 inch; distance between tips of horns, 12 inches. Circumference of head round muzzle, 24 inches; ditto over eyes, 44 inches; girth behind forelegs, 8 ft inch; girth of neck behind ears, 4 ft 1 inch. Its fore-hoof was 16 inches around, 4 inches across.

Its long hair was dead black, and thick enough to actually provide a cushion against the snowy ground. Length of hair on flank, two feet; above the foreleg, slightly less than two feet; under the jaw, 4 to 6 feet. It would sweep the ground when the yak stood erect.

Its tongue was set with extraordinarily hard, sharp barbs. A single man was hard put to lift the head, so heavy was it; when the skin was flayed off, the hide with attached head took four men to lift to the back of a waiting camel.
In the Tsaidam area lived yak hunters called pavans, professionals whose whole livelihood came from hunting yak. Their hunting grounds were the Arka-tagh and Chimen-tagh mountains in northern Tibet. In general, a hunting party was made up of several hunters and a donkey to carry the skin; the skins were sold to merchants in Cherchen, Charkhlik, and Achan; and the merchants then carried them to Khotan, to sell to tanners and saddlers.

It was important for hunters to work in groups when shooting yak, because the wild yak is very dangerous; when injured, its first impulse was to attack, and it took a great deal to kill one of them. The hunters used muzzle-loading rifles from West Turkestan, long heavy weapons with flint locks, which they rested when fired on the forks of an antelope's horn. (Rifles much like these were used in the Pamirs to the west of Tsaidam, by the folk of the mountain villages.) When stalking a yak, they fired at not more than sixty paces' distance, and aimed at a spot behind the shoulder--meaning to hit the heart. If they hit the heart, the yak dropped; hit the hindquarters, and the yak might run off and die in two or three days; hit anywhere else, and the yak was merely enraged. To aim for the head was a total waste of the hunter's time and powder, for no bullet could penetrate the thick bone of a yak's skull; hit it, and the yak did nothing but shake its head and grunt. Breaking a foreleg with a bullet was considered a good thing because it slowed down the yak's escape and hampered it when it charged the hunter, who would meanwhile be trying to catch up and put in a second shot at close quarters.

After the yak had been killed, the hunters skinned it on the spot. The skin was divided into three, two slits made along the upper edge of the hair fringe along the beast's sides, and a third along the line of the belly. The best leather came from the yak's hump; this section (and the leather thereof) was called sirit. (The other sections were used to make the same sorts of leather goods, but of less quality.) The skin was portioned because no single donkey could carry a whole skin; the smaller cow and calf yaks were also portioned when skinned, but only into two parts. A full-grown yak's hide fetched about 17s. 9d.

From yak-leather, the local people made saddles, girths, reins, whips and so forth, as well as the best kinds of boots. The soft boots called churuk which the Taghlik people (and pretty well all the other people of the north Himalayas) wore were made from the skin of yak-legs. The tails were generally hung up as a religious offering--at a saint's tomb, say. Yak-leather was highly valued because of its extreme durability . . . Sven Hedin remarked it was all but impossible to wear out anything made from a yak.

From George Roerich comes a description of hunting wild yaks in southern Mongolia. It was considered unwise to fire into a grazing herd. Canny hunters targeted a solitary animal or a running one instead. If the herd fled, they would fire on the last animals, because a yak herd always charged straight ahead. A wounded yak would (they said) spin and charge instantly after the hunter, knowing no obstacles, and often overtake the hunter's horse; wild yak could run with surprising speed, and experienced hunters said it was difficult to get away from a charging yak across open ground.

Nevertheless, yak-hunting was a way of life. Tibetan yak-hunters wandered across the northern Himalayas. They moved from valley to valley with their felt tents, taking tame yaks, goats and sheep along with them, and rode little ponies to hunt the highly dangerous wild yaks.

In one such camp visited by Sven Hedin, the tent was an old (and very ragged!) felt carpet, held up by two tamarisk-wood poles; at each of the long sides of the tent were three more poles, holding the walls up, and fastened to upright stakes driven into the ground outside, by means of ropes passed through holes in the tent-cover. In the middle of the tent, there was a long slit for a smoke-vent.

Just inside the entrance was a shrine to Buddha: a budkhaneh. There was a yak's tail to dust the shrine, in which was a bundle of Buddhist books each wrapped in cloth, plus a few basins of brass or wood. There was also a Chinese porcelain bowl, a leather pail and a leather jug, an iron cooking-pot, a copper saucepan with a lid, a brass teapot, knives and bellows, and steel for striking a fire; saddles and bridles; ragged clothes; lastly a bag of some aromatic dried plant whose leaves were tossed on the fire like incense, a sheep's bladder filled with yak fat, and a bag of tsamba, ground barley.

The flesh of wild yaks filled all the free space in the tent and lay in great heaps on the ground outside; there were legs, hams and chines of drying meat. (Hedin's men had to tie up their dogs to keep them away from it.) The flesh was simply left in the open air till it shrank and turned dry and black, as hard as wood.

Three large stones in the middle of the tent supported the cooking-pot. Yak dung to feed the fire was piled up in a circle all round this. When the mistress of the tent wanted to make fire, she caught the sparks from her steel on a handful of vegetable fluff or down, which she then placed on the hearth amongst dry, powdered horse dung; she blew it alight with the bellows, and then heaped yak dung upon it. Even her lamp--a hollow stone, set up on a low tripod--burned yak fat as fuel.

Other hunters struck out with nothing but their ponies and supplies; having no tents, they slept outdoors in the snow--crouched like dogs on the ground; more than one western traveler witnessed this--without complaint. Their ponies shared their food with them: brick-tea and dried yak meat.

In 1896, M. S. Wellby (Capt. 18^th Hussars, stationed in India) crossed the Himalayas from Srinagar to China, with a small train of mules and horses. His route went through Leh and northern Tibet--the Chang-tang desert--and Tsaidam, eventually arriving at Beijing. While crossing the northern Himalayan plateau, through barren wastelands (imagine the combination of high altitude, utter bleakness, and salt lakes) the caravan were deserted by most of its mule-drivers, who took the last twenty pounds of flour. Luckily, the deserters forgot to take along any of the expedition's cooking-pots (though they stole all the tobacco) and also left behind three days' worth of rice. They had gotten by now to more welcoming terrain, and found fresh water, plenty of grass, and wild rhubarb and onions growing profusely; there were also the tracks of many animals.

Captain Wellby was an experienced hunter, and he and his companions went out each day and shot meat for their little caravan. He found fat hares, yaks, goa, kyang (that is, wild asses) and antelopes. He also writes, quite solemnly, "I happened for a few moments to be taking shelter under a rock from a storm of sleet, when I saw, sitting up below me, some huge marmots. They were of an enormous size, as large as men. I could resist watching them no longer, for even a marmot is good food when one is hungry. On making my way to them some fine hares got up, and, thinking that the game in sight was better than the marmots out of sight down below, I killed a couple of them. This fusillade must have driven the monstrous marmots home, for they never showed themselves again. The holes down which they must have hidden were so large that I could have crawled down them myself."

In this country, he observed herds of yak, kyang and antelope literally in their thousands; in one place, so many yak that the hillside on which they were grazing seemed more composed of yak than hill. He remarks that the yak seemed to carry its heart very low (compared to other game animals) because after dropping several with shots behind the shoulder, he opened the carcasses and never found the least damage to the heart. This he thought a good thing, as he thought yak-heart a real delicacy, so tender that it could be eaten directly after death. Yak-kidneys were invariably excellent, yak-liver was fairly good, but yak-tongue was as hard and tough as a stick of wood. (Wellby remarks that this was probably due to their method of curing it, not to the tongue itself.) The flesh was tough, even after several days, but close-grained, sound and nutritious.

However yaks also possessed plenty of fat, which the expedition found so precious that they boiled it all down and kept it in their old cocoa-tins; they used to knock off bits of the rendered fat, and eat them like candy.

One yak that he shot was very large, with horns over three feet long.

Wellby remarked: "Although Colonel Prjevalsky writes that 'wild yak shooting is as dangerous as it is exciting, for a wounded beast, especially an old bull, will often attack the pursuer,' yet, personally speaking, I never found a yak attempt to charge, wounded or not, and consider there to be absolutely no more danger in shooting a yak than an antelope."

A yak caravan in the Himalayas

Later, Wellby's party ran across a Tibetan merchant-caravan traveling from Lhasa to China. The caravan-beasts were domestic yaks. Wellby traveled with them for some time, and described the experience:

"THE general management and internal economy of this wonderful caravan was sufficiently full of interest to merit a small space being devoted to its description. The head of the caravan was a very fine-looking Tibetan from Lhassa; he must have stood well over six feet and was exceedingly well-built, decidedly the biggest Tibetan I have ever seen. In the camp he was, always known as the "Kushok," and all attempts to find out his real name resulted in failure; I very much doubt if more than one or two member of the caravan knew it, and they dared not disclose it. The title "Kuchok" was originally applied only to living Buddhas, but latterly it has become merely a term of respect or affection, and no longer has any religious significance.

Next in importance to the Kushok came another big merchant, who lived and slept in the same tent with him ; besides these two there were numerous small merchants, some of whom owned, perhaps, as few as half a dozen yak; and, lastly, a lama or priest. Altogether they made up an imposing caravan of close on 1,500 yak, as near as we could calculate. We were told that one herdsman was employed to look after every sixty yak, but I cannot help thinking that, in reality, there were rather more; every man in the party, merchants, herdsmen, as well as the cooks and servants, was mounted, so that, when on the march, they presented a striking contrast to our sadly reduced little party.

Their daily routine was somewhat as follows. About 4 A.M. the inferior of the two big merchants would wake up and call to the head cook that it was time to get up, the latter would then give a lend shout, which sounded like "Chou-chou, chou-chou, chou-chou-ou-ou !" and which was promptly echoed by men on guard all through the camp. In a few moments every one was astir, tents were being struck and yak being loaded ; in an incredibly short space of time this work was completed and the ponies were being saddled, and in rather under an hour from the word to get up being given the vast caravan was on the move.

The 1,500 yak were divided into seven distinct companies and moved in column, each company superintended by the merchants to whom the animals belonged, and kept in order by the servants and herdsmen under them. These seven companies were again divided into two wings, one consisting of four, the other of the remaining three companis. Every day they marched in the same order, generally with a considerable distance between the two wings, one moving off some time before the other, but everything was managed without the slightest noise or confusion. From the time the watchmen aroused the sleeping camp till the moment of marching off scarcely a voice was heard; it might then be necessary for some one of the mounted men to scream at a refractory yak to make him fall into his proper place ; but so little, even of this, was there that, after the first day or two, we slept peacefully on while our Tibetan friends passed close by our tent. I am sorry to say that we were never able to witness their arrival in camp, but we saw enough to convince us that everything must have been conducted in the same systematic manner as the morning start.

On arrival in a fresh camp each company drove in its picketing pegs with ropes attached, so as to form a good large rectangle; in the centre of this the baggage belonging to the company was carefully piled. Every load was lifted off the yak, and left ready tied up, so that it had merely to be placed on the brute's back in the morning, for as each load was accurately balanced no further tying was necessary. Over the pile of baggage an awning was pitched, and the servants made themselves snug little shelters in the middle, where they spread their bedding. The saddles were removed from the yak, and placed near the baggage, and then the animals were sent out to graze, a certain proportion of the attendants being told off to look after them. Then, and not till then, food was prepared for the first time during the day, for to save time in the cool of the morning, when only yak can travel with any comfort, the start was always made on empty stomachs ; but now the cooks had got their fires going, work was over, and the cravings of hunger could be attended to.

We had no opportunity for seeing what arrangements the lesser merchants made for rationing their own men, but they were, I imagine, the same as those made by the Kushok. His plan was as follows :-Each man was provided with a leathern bag, which held about forty pounds of tsamba, that is, twenty days' rations. On ration days this was filled up for him by the cook, and he was at liberty to eat as much or as little as he pleased. He also had butter in proportion, but whatever he chose to do with his food no more was issued till next ration day. The cook brewed tea for all the employes in a large cauldron, and when ready he gave a peculiar cry, upon which every man came round the fire, bringing his own tsamba, butter, and perhaps a little cheese (chura), sugar, or other delicacy provided out of his own pocket. Bowls were then produced from the ample folds of the sheepskin gowns, filled up with tea by the cook, and the meal began. When satisfied, bowls were licked perfectly clean and replaced in the gowns, and pipes produced. This took place twice a day, usually about midday and again about half-past four in the afternoon. About dusk the yak and ponies were brought in from grazing, and this, too, was a sight well worth seeing. I was enabled one day to get a photograph with the kodak, but my space does not allow me to reproduce it here. Most interesting it was to watch how cleverly a very small number of men could control a vast herd of semi-wild animals. All the herdsmen were armed with long slings, with which they slung stones or clods of earth at any stragglers, and the accuracy and strength of the practice they made, up to about seventy yards, was astonishing. Once in camp, a very few minutes sufficed for saddles to be adjusted, and for every yak to be picketed in his proper place ready for a start in the early morning. If by any chance an animal was missing, his absence was promptly discovered and reported to the Kushok ; but, while we were with them, the absentees were always brought in before nightfall.

If there was one thing more than another which aroused our wonder in connection with this caravan, it was the extraordinary knowledge the Kushok had of every little thing that went on within it. Outwardly, he appeared to tale scarcely any interest in anything. He rarely came outside his tent, and seemed to spend most of his time in drinking tea and praying. Nevertheless, nothing occurred without his knowledge, and he certainly had managed to inspire the lesser merchants and underlings with the greatest awe of, and respect for, himself. No doubt he was kept carefully posted in all camp details by his private servant, a regular little prying busybody; but, even allowing, for that, the way he kept his subordinates in order, without appearing to know or care what went on, was very remarkable.

Another thing that surprised us considerably was the civility of everybody in the caravan. Few, if any, of them had seen a European before, but we were strangely exempt from any offensive curiosity. Later on, in China, we often wished that we could move about with the same freedom as we had done in the Kushok's camp, and I am sure that many a foreigner in England has experienced far greater annoyance from the inquisitiveness of our fellow-countrymen than did we among these rough Tibetans. Equally strange was their respect for our property. While we had been in the wilds we had got into the way of leaving a lot of baggage outside the tent, the space inside being very limited, and to our delight we found that we could still do so with perfect safety ; for, although the whole cortege passed our tent every morning, our cartridges, ropes, saddles, tent pegs, etc., were every bit as safe lying outside as if they had been inside with us. Enough has been said of this particular caravan and of its management to show that years of experience have resulted in an almost perfect system, but a few words about these caravans in general may not be out of place here.

To begin with, on the Lhassa-Sining route there is no regularly defined road, but every year the caravans renew various old landmarks, and set up new ones on prominent features, especially in the vicinity of the camping grounds. It may sometimes occur that there is no one in a caravan who has done the journey for two or three years, and if these landmarks were not carefully kept up, great difficulty might be experienced in finding sufficient grass and water for the animals, on whom so much depends. As it is, they frequently have to make long marches from one camp to another, there being no grass between the two. The greatest distance they did while we were with them was eighteen miles, but they told us they often did twenty-five, and even more, miles in a day. One caravan only leaves from each end every year.* (The annual tribute from Lhassa to the Chinese Emperor does not travel by this road, but goes by Labrang.) They usually start in May or the beginning of June, and arrive at their destination, whether it be Lhassa or China, in October, thus getting the warmest time of year to travel, when grass is fairly plentiful, the ice is melted, and water easily obtainable.* (When we first joined the caravan on September 8^th, they said they had been two months and twenty-five days on the road. They were expected to reach Tankar soon after we left, which was on October 17^th.) The loads are very light, rarely being over 120 pounds, and the marches are regulated entirely by the supply of grass and water. They make the yak travel a great pace, close on three and half miles an hour, so as to get in before the sun is very hot, as they say that travelling fast takes less out of them than travelling in the heat.

A caravan going from Lhassa into China brings the famous pulo cloth, and great quantities of dried dates (kasur). These come into Lhassa from Calcutta, so that by the time they reach China they are naturally very expensive, running, as they do, about fifteen for a rupee, in Chinese coinage thirty cash a-piece, or a penny each in English money. When with the caravan we bought a hundred of these dates for two rupees, and thought we had paid a most exorbitant price, but on arriving in China we learnt that we had really got them very cheap.

Caravans from China into Lhassa are mostly employed carrying tea, the main staple of food in Tibet, and a certain amount of tobacco. The reason why only one caravan goes each way in a year is, that all the merchants are very much afraid of encountering robbers on the road. They therefore prefer to wait for one another, and travel in one large body, to running the risk of being looted en route. Very often these large caravans are employed trading for the Tale Lama, or other high officials in Lhassa, but whether this is invariably the case, or whether it was so on this occasion, I am unable to say. In matters of business, as well as of geography, the Kushok and his servants were very reticent after the first day or two.

At Tankar, the frontier town of Kansu, there are four Tibetan officials appointed by the Tale Lama to look after the interests of Tibetan merchants, and to arrange any difficulties that may arise between them and the Chinese, in addition to which duty one of the four has to accompany the tribute to Pekin each year. They thus have plenty to do, as there are many Tibetans on the Chinese frontier and a big merchant, such as our acquaintance was, might stay three years or more trading in China before returning to Lhassa . . ." (Wellby, Through Unknown Tibet, p. 204-210)

Main Sources:

De Filippi, Himalaya Karakorum and Eastern Turkestan

Sven Hedin, Through Asia, volume 1 and 2 (written in 1898)

George Roerich, Trails to Inmost Asia (1931)

Captain M. S. Wellby, Through Unknown Tibet (1898)

Captain John Wood, A Journey to the Source of the Oxus (19^th century)

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Last updated on June 14, 2001 by Lisa and Sylvia.