Yumei has a kind face. In her mid-forties, she lives in a comfortable Tibetan courtyard house in Lhasa. She smiles modestly and proudly re-fills drinking bowls to their brim each time a guest sips her home-brewed, yak-butter tea. 'The yak butter is from my birthplace, Nachu,' she says.
Nachu is sparse nomad country, where Yumei grew up until age 16, when she almost died from a strange sickness. When she awoke from a coma, she suddenly possessed the ability to sing ancient Tibetan poetry, understood only by specialists. A relative at Tibet People's Daily brought Yumei to China's Academy of Social Sciences in Tibet. She stunned scholars by singing the Song of King Gesar, which recounts sagas of Tibet's legendary first king.
The Song of King Gesar is arguably the world's longest ongoing ode. After millennia, it continues to be revealed through mediums like Yumei, who add new verses. These chanters, often illiterate nomads, when possessed can sing poetry understood only by scholars of ancient Tibetan.
Whenever Yumei enters a trance, Tibet's Academy of Social Sciences record her words. Former Communist Party secretary-general Hu Yaobang once declared her a national treasure. It seems incongruous that China's Communist Party, while rejecting both religion and the supernatural, recognises a medium as a national treasure.
In 1985, academics from 10 countries researching King Gesar's saga met in Chengdu, Sichuan province. Monks attended, many claiming to possess a saddle, sword or other possessions of King Gesar in their temples. Russian scholars argued King Gesar came from Russia, where families and villages still bear his name.
Yumei dismisses such scholarly debate with a sweeping hand. 'King Gesar is heaven's messenger, not a historical figure. He cannot be found in history because he is Bodhisattva Guan Yin's manifestation.'