Attacking is also language in the yak.
Humans correlate attacking with aggressiveness, meanness, dominance, being dangerous. An animal who attacks is a “bad animal”. But for the yaks who communicate a lot with their horns and the gestures of their heads in many situations “attacking” is pure language.
Tsarang attacking in the hospital box, was Tsarang screaming out of pain and despair.
Tsarang speaks a lot with his horns and a lot the language of attacking. This makes him a “dangerous, scary yak” for humans, but he is one of the most delicate and soft characters I’ve ever met in a yak.
I had a magic encounter with him last week. He was lying while I was sitting beside him, my hands were on his sacrum just feeling into craniosacral waves. It was silent and intimate. Too intimate for him at one point, so he got up, turned and attacked me. It was so quick, I hadn’t time to even leap to my feet, I was completely surprised and vulnerable. It is the second time this happens to me with him and last time I put my arms up to stop him, but this time the movement with the horns was very light without touching me. It was “attacking”, but extremely soft, it was just a gesture saying, “this is too intimate for me, stop please”. It is always so touching when the yaks start modulating and softening their gestures toward a human. It is the moment I feel accepted; I feel that the yak supposes I speak his language and he doesn’t have to yell at me anymore to be understood. It is beautiful! Tsarang was attacking in love.
Naulekh also does a lot of gesturing with his horns. As a calf he used to run towards me head low which I first misinterpreted as "attacking" , but which in fact it was a begging gesture. Calfs run to their mothers head low, with a kind of sinuous movement of the neck to beg for milk...
And what is Tsarang expressing in the video below? Joy? Play? He surprised me as a fragile human being, but his intention was just joy...