Man-Eaters of Kumaon

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The Bachelor of Powalgarh: The exciting tale of how Corbett shot the much sought after trophy tiger (non man-eater) in 1930. Corbett is also enjoyable because he doesn't sing his own praises, nor does he adopt an irritating false modesty. He points out his mistakes and even calls himself foolish when he thinks he was, but he also credits himself (matter-of-factly, again, not boastfully) with his skills and experience. This is extremely enjoyable to read, much better than if he'd played at being overly humble or bragged up his own abilities. The love the author has for this country, it's people, and the flora and fauna that fill it, lie behind every single word he's written. From the only chapter not involving a tiger hunt:

Fish of my Dreams: Corbett reflects on the joys of fishing for Mahseer (Indian river trout) in submontane rivers.

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Corbett’s pursuit of this wounded animal, is both dramatic and disturbing. Though he is as wounded and handicapped as the tiger he hunts, yet he perseveres: out of love, out of duty, out of respect and reverence for the life he must take. Twenty-five years later, when he writes the story, he says “. . . time does not efface events graven deep on memory’s tablets, and the events of the five days I spent hunting the man-eating tiger of Talla Des are as clear-cut and fresh in my memory today as they were twenty-five years ago.” Ritvo, H. (1987). The animal estate: The English and other creatures in the Victorian age. Harvard University Press. A man-eating tiger is a tiger that has been compelled, through stress of circumstances beyond its control, to adopt a diet alien to it. After much prompting by friends and family in 1935 Corbett finally put to paper seven accounts of his jungle encounters. These were then made into a small book and 100 copies were privately published under the title Jungle Stories and distributed amongst friends. The stories were titled, "Wild Life in the Village: An Appeal", "The Pipal Pani Tiger", "The Fish of My Dreams", "A Lost Paradise", "The Terror that Walks by Night", "Purnagiri and Its Mysterious Lights", and "The Chowgarh Tigers".

Gillespie, G. (2007). The empire’s eden: British hunters, travel writing, and imperialism in nineteenth-century Canada. In J. L. Manore & D. G. Miner (Eds.), The culture of hunting in Canada (pp. 42–55). UBC Press. National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA No. 15-37/2012-NTCA). (2013). Standard operating procedure to deal with emergency arising due to straying of tigers in human dominated landscapes. Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India. https://hpforest.nic.in/files/STANDARD%20OPERATING%20PROCEDURE%20HUMAN%20TIGER%20CONFLICT.pdf When a tiger turned man-eater in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains in the early 20th century, the people who lived in the villages waited in stoic silence for the government to send someone to rid them of the scourge. In the five stories presented in Deshmukh, A. (2014). There is a message of nature conservation in Corbett’s writings. The Times of India [Nagpur]. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/There-is-a-message-of-nature-conservation-in-Corbetts-writings-Archana-Deshmukh/articleshow/34268420.cms Mukherjee, S. (1987). Tigers in fiction: An aspect of the colonial encounter. Kunapipi, 9(1), 1–13.Birke, L. (2002). Intimate familiarities? Feminism and human-animal studies. Society and Animals, 10(4), 429–436. The last of the stories, “The Talla Des Man-Eater,” is the most gripping: Corbett unexpectedly comes upon three tigers resting in a field. He is able to kill two of them and wound the third. The wounded tiger, he learns, is the mother of the two “cubs” he slew. This is the story of the sort of British imperialist in India who is seldom now remembered. Jim Corbett came of an undistinguished family who had lived in India for generations, and although British in his race, dress, speech and habits, simply was an Indian in his own country, as much as anyone of Indian descent can be British or American. He started work as a minor official of an Indian railway, but his greatest interest was in the wildlife of the northern Indian jungles, which he frequented alone since early childhood. He always claimed that for someone who knows enough not to give provocation, the jungle was extremely safe. The ‘Great White Hunter’ genre has fallen out of favour, especially with the media classes. Yet perhaps we must question whether, in replacing old prejudices with new, we can in fact be less broad-minded than our ancestors, who in many ways had no choice but to develop a practical knowledge of the world in which they lived. This book was a little difficult for me to rate. The prime reason being that I am absolutely in love with tigers. I have seen a lot of documentaries on tigers and have enjoyed it thoroughly.

Ponde, R. S. (2012). Man, nature and wild life as depicted in the jungle literature of Jim Corbett and Kenneth Anderson: A comparative study. (Doctoral Dissertation). Retrieved May 16, 2016, from https://hdl.handle.net/10603/25467.The time difference between when it was written and now shows in terms of the values, societal changes and even the language. In that sense this was more historically significant literature than many history books. In “The Panar Man-Eater,” he must watch the suffering of a girl torn from the jaws of a tiger: “I sincerely hope that no one who reads this story will ever be condemned to seeing and hearing the sufferings of a human being … that has had the misfortune of being caught by the throat by either a leopard or a tiger, and not having the means … of alleviating or of ending the suffering.” WWF India. (2016). Global wild tiger population increases, but still a long way to go. Retrieved December 30, 2020, from https://www.wwfindia.org/?15361/Global-wild-tiger. The best part was probably his attitude toward the animals he killed. His respect for them is clear, and several times in the text he even expresses his regret that he had to carry out the deed. Ultimately, though, his desire to protect the humans being preyed upon outweighs this, and he puts each animal down. Still, he is compassionate, and tries his best to make the kill as painless for the animal as possible. Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality: Volume 1: An introduction (R. Hurley, Trans.). Pantheon Books.

Corbett, J. (2015b [1954]). The temple tiger and more man-eaters of Kumaon (39th imp.). Oxford University Press. Man-eaters, however, are another thing entirely, and he always emphasised that even the man-eater, almost invariably prevented by injury or age from hunting his natural prey, is neither guilty nor cruel. But it learns its business, sometimes fearfully well. Corbett never apologised for enjoying shooting as a sport in his early years, but he eventually turned to hunt exclusively man-eaters, for the protection of the people to whom he dedicated one of his books: "My friends, the poor of India." Pandian, A.S. (2001). Predatory care: The imperial hunt in Mughal and British India. Journal of Historical Sociology, 14(1), 79–107. It is clear from the very beginning, how much Corbett loves the wilderness and all the incredible wild animals. But he finds himself in a very uncomfortable situation, when he has to decide whether he should save the lives of the helpless villagers who are frightened to death by the 'Man-Eating' tigers and are living their lives, afraid of every sound or movement outside their house, or whether he should leave them at the mercy of the Tigers, that develops a taste for human flesh because of certain factors and conditions ( Corbett explains several of the reasons for tigers or leopards becoming Man-Eaters. 1- When a tiger is wounded so badly from some fight between other tigers or animals, or from a Hunter's gun that didn't kill it but wounded it badly, or from some accident that happened while it handles it's prey - Eg. The most common and fatal of this type is injury from Porcupine quils. In all above circumstances, the tiger is handicapped and so it is impossible for it to catch it's normal prey, so it resorts to the easiest prey nearby- Humans! 2.- When a tiger accidentally happens to get to eat the abandoned corpses of the people the died during an epidemic. But when the epidemiy is over , the tiger suddenly finds it's supply of easy food cut out. So it frequents the nearby villages ( mostly at night) and kills people. In their normal and healthy condition, Tigers or Leopards don't see humans as a prey. ) The final chapter, in 1938 when Corbett is 63 years old, tells of the last man-eating tiger he hunts, the Thak man-eater which proves to be one of the most dramatic kills.National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). (2019). Standard operating procedures and tiger safari guidelines: (u/s 38 (O) of wildlife (protection) act, 1972). Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Government of India. https://www.forests.tn.gov.in/app/webroot/img/document/legislations/NTCA-SOP_guidelines.pdf