Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official Part 18

CHAPTER 20

The Men-Tigers.

Ram Chand Rao, commonly called the Sarimant, chief of Deori,[1] here overtook me. He came out from Sagar to visit me at Dhamoni[2] and, not reaching that place in time, came on after me. He held Deori under the Peshwa, as the Sagar chief held Sagar, for the payment of the public establishments kept up by the local administration. It yielded him about ten thousand a year, and, when we took possession of the country, he got an estate in the Sagar district, in rent-free tenure, estimated at fifteen hundred a year. This is equal to about six thousand pounds a year in England. The tastes of native gentlemen lead them always to expend the greater part of their incomes in the wages of trains of followers of all descriptions, and in horses, elephants, &c.; and labour and the subsistence of labour are about four times cheaper in India than in England. By the breaking up of public establishments, and consequent diminution of the local demand for agricultural produce, the value of land throughout all Central India, after the termination of the Mahratha War in 1817, fell by degrees thirty per cent.; and, among the rest, that of my poor friend the Sarimant. While I had the civil charge of the Sagar district in 1831 I represented this case of hardship; and Government, in the spirit of liberality which has generally characterized their measures in this part of India, made up to him the difference between what he actually received and what they had intended to give him; and he has ever since felt grateful to me.[3] He is a very small man, not more than five feet high, but he has the handsomest face I have almost ever seen, and his manners are those of the most perfect native gentleman. He came to call upon me after breakfast, and the conversation turned upon the number of people that had of late been killed by tigers between Sagar and Deori, his ancient capital, which lies about midway between Sagar and the Nerbudda river.

One of his followers, who stood beside his chair, said[4] that 'when a tiger had killed one man he was safe, for the spirit of the man rode upon his head, and guided him from all danger. The spirit knew very well that the tiger would be watched for many days at the place where he had committed the homicide, and always guided him off to some other more secure place, when he killed other men without any risk to himself. He did not exactly know why the spirit of the man should thus befriend the beast that had killed him; but', added he, 'there is a mischief inherent in spirits; and the better the man the more mischievous is his ghost, if means are not taken to put him to rest.' This is the popular and general belief throughout India; and it is supposed that the only sure mode of destroying a tiger who has killed many people is to begin by making offerings to the spirits of his victims, and thereby depriving him of their valuable services.[5]

The belief that men are turned into tigers by eating of a root is no less general throughout India.

The Sarimant, on being asked by me what he thought of the matter, observed 'there was no doubt much truth in what the man said: but he was himself of opinion that the tigers which now infest the wood from Sagar to Deori were of a different kind--in fact, that they were neither more nor less than men turned into tigers--a thing which took place in the woods of Central India much more often than people were aware of. The only visible difference between the two', added the Sarimant, 'is that the metamorphosed tiger has _no tail_, while the _bora_, or ordinary tiger, has a very long one. In the jungle about Deori', continued he, 'there is a root, which, if a man eat of, he is converted into a tiger on the spot; and if, in this state, he can eat of another, he becomes a man again--a melancholy instance of the former of which', said he, 'occurred, I am told, in my own father's family when I was an infant. His washerman, Raghu, was, like all washermen, a great drunkard; and, being seized with a violent desire to ascertain what a man felt in the state of a tiger, he went one day to the jungle and brought home two of these roots, and desired his wife to stand by with one of them, and the instant she saw him a.s.sume the tiger shape, to thrust it into his mouth. She consented, the washerman ate his root, and became instantly a tiger; but his wife was so terrified at the sight of her husband in this shape that she ran off with the antidote in her hand. Poor old Raghu took to the woods, and there ate a good many of his old friends from neighbouring villages; but he was at last shot, and recognized from the circ.u.mstance of his _having no tail_. You may be quite sure,'

concluded Sarimant, 'when you hear of a tiger without a tail, that it is some unfortunate man who has eaten of that root, and of all the tigers he will be found the most mischievous.'

How my friend had satisfied himself of the truth of this story I know not, but he religiously believes it, and so do all his attendants and mine; and, out of a population of thirty thousand people in the town of Sagar, not one would doubt the story of the washerman if he heard it.

I was one day talking with my friend the Raja of Maihar.[6] on the road between Jubbulpore and Mirzapore, on the subject of the number of men who had been lately killed by tigers at the Katra Pa.s.s on that road,[7] and the best means of removing the danger. 'Nothing', said the Raja, 'could be more easy or more cheap than the destruction of these tigers, if they were of the ordinary sort; but the tigers that kill men by wholesale, as these do, are, you may be sure, men themselves converted into tigers by the force of their science, and such animals are of all the most unmanageable.'

'And how is it. Raja Sahib, that these men convert themselves into tigers?'

'Nothing', said he, 'is more easy than this to persons who have once acquired the science; but how they learn it, or what it is, we unlettered men know not.'

'There was once a high priest of a large temple, in this very valley of Maihar, who was in the habit of getting himself converted into a tiger by the force of this science, which he had thoroughly acquired.

He had a necklace, which one of his disciples used to throw over his neck the moment the tiger's form became fully developed. He had, however, long given up the practice, and all his old disciples had gone off on their pilgrimages to distant shrines, when he was one day seized with a violent desire to take his old form of the tiger. He expressed the wish to one of his new disciples, and demanded whether he thought he might rely on his courage to stand by and put on the necklace. 'a.s.suredly you may', said the disciple; 'such is my faith in you, and in the G.o.d we serve, that I fear nothing.' The high priest upon this put the necklace into his hand with the requisite instructions, and forthwith began to change his form. The disciple stood trembling in every limb, till he heard him give a roar that shook the whole edifice, when he fell flat upon his face, and dropped the necklace on the floor. The tiger bounded over him, and out of the door, and infested all the roads leading to the temple for many years afterwards.'

'Do you think, Raja Sahib, that the old high priest is one of the tigers at the Katra Pa.s.s?'

'No, I do not; but I think they may be all men who have become imbued with a little too much of the high priest's _science_--when men once acquire this science they can't help exercising it, though it be to their own ruin, and that of others.'

'But, supposing them to be ordinary tigers, what is the simple plan you propose to put a stop to their depredations, Raja Sahib?'

'I propose', said he, 'to have the spirits that guide them propitiated by proper prayers and offerings; for the spirit of every man or woman who has been killed by a tiger rides upon his head, or runs before him, and tells him where to go to get prey, and to avoid danger. Get some of the Gonds, or wild people from the jungles, who are well skilled in these matters--give them ten or twenty rupees, and bid them go and raise a small shrine, and there sacrifice to these spirits. The Gonds will tell them that they shall on this shrine have regular worship, and good sacrifices of fowls, goats, and pigs, every year at least, if they will but relinquish their offices with the tigers and be quiet. If this is done, I pledge myself', said the Raja, 'that the tigers will soon get killed themselves, or cease from killing men. If they do not, you may be quite sure that they are not ordinary tigers, but men turned into tigers, or that the Gonds have appropriated all you gave them to their own use, instead of applying it to conciliate the spirits of the unfortunate people.'[8]

Notes:

1. Deori, in the Sagar district, about forty miles south-east of Sagar. In 1767, the town and attached tract called the Panj Mahal were bestowed by the Peshwa, rent-free, on Dhondo Dattatraya, a Maratha pundit, ancestor of the author's friend. The Panj Mahal was finally made part of British territory by the treaty with Sindhia in 1860, and const.i.tutes the District called Panch Mahals in the Northern Division of the Bombay Presidency. The vernacular word _panch_ like the Persian _panj_, means 'five'. The t.i.tle Sarimant appears to be a popular p.r.o.nunciation of the Sanskrit _srimant_ or _sriman_, 'fortunate', and is still used by Maratha n.o.bles.

2. _Ante_, Chapter 16, note 6. The name is here erroneously printed 'Dhamoree' in the author's text.

3. He had good reason for his grat.i.tude, inasmuch as the depression in rents was merely temporary.

4. An Indian chief is generally accompanied into the room by a confidential follower, who frequently relieves his master of the trouble of talking, and answers on his behalf all questions.

5. When Agrippina, in her rage with her son Nero, threatens to take her stepson, Britannicus, to the camp of the Legion, and there a.s.sert his right to the throne, she invokes the spirit of his father, whom she had poisoned, and the manes of the Silani, whom she had murdered.

'Simul attendere ma.n.u.s, aggerere probra; consecratum Claudium, infernos Silanorum manes invocare, et tot invita fari nova.'- (Tacitus, lib, xviii, sec. 14.) [W. H. S.] The quotation is from the _Annals_. Another reading of the concluding words is 'et tot irrita facinora', which gives much better sense. In the author's text 'aggerere' is printed 'aggere'.

6. A small princ.i.p.ality, detached from the Panna State. Its chief town is about one hundred miles north-east of Jubbulpore, on the route from Allahabad to Jubbulpore. The state is now traversed by the East Indian Railway. It is under the superintendence of the Political Agent of Baghelkhand, resident at Riwa.

7. This pa.s.s is sixty-three miles south-east of Allahabad, on the road from that city to Riwa.

8. These myths are based on the well-known facts that man-eating tigers are few, and exceptionally wary and cunning. The conditions which predispose a tiger to man-eating have been much discussed. It seems to be established that the animals which seek human prey are generally, though not invariably, those which, owing to old wounds or other physical defects, are unable to attack with confidence the stronger animals. The conversations given in the text are excellent ill.u.s.trations of the mode of formation of modern myths, and of the kind of reasoning which satisfies the mind of the unconscious myth- maker.

The text may be compared with the following pa.s.sage from the _Journey through the Kingdom of Oudh_ (vol. i, p. 124): 'I asked him (the Raja of Balrampur), whether the people in the Tarai forest were still afraid to point out tigers to sportsmen. "I was lately out with a party after a tiger", he said, "which had killed a cowherd, but his companions refused to point out any trace of him, saying that their relative's spirit must be now riding upon his head, to guide him from all danger, and we should have no chance of shooting him. We did shoot him, however", said the Raja exultingly, "and they were all afterwards very glad of it. The tigers in the Tarai do not often kill men, sir, for they find plenty of deer and cattle to eat,"'

CHAPTER 21

Burning of Deori by a Freebooter--A Suttee.

Sarimant had been one of the few who escaped from the flames which consumed his capital of Deori in the month of April 1813, and were supposed to have destroyed thirty thousand souls. I asked him to tell me how this happened, and he referred me to his attendant, a learned old pundit, Ram Chand, who stood by his side, as he was himself, he said, then only five years of age, and could recollect nothing of it.

'Mardan Singh,' said the pundit, 'the father of Raja Arpan Singh, whom you saw at Seori, was then our neighbour, reigning over Garha Kota;[1] and he had a worthless nephew, Zalim Singh, who had collected together an army of five thousand men, in the hope of getting a little princ.i.p.ality for himself in the general scramble for dominion incident on the rise of the Pindharis and Amir Khan,[2] and the destruction of all balance of power among the great sovereigns of Central India. He came to attack our capital, which was an emporium of considerable trade and the seat of many useful manufactures, in the expectation of being able to squeeze out of us a good sum to aid him in his enterprise. While his troops blocked up every gate, fire was, by accident, set to the fence of some man's garden within. There had been no rain for six months; and everything was so much dried up that the flames spread rapidly; and, though there was no wind when they began, it soon blew a gale. The Sarimant was then a little boy with his mother in the fortress, where she lived with his father[3]

and nine other relations. The flames soon extended to the fortress, and the powder-magazine blew up. The house in which they lived was burned down, and every soul, except the lieutenant [_sic_] himself, perished in it. His mother tried to bear him off in her arms, but fell down in her struggle to get out with him and died. His nurse, Tulsi Kurmin,[4] s.n.a.t.c.hed him up, and ran with him outside of the fortress to the bank of the river, where she made him over unhurt to Hariram, the Marwari merchant.[5] He was mounted on a good horse, and, making off across the river, he carried him safely to his friends at Gaurjhamar; but poor Tulsi the Kurmin fell down exhausted when she saw her charge safe, and died.

'The wind appeared to blow in upon the poor devoted city from every side; and the troops of Zalim Singh, who at first prevented the people from rushing out at the gates, made off in a panic at the horrors before them. All our establishments had been driven into the city at the approach of Zalim Singh's troops; and scores of elephants, hundreds of camels, and thousands of horses and ponies perished in the flames, besides twenty-five thousand souls. Only about five thousand persons escaped out of thirty thousand, and these were reduced to beggary and wretchedness by the loss of their dearest relations and their property. At the time the flames first began to spread, an immense crowd of people had a.s.sembled under the fortress on the bank of the Sonar river to see the widow of a soldier burn herself. Her husband had been shot by one of Zalim Singh's soldiers in the morning; and before midday she was by the side of his body on the funeral pile. People, as usual, begged her to tell them what would happen, and she replied, "The city will know in less than four hours"; in less than four hours the whole city had been reduced to ashes; and we all concluded that, since the event was so clearly foretold, it must have been decreed by G.o.d.'[6]

'No doubt it was,' said Sarimant; 'how could it otherwise happen? Do not all events depend upon His will? Had it not been His will to save me, how could poor Tulsi the Kurmin have carried me upon her shoulders through such a scene as this, when every other member of our family perished?'

'No doubt', said Ram Chand, 'all these things are brought about by the will of G.o.d, and it is not for us to ask why.'[7]

I have heard this event described by many other people, and I believe the account of the old pundit to be a very fair one.

One day, in October 1833, the horse of the district surgeon, Doctor Spry, as he was mounting him, reared, fell back with his head upon a stone, and died upon the spot. The doctor was not much hurt, and the little Sarimant called a few days after, and offered his congratulations upon his narrow escape. The cause of so quiet a horse rearing at this time, when he had never been known to do so before, was discussed; and he said that there could be no doubt that the horse, or the doctor himself, must have seen some unlucky face before he mounted that morning--that he had been in many places in his life, but in none where a man was liable to see so many ugly or unfortunate faces; and, for his part, he never left his house till an hour after sunrise, lest he should encounter them.[8]

Many natives were present, and every one seemed to consider the Sarimant's explanation of the cause quite satisfactory and philosophical. Some days after, Spry was going down to sleep in the bungalow where the accident happened. His native a.s.sistant and all his servants came and prayed that he would not attempt to sleep in the bungalow, as they were sure the horse must have been frightened by a ghost, and quoted several instances of ghosts appearing to people there. He, however, slept in the bungalow, and, to their great astonishment, saw no ghost and suffered no evil.[9]

Notes:

1. A fortress, twenty-five miles cast of Sagar, captured by a British force under General Watson in October 1818, For Seori and Raja Arjun Singh see _ante_, Chapter 17, text by notes 1 and 4.

2. Amir Khan, a leader of predatory horse, has been justly described as 'one of the most atrocious villains that India ever produced'. He first came into notice in 1804, as an officer in Holkar's service, and in the following year opposed Lord Lake at Bharatpur. A treaty made with him in 1817 put an end to his activity. The Pindharis were organized bands of mounted robbers, who desolated Northern and Central India during the period of anarchy which followed the dissolution of the Moghal empire. They were a.s.sociated with the Marathas in the war which terminated with the capture of Asirgarh in April 1819. In the same year the Pindhari forces ceased to exist as a distinct and recognized, body.

My father was an Afghan, and came from Kandahar: He rode with Nawab Amir Khan in the old Maratha war: From the Dekhan to the Himalay, five hundred of one clan, They asked no leave of prince or chief as they swept thro'

Hindusthan.

(Sir A. Lyall, 'The Old Pindaree'; in _Verses written in India_, London, 1889).

3. Named Govind Rao. The proper name of the Sarimant was Ramchand Rao (_C.P. Gazetteer_, 1870).

4. Kurmin is the feminine of Kurmi, the name of a widely spread and most industrious agricultural caste, closely connected, at least in Bundelkhand, with the similar Lodhi caste.

5. Marwar, or Jodhpur, is one of the leading states in Rajputana. It supplies the rest of India with many of the keenest merchants and bankers.

6. See _ante_, Chapter 4, note 6, for remarks on the supposed prophetic gifts of sati women.