The third story is about a man-wolf who was accused of sorcery of the most flagrant kind. Finding a difficulty in getting evidence against the criminal, the judge sent a peasant to his cell who was charged with the unpleasant task of forcing a confession. The prisoner was told that he might avenge himself upon another peasant to whom he owed a grudge, by destroying his cow secretly, and if possible when in the shape of a wolf himself. After much persuasion the supposed wer-wolf undertook to carry out the suggested plan. The next morning the cow in question was found to be fearfully mangled, but the strange part of the story is this, that although witnesses were set to watch the man in his cell, they swore unanimously that he had never left it and had passed the whole of the night in deep sleep, only at one time making slight movements of his head, his hands and his feet.[44]
Just as the man who thinks he changes into a wolf suffers from lycanthropy, so the one who believes he changes into a dog is suffering from kynanthropy, and those who change into kine from boanthropy. Every part of the world chooses a special animal as being the most suitable for disguise, and naturally enough the animal is one which is common to the district. Thus we find the tiger chosen for India and Asia, the bear for Northern Europe, the lion, leopard, and hyæna for Africa, the jaguar for South America, and so forth.
Many superstitions surround the tiger. Besides being the abode of the soul of a dead man it may be the temporary or even the permanent form of a living human being. In India it is said that a certain root brings about the metamorphosis and that another root is used for the antidote. In Central Java powers of transformation are believed to be hereditary, no shame is attached to it, and the wer-tiger is looked upon as a friendly animal, and if his friends call upon him by name he behaves like a domestic pet and is believed to guard the fields. In the Malay Peninsula faith in the genuine wer-tiger persists, and it is thought there also that the soul of a dead wizard enters the animal's body. During the process of transformation the corpse is laid in the forest, and beside it a supply of rice and water is placed, sufficient for seven days, in which time transmigration, resulting from a compact made by the pawang's ancestors, is complete. A ceremony is also gone through by the son of a pawang who wishes to succeed his father in tiger's form.
A wer-tiger belief exists in India, and the Garrows think the mania is produced by a special drug which is laid on the forehead. First the wer-tiger pulls the earrings out of his ears and then wanders forth alone, shunning the company of his fellow-man. The disease lasts about fourteen days, and patients are said to have glaring red eyes, their hair dishevelled and bristled, and a peculiar convulsive manner of moving the head. When taken by fits of this kind they are believed to go forth in the night to ride on the backs of tigers.
Another form of the belief is the wizard in the shape of a tiger, and the Thana tradition is that mediums are possessed by a tiger spirit. The Binuas of Johore think that every pawang has an immortal tiger spirit.
The belief that lion form is assumed by wizards is found near the Luapula and on the Zambezi, where a certain drink is supposed to effect the transformation. Among the Tumbukas people smear themselves with white clay, which gives them a certain power of metempsychosis. Not only can men take lions' shape but lions can change into men.
CHAPTER X
LION- AND TIGER-MEN
The rooted idea in the savage mind that animals may be invested by human souls, and that men may at will transform themselves into animals, has been largely strengthened throughout the ages by the teachings of the "Medicine men" or wizards, who have no doubt found it profitable and conducive to their own acquisition of power to work on the superstitions and foster the weaknesses of the people to whom they minister.