Evening Star Newspaper, December 7, 1930, Page 100

Bare-Handed Battle With a Tiger in Borneo: - The Terrifying Men- ace of Great Striped Cats—Fighting With the Hunger- MaddenedBeasts in #fungle Wilds—A Native Guide Rises toHeroic Heights in a Fierce Combat. * BY DR. ARTHUR TORRANCE. ~u BDFTOR'S NOTE: This is-the second of two articles by Dy, Tor- radice télling of his expericuces in the jungle during the course of his extensive tours of investigation- as 6 tropical w:odico. Reeogwized the world over for his research into jungle diseases, Dr. Torrance is also well known as a lecturcr. He has X recently becn appeinted by the French government to survey hy- -giensc conditions in French tropical- HAD been in Borneo on and off for years, and during the course of this time I had discovered a lot about the native inhabitants’ attitude toward the- - jungle, It did not take me very long to learn that the natives do not think of the jungle simply as a dense growth of mangrove bushes, coccanut tress and entangled elephant geass; they think of it as a great spirit,"as a~ buge personified force able to rule them and congquer them. Likewise they think of the animals not as just animals, but consider them as beings possessing souls, definite thoughts and personalities. In Borneo this feeling of the natives is par- ticularly strong toward the tiger. This mighty of the jungle sometimes almost dominates the entire lives of the inhabitants. They see sinister power of an all-consuming, blood- nature, the personification of the cruelty mighty jungle itself, which surrounds stockaded villages and to their ignerant stretches on with the same density of foliage and large trees to the very end the world: i I have vyisited villages where the natives have n afraid to mention the very name of tiger because of their superstitious fear that the devil spirit which rides on the tiger's back might mysteriously hear them and in anger jump off amd devour them. The tiger is feared in these 3 as a cunning devil and a cruel man- . The inhabitants have feared the beast 80 ,long that the tiger has taken advantage of the fear and become the master. ARILY the tiger is not a man-killer. " The normal tiger has an instinctive fear of men. He is a game killer. He loves deer, wild pig. possum or any other animal that is good to eat and not cumning enough te get of their cattle by the tiger. Agzain there are the tigers who have become erippled eifher by age or injury so that they too slow to catch game easily or even to cattle, and in hunger and desperation they attack man Then, discovering how easy it is to kill a human, they become regular man- killess. But there is also another kind of tiger —active, cunning and strong—wheo kills men for SEL L. fl??!;gi‘ THE SUNDAY STAR, Before I could get my rifle to my shou “Tiger, tiger! Sual, suai!” they chattered. They told e that.a tiger had just taken into the jumgle an old man who was g=tiing water from the village well. When I heard the news I hastensd to the village and found the inhabitants in a great state of fear and excitement. It seemed that several of them had seen the tiger spring from seme bushes, strike the old man down and dr: off to the jungle. Not ome of & thing to fight off or frighten . In their superst will of Allah Jiiyd igéi BET H HH géf%; § camcuflaged the trap with shrubbery and sprinkled the blocd of amother pig, which we had killed for our own dinner, around the entrance. When the trap was all set, right on the trail te the village, we stood by and waited. Afternoon came The excited caw-aws of nervous crows gave us the first indication that our enemy was coming. Crows are the best signals one ean have of a tiger’s approach. The tigers must hate them, for they betray their presence every t.me. The moment was very exciting. There I stood, not risking a move, not even to chinge my pesture. I was alert and ready, staring into the dense greenery for a glimpse of fiery eyes that would tell me wheve to shoot. I was i the sunlight; the tiger was scmewhere be- not. They saw the tiger ereeping in the sha- dows. The pig in the trap had stopped its nervous squeaiing, mesmerized and dumb. There was nothing to do but wait, leaving the tiger t move. he came. There was a slight , and for a fraeticm of & stripped figure of a male bold relief. Like a streak of g for the pig—a golden flash against the deep green back- disappeired within the trap. clap as the docr fell. The bars ap made a certuin impossible. I knelt down and, resting the rifle on my knee, I waited for unending moments until I saw the . startled eyes. flery and bloodshot, g'exm out from the log bars. At last my firigers pressed” the trigger. The report of my heavy rifle echded and re-e*hoed" throughout the jungle, but long affér this thiundertus hoisé’ Tidd' tedsed,’ the ' dying' s'.?rtin‘ - 1 LS man-cakine, e rang tyrough (b6 gH: WASHINGTON, D. C, DECEMBER 7, 1930, bounded out of the scarlet inferno. telling the people in the nearby village that their old neighbor had been revengsd and that henceforth they cguld go safely to the well and Tindig deserves a wcrd of introduction, for he was my native guide and chief seout throughout the Borneo expedition. He was my ally and champion. I discovered early that there was & tremendous lot of good character in boar tusks, earrings of jaguar claws and s headpiece of black cstrich feathers. His face was daubed with war-paint ind, equipped with a 6-foot shiny-headed spear, he was leading his tribal warriors in a wild war dance around the blazing fires of a head-hunting ceremony. When I talked te him he had but one answer to everything: “Pight.” It was his nature, born and bred in him. It ran in bis blood and grew in his bones. It was later that I persuaded Tindig to follow the white man and Iearn about the new way to live. But when he first came to me to act as guide he gave more trouble than his work was worth. He always wanted to do things the wild way. If anybody crossed him or made him angry he wanted to cut off his head. And for a long time he was certainly a test of our patience, purpose and rmanagement. But I later had reason to be truly thankful that I did not get tired of Tindig and send him away. ' is the story that I wish to tell! of Tindig: It was my first year with him in the jungle. Wz had left the coast and had made our way through the dense and magnifi- cent forests until we came to the Latinojong Range. ¥ had been working among lepers, hunting them from iheir strange hiding places, examining them and trying to persuade them to take a new cure with which we had been ex- to Tindig a dozen military police lent to me by the government as a bodyguard. I found a spot up in the highlands which ¥ thought ideal for my Summer quarters. When November came round and the sun swung higher in the steely blue it blazed down more pitilessly than ever. On the plains the little creeks commenced to run dry and the whole country smelled of dried swamp and disease dust. But on the highlands the air was clear and bracing, as well it might be six to eight thousand fect up abowve the sea. It was in this region that Tindig's test came. One Sunday morning I was lying under a h silk c¢otton tree taking it easy when my Snowball gave a growl and trotted to the of ‘the ‘camp clearing.’ Presently I heard and got up and went into my tent. moments. later Tindig emerged from the accompanied’' ‘by a griazled’ old murat. dirty, wrinkled, aged native wore a skimpy loin cloth of tree bark and carried a rather long spehr, the' head of which he dug into the ground to help him along. Besides Tindig, who was bringing him to my tent, he was attended by two wartiors armed with blow-guns and a helo eafhi““Beddusé: bf thil’ bodygusird I' knew that 1 asw e W gy - . Ider, an electrifying smarl came from the cqve, then a roar, and the tiger he must be a “somebody” in a small way and g on the village where he lived. It en two women when they had gone to he well for waler; a baby had disappearea. ‘Then only the day before the old chief's son retreated to the cave for refuge. The beast had taken its position in a neighboring cave and, of course, the chief’s son was afraid to leave his refuge. He had apparently been =’ prisoner all night. The old chief had come to see if we, who were skilled with “gun-sticks,™" would come and kill the tiger. - As soon as Tindig told me the story, of course,’ I decided to go. It was twilight before I set out. I knew that in the heat of the day the tiger would be back in the cool of the cave, utterly unapproachable and still alertly watch- ing. With Tindig I moved along through the aisles of menarch ebony trees behind the shadowy figure of the shriveled old chief. Now and again through the thick canopy I caught glimpses of the moon. We had crossed the last of a series of creeks and reached an bpen piateau free from trees when the old chief stopped and, pointing to the faece of & high across the chasm, he said that the way down to the river. Semewhere down there the trail to the valley was the cave in which tiger held his sen prisoner. g From the cleared plateau, which was really a shelf of rock, we couid look around and see the huge cliffs of Latinojong towering up above and nearly inclosing us. The bright moonlight picked out every ridge and peak, and down’ the twinkling lights of numerous small fires. The sound of voices came to us, borne on the still night air so clearly that we could dis-_ villagers keeping watch md giving cheer to their captive neighbor. Wl started down an easy slope and soon came to the fires. Here the natives were com- mencing a night of singing and dancing for the double purpose oi kecping the tiger in a state of nerveus suspense and of whiling away the time until daybresk. I halted at one of the fires to snatch a hite to eat. While T was stilk busy at this Tindog, who had been seouting: ardund for information, returned:and reporied that'some of the arriors had trapped the tigep: in it 18ir. 'They tacught they had suceceeded im: -ofindlunbyhumngthehmm the opening. However, they were not sure. - The tiger had not shown itself. - ‘Meanwhile the chief’s sen was still bottled wp i his: cave estal Wl Shiw slumslon wecad aretacy el