The Man-Eaters of Kumaon

As a small boy, Patterson's 'The Man-Eaters of Tsavo' was probably my favourite hunting book - see earlier post here - not least because the events took place around the small town of Tsavo, not far from Mombasa. However, if there was a second-best, it had to be this book, 'The Man-Eaters of Kumaon' by Jim Corbett. The only problem with it was that the events took place in India.

The writing on the fly-sheet carries little information except that the reference to No 52 is to my school number at Glengorse, so I was given the book some time between 1954 and 1956. It would not have been later because Richard joined me at Glengorse in early 1957 so from then onwards I would have titled myself 'Haylett ma'. Further, the book states that it was reprinted in 1955, so I must have had it in late 1955 or 1956.

Not only did Corbett vividly describe his hunting of some very dangerous tigers and leopards in India but the book was also superbly illustrated.

This is the moment when Corbett confronted the Chowgarh man-eater which was....

....responsible for an estimated 64 deaths. This wasn't the worst, for the first man-eating tiger he killed, the Champawat tiger, was responsible for 436 documented deaths.

Corbett hunted the tigers armed with a rifle and was fully aware of the dangers he faced. The poor residents of what are now the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand had to go out unarmed into their fields to tend their crops and wander the countryside collecting wood or forage for their animals. Of all the stories, this one involving the Mohan man-eater is the most horrific, the young woman on the right having volunteered to sit with an older woman who, having been attacked by the tiger, had fallen down a cliff. The tiger took the younger woman.

The book describes other examples of heroic acts by local people, often involving women. What is so sad is that tigers do not normally hunt humans. Some become man-eaters after being shot and wounded, the hunter then having failed to follow up and despatch a wounded animal. Others turn to human prey after more natural injuries: for example, tigers like porcupines but may end up with their quills embedded in their paws.

Corbett later turned to hunting tigers with a camera and played a key role in developing a haven for tigers, in what is now called the Jim Corbett National Park.