276 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVI. 



which I can transform myself into any shape. I will now become a 

 panther, and remove this obstacle from the road, and on my return you 

 must place this powder in my mouth, when T will recover my proper shape." 

 He then swallowed his own portion of the powder and, assuming the 

 likeness of the panther, persuaded him to leave the path. Returning 

 to the woman, he opened his mouth to receive the transposing charm ; 

 but she, territied by his dreadful appearance and open jaws, dropped it in 

 the mire and it was lost. Then, in despair, he killed the author of his 

 misfortune, and ever afterwards revenged himself on the race whose form 

 he could never resume. This story approximates very closely to the stories 

 of were-wolves prevalent in Eastern Europe. 



Of the same nature is the common superstition that the spirit of its 

 first victim accompanies the man-eater to warn it of impending danger, which 

 I have found firmly credited by jungle folk. There is the story of the 

 shikari who sat up over the remains of a man killed by one of these 

 monsters. When the man-eater approached to resume the feast, the arm 

 of the corpse was raised in warning to point to the tree in which the 

 watcher was sitting. The monster looked up and seeing the shikari, at 'nee 

 went away. The man got down from the tree, fastened down the warning 

 hand with a peg, and resumed his vigil in another tree. Again the man- 

 eater approached, but the other hand of the victim pointed out the danger, 

 and he fled once more. No sooner had he gone than the shikari again 

 descended, pegged down the other hand, and climbed another tree. When 

 the man-eater came back there was nothing to warn him of danger ; he 

 came up to the kill, and was at once shot by the watcher in the tree. 



In 1901 another infamous man-eater appeared in the Seoni District of 

 the Central Provinces, and killed more than twenty people in rapid succes- 

 sion within fifteen miles of one village. This beast was in the habit of 

 entering houses and dragging out its victims. In one instance it took a 

 person from a house in which two children slept undisturbed. It was shot 

 on the corpse of one of its victims, as depicted in a photograph in Volume 

 XIV of the Journal. 



On one occasion in a village near my camp when I was out tiger-shooting 

 a sad tragedy had occurred a few days before my arrival. A panther had 

 entered a hut at night and dragged a Gond woman out by the leg. The 

 beast, on being driven off, had rushed into another hut and, seizing an 

 eight-year old boy by the throat, carried him off and devoured him. I 

 sought in vain for any sign or track of this panther. The shikaris said that 

 it was no use looking for the animal as it had left owing to the incanta- 

 tions of the Gonds, to whom my superstitious followers ascribed wonderful 

 power over the great felidce. They said that when a tiger or panther had 

 been doing much damage to the flocks, or to the people in the case of 

 man-eaters, the Gonds sacrifice a bullock to the Tiger-god, and perform 

 various rites and ceremonies to invoke his aid. On the night of the per- 

 formance of these rites, the god of the Gonds, represented by a White 

 Tiger, stalks about in the vicinity of the village and drives oft' the beast 

 that has been offending. In this the shikaris, orthodox Hindus, not 

 animists like the Gonds, firmly believed, declaring that the tracks of the 

 White Tiger could be traced on the surrounding jungle paths on the 

 morning after the performance of these ceremonies. 



In Volume IX of the Journal, Mr. Inverarity gives an account of a man- 

 eating panther which killed many people in the Nizam's Dominions in 1894. 

 Among the victims was a boy taken from a cot on which he was lying beside 

 a man in the open space in front of a hut. I recollect an instance of a 

 child being taken from between a woman and a dog, over which the 

 panther must have stepped. 



