THE TIGER-BREED FAMILIES. 37 
usually surrounded with scrub and patches of low-lying shrubs: it 
is in these that the tiger has his hiding place during those 
anxious moments of the patient’s illness. If the illness is serious, 
or the patient is dying, the tiger will show signs of trouble and 
uneasiness. He groans, makes piteous noises and restlessly moves 
from one end of the compound to the other. Occasionally in his 
seeming anxiety for the patient’s condition, he encounters the 
human visitors who pass with their torches to or from the patient’s 
house. But he is harmless, though the people have their hearts 
in their mouths. The dying patient in the house seems no longer 
conscious of his or her identity as a human being. He tosses about, 
erinds his teeth and looks wild, manifesting a hundred and one 
of the characteristics of a tiger, trying to force out a tail (méng- 
héjan ekor) from the coccyx, and often giving unmistakable res- 
ponses to the signals from his tiger-friend below. Very often more 
than one tiger will come and make circuits round the house. With 
the first peep of day the inmates of the jungle betake themselves 
to the nearest bushes, showing themselves at times, and making 
their presence felt all through the day. The following night 
_ brings them back to their sentinel routine. But they are not to 
be harmed nor do they do any harm. The patient breathes his last 
and then all is silent till the burial is over. 
In ordinary cases the prospective tiger dies peacefully, and 
then becomes a tiger. No one has ever cared or dared to go and 
watch what really happens at the grave during the few nights fol- 
lowing the burial. They say that some days after the burial, the 
white shroud (kain kapan) of the buried body is found lying be- 
sides the grave, torn and tattered; and a hole of the size of a man’s 
body is found to have been made into the grave, while the foot- 
prints of tigers are seen everywhere. From this it is concluded 
that the tigers must take the corpse and bear it (wsong) into the 
forest where the metamorphosis takes place in some inexplicable 
way. <A tiger representing the dead person makes his appearance 
shortly afterwards. Even if the person dies in another country, 
he comes home tto his native village in the shape of a tiger, and 
announces his arrival through a dream to the principal member of 
the family. Soon after the announcement, a new tiger appears 
in the neighbourhood. There are characteristic marks on the tiger 
answering to the marks on the person when alive as a man. «If the 
person had a deformed leg, the new tiger also has a deformed leg. 
‘If the person was bald-headed, the tiger also is bald-headed. He 
is also distinguishable as the personification of such and such a 
member of the family by peculiar gait and bearing or general build 
which are those of the dead person. ‘These tigers understand 
and respond when called by their human names. I cannot illus- 
trate this better than by a personal story. One night, many years 
ago, my grand-mother was troubled by a herd of buffaloes break- 
ing again and again into her poorly-fenced compound where veget- 
ables and young fruit-trees were sprouting. The moon was over- 
east, and the night was cool and calm. Repeatedly the old lady 
R. A. Soc., No. 85, 1922. 
