| In the Hindu tradition, the tiger is sacred to Kali, the Goddess of creation and dissolution, sexuality and death. In China, the tiger is both a symbol of darkness and the new moon, as well as brightness and the full moon. From The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges: To the Annamites, tigers, or spirits who dwell in tigers, govern the four corners of space. The Red Tiger rules over the South; summer and fire belong to him. The Black Tiger rules over the North; winter and water belong to him. The Blue Tiger rules over the East; spring and plants belong to him. The White Tiger rules over the West; autumn and metals belong to him. Over these Cardinal Tigers is a fifth tiger, the Yellow Tiger, who stands in the middle governing the others, just as the Emperor stands in the middle of China and China in the middle of the World. Among the Batek Negritos, a hunting and gathering people in Malaysia, there is a rich body of belief concerning tigers, both real and supernatural. The Batek believe that at the center of their world is a great stone pillar, at whose base many tigers live in caves. This is the home of Raja Yah, the king of tigers. This sacred place has a parallel in the mythical home of tigers, where tiger-men are ruled over by a chief called the Tiger Devil, who enters the bodies of sorcerers when they invoke the tiger spirit. The inhabitants of this mythical realm look like real tigers when they are in their own village, but after swimming through a special pool they emerge in human form. These supernatural tigers possessed mortal bodies, but the immortal shadow-souls of dead shamans. They were regarded as beneficient, acting as guardians of Batek society, and as the teachers and spirit-helpers of Batek shamen. Northwards, on the Siberian side of the Bering Straits, the Nanai people of the Amur river basin wore amulets with tiger designs to ward off evil spirits, as part of a tiger cult whose ancient origins are implied by prehistoric petroglyphs. In eastern Siberia and Manchuria the shamans of the native Tungus peoples would placate a man -eating tiger by making a human sacrifice in which an unfortunate person was tied to a tree; if the tiger accepted the sacrifice, the tree was henceforth regarded as sacred. From The Tiger's Destiny by Valmik Thapar: "The Goldis (an ancient tribe in Siberia) revered the tiger and the bear as their sacred ancestors. The tiger, or amba, was considered sacred as the guardian of the forest, and never hunted." Ho Lu, the king of Wu between 513 and 494 BC was buried in a tomb surmounted by a stone carving of a tiger. The famed tiger-jades were buried in graves on the right side of the corpse, facing west the direction of which the tiger was cosmologically associated. According to the Chinese dictionary Shuo wen, of AD 100, tiger-jades are either jades upon which a tiger is carved or a jade carving in the shape of a tiger in each case both substance and form were suffused with supernatural power. The Cat and the Tiger, a Canarese legend from the Malabar Coast: A cat and a tiger once went out together for a walk. After they had strolled on through the wild jungle for some time the tiger began to feel hungry, and to think of the desirability of making a pounce on the cat. His sidelong looks soon aroused the suspicions of the cat, who, knowing not how else to elude the tiger's purpose, suggested that they should climb up and rest awhile in a tree, and then return home. To this the tiger readily agreed, only asking the cat to show the way, when, while the cat was well within reach, the tiger made a sudden grab for him. But the cat was too quick for the tiger, and instantly sprang forward on to a light branch of the tree where the tiger could not follow. Then the cruel beast crouched down at the root of the tree in watch until the cat would be obliged to descend. Long waiting, however, exhausted the tiger's patience and at last he roused himself to depart, growling out as he slunk homeward. "I cannot wait for you now, but as you cats always drop your dung in the same place, I shall be sure to catch you before long." Then the cat cautiously descended from his perch of safety, and went round and told the whole of the cat world of what the tiger had said, and ever since then the cats have made it their custom to seek out every day a different place of egestion, and there dig a hole and drop their dung therein, and carefully cover it over with earth, so that the tigers may never know where they have been or where to find them again. The tiger represented not control but its loss. The tiger stood for both nature out of control and it also stood for human nature out of control. It embodied the darkest impulses of human beings; it represented the dreadful animal nature that lurked in civilized mankind, something that needed to be suppressed if civilization was to continue. The tiger hinted at the dreadful truth that Homo Sapiens is a mammal kin to Panthera Tigris." -- Simon Barnes, from Tiger! The Tigers War Against Borneo, by Harold Courlander, from Kantchil's Lime Pit and Other Stories of Indonesia: Once, it is said, there was a famine on the island of Java. The Raja of All Tigers called his tiger ministers to meet with him to discuss the scarcity of food. They came and sat before him, and he spoke: "Day by day our food is harder to find. We are growing thin. What can we do about this situation? " The ministers of the tiger Raja talked anxiously, and at last they said: "There is no other way--we must conquer Borneo and make the inhabitants pay tribute to us. Otherwise we shall starve." The Raja of All Tiger of Java said: "Very well. We shall send the inhabitants of Borneo an ultimatum." He selected three of his tiger ministers to act as messengers, and he told them: "Go to the Raja of Borneo. Tell him the Raja of All the Tigers of Java commands him to send us quantities of food and gold. If he refuses, I shall send an army against him to conquer Borneo. And to convince him, and so that he may know my strength, show him this! " The Raja of All the Tigers of Java plucked out the heaviest and longest of his whiskers and gave it to his ministers... They crossed the Java Sea with it and arrived in Borneo, where they met Kantchil the mouse deer. They stopped and looked down on him, for they were large and ferocious and he was very small. "Insignificant One," they said, "where is your king? We come from the Raja of All the Tigers of Java to demand surrender!" "Ah!" said Kantchil. "Our king is hunting in the forest." "Then say these words to your king," the tigers said. "Tell him that our Raja demands gold and food. If your king does not give it, we will come with a great army of tigers and wage war upon the inhabitants of the forests of Borneo. And when you have said all this, give him this whisker which our great leader himself plucked out of his face, so that all men might see how large and strong he is!" Kantchil took the royal whisker respectfully. Then he turned and went into the shadows of the forest. "Oh, what will become of Borneo now?" he said. "When tigers say food they mean meat. I am meat. If they send an army they will destroy us, and they will remain in Borneo forever." After Kantchil had thought awhile he went to Landak, the porcupine. "Friend," he said, "so that the tigers of Java don't come to destroy Borneo, give me one of your quills." The porcupine took a quill from his back and gave it to Kantchil. Kantchil returned to the clearing where the tigers waited. "Oh, Dignified Ones, I have found our great king," he said. "He was resting from the hunt, and his servants were sharpening his claws by grinding them between two mountains. I sat before him and delivered the message with which you entrusted me. At last he spoke this way: 'Tell the arrogant nothings from Java that I am extremely annoyed with them. Tell the insolent creature who is Raja of All the Tigers of Java we do not pay tribute, we only exact it. Tell him we choose war!'" The tiger ministers listened with amazement as Kantchil spoke. But he wasn't yet through. He said: "Our king in his anger plucked a whisker from his face and instructed me to give it to you." The tiger ministers took the quill which the porcupine had given Kantchil. They looked at it in fear. For it was twenty times the thickness of their Raja's whisker. They returned quickly across the water to Java, and then came before the Raja of All the Tigers. "We have delivered the ultimatum, Great One," they said. "The miserable king of Borneo sends his answer." And they gave him the long, thick quill from the porcupine's back. The Raja took it and looked at it. A dreamy look came into his eyes. "I have decided since you went away," he said at last, "that it is better for us to levy a tax upon the elephants of Sumatra." And it is for this reason that there are no tigers anywhere in the jungles of Borneo. The Tiger and the Fox, a fable of the Arabic mystic Sa'di: A man walking through the forest saw a fox that had lost its legs and wondered how it survived. Then he saw a tiger come in with game in its mouth. The tiger had his fill and left the rest of the meat for the fox. The next day God fed the fox by means of the same tiger. The man began to wonder at God's great goodness and said to himself, "I too shall just rest in a corner with full trust in the Lord and he will provide me with all I need." He did this for many days, but nothing happened and the poor fellow was almost at death's door when he heard a Voice say, "O you who are in the path of error, open your eyes to the Truth! Follow the example of the tiger and stop imitating the disabled fox." The Tyger ~ William Blake Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distance, deeps, or skies, Burnt the fire of thine eyes! On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, and what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat: What dread hand? And what dread feet? What the hammer? What the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp! When the stars throw down their spears And watered heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? |
