woman turns into hyena (1936)
TRANSCRIPT
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The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Thursday 11 June 1936, page 20
National Library of Australia http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17242075
Other Women's Worlds.', f r\
WHERE LIFE DEPENDS ON ANIMALS
Strange Ençoitntei;s
IN MANY LANDS
/Nthis article, Miss Rosila
Forbes, the well-known
traveller and explora, saysthat
in different paris of the World
she has met people whose
existence depended on animals.
In Brazil, she met a cattleman
who insisted thai he belonged
io the family of the serpents.
In Sumatra, there were
others who believed that their
destinies Were boundy, up with
those of tigers, cats, andother animals. In Southern
Abyssinia, she mel a sorceress
who Iransfoimed herself into a
hyena.
(By Rosita Forbes.)
SOMEBODY once wrote a book called
"Lady Into Fox." It was a delici-
ous affair, especially when the trans-
formed wife worried her dressing
jacket and the husband felt it wouldn't
be safe to trust her near chicken.
"If only it could happen to so-and-so,"said Innumerable readers, thinking of thepeople they would rather do without. ButI'm not sure that It doesn't happen.
In Central America, for instance-Yucatan,Guatemala, and so on-there is a secretsociety of Naguales who believe they can
change themselves into the forms of their
guardian beasts. Adepts are to be foundliving normally in the villages, differentiatedin no way from their neighbours. But everyChristian ceremony which they attend, dulydressed in their best clothes, is cancelledas noon as possible by a ritual performed inthe hut of the nearest Nagualist priest. I've
heard such wizards, or witches, for women
dominate the cult, claim all the powers ofthe Indian fakirs, Including the ability tocut off a limb and replace it without damageto the victim.
In the bush, a peon once threw himselfat my arm, as I was going to shoot a Jaguar,with a cry, "It is
my cousin, the son of myuncle!" We asked him to explain.
son myuncle!" We asked him to explain.
"It would have been murder," he retortedand would say nothing more.
But one of the other labourers assuredus that the "cousin Miguel" made a habitof wandering about in the body of a cougar.He had been robbed by an enemy, and thepolice would give him no satisfaction, so whatcould he do but lie in wait as a wild beast?
IN Brazil I met a cattleman who in*?
sisted that he belonged to the fam-
ily of the serpents. He had consider-
ably more power over them than the
ancient snake-charmer who delights touristsat Luxor. For the most deadly came when
he called, and remained to play with him or,
as he said, "to have conversation." I've
seen him seated on a stump, in a newlycleared paddock, with a snake a few Inchesfrom his boot, its head reared, its tongueflickering, just as if it were hurrying outthe news
it wanted to tell to a friend.
On another occasion, when I wanted tokill a deadly coral snake, the old man pro-tested as if it had been a brother. "It hasdone you no harm and it is unlucky to kill
that which has not hurt you."The reptile slid over his foot. "Look how
it thanks me for saving its life."
With twinkling eyes, he looked up. "Ona feast-day," he said, "when I am tired ofthe aches In a man's body, I join my friendswho are also my servants."
"What do you mean?"
He chuckled, and his grimace expressed a
certain amount of malice. "What would you?I become a snake."
Such a statement Is common as near homeas the Hebrides, where an old woman is oftensuspected of turning into a hare, but it is
generally dismissed as superstition.
J__ large number of native peoples be-lieve that each man or woman has
a familiar beast in which his own soul
is hidden. When the animal is killed,
the human being dies. Others imagine they
possess a secondary or external soul which
lives in a wild beast.In Africa I've met elephant-people, in
Melanesia serpent-men and owl-women, in
Malaya fish-women, and In Sumatra, amongthe Bataks, families whose existence dependson monkeys, cats, dogs, tigers, buffaloes, and
even locusts. But only once have I seen the
logical-or illogical-result of such a credence.It happened in the Arussi mountains, in
Southern Abyssinia, where hyenas aro a pest.
Every night we used to hobble the mules
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ÍNthis article, Miss Forbes says that in Sumatra, among the Bátales, she
met families whose existence depended on tigers.
within reach of our tents. And quite regu-larly, towards midnight, we used to be
wakened by a hideous commotion. At first
we thought we were about to be slaughtered,
for screams and shots alternated with the
crash of animals breaking into the bush.
Then we became accustomed to the habits of
our mixed following.
The muleteers cared about nothing but their
beasts. When the stampede began, they used
to rush out with terms of endearment and
opprobrium and try to catch hold of any
portion of any mule. The soldiers, who addedto our dignity and our difficulties, treated the
whole journey as a joke, and the chance of
potting a hyena as the cream of the fun.
They hurled themselves pell-mell out of thetent and fired at the first thing they saw.
Such indiscriminate enthusiasm had the most
unexpected results. A muleteer was hit In
the shoulder and a cock blown to pieces. The
hyenas laughed as they withdrew.
The hyenas continued to hope for a meal of
mule, and we waged our nightly battle at the
expense of our vocal apparatus, until, one day,we carno to a village, where a slave informedme there lived a remarkable sorceress. For-tunately for us, her familiar was a hyena.
I thought it would be Interesting to see the
sorceress, so I insisted on camping, in spiteof the protests of nagadis and soldiers. "Itis an evil place," they said. "We shall notsleep, and when we wake who knows If we
shall be alive?"
npjHE village consisted of the usual
round mud huts, thatched with
cane. Some of them were surrounded
by yards with broken walls. The
sorceress's hut looked as if It were about to
fall down. Its roof sagged over the door.
The woman who occupied it resembled every
ancient Abyssinian who's shaved her head in
widowhood, or had it forcibly cropped as a
punishment for lying. She wore a very dirty
chamma, which I supposed had been soaked in
tallow, for it was the colour of wet sand.
"She looks as If she never ate at all," I
whispered to the slave.
"She will not touch food while she is a
"She will not touch food while she is a
woman," he returned.
"At night, this house is empty, but a hyenawith a deformed foot wanders round the
yard."
HPHE sorceress came out of the1
shadows with the horn of an ox
in her hand. The ale brimmed over
and she steadied it with what I thought
to be a doubled fist. But as she handed me
the ceremonial utensil, I saw spikes sticking
through tile back of the palm. That hand
had been voluntarily closed,and it had been
held so, heaven alone knew for how many
years, until the nails had grown through the
flesh.
I looked round the hut and saw nothingthat could be connected with magic. A few
clay jars, a horn or two, and some gourds
hung upon the walls.
When we left, the woman bent with that
sudden doubling of the waist peculiar to
Ethiopians, and kissed the air in the neigh-bourhood of my boots.
ANhour or two later, while I sat out-
side my tent eating the mess of
chocolate and white of egg which the
cook made when h_ wished to propiti-
ate me, a shape blundered out of the dusk.
For a moment, I thought it was a dog. Then,
as it crossed the radius of the hurricane lan-
tern set upon a packing-case, I saw its
body, sloping backwards from the shoulders
and the heavy head held low. As usual, it
moved as if it were blind, and one of its paws
seemed to be malformed. But all I thought
of was the mules. I'd got hold of my re-
volver, and was going to try a long shot,
when one of the slaves shrieked at me and
upset everything within reach, including the
lamp. I echoed his yells, thinking he was
going to have one of those fits to which noise
seems to be the best antidote, but he clutched
my arm and dragged the revolver from me.
Then he fell at my feet, sobbing, and made
as if to burrow into the earth. "What on
earth is the matter?" I demanded, for he
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as
earth is the matter?" I demanded, for he
seemed to be In the lost stages of terror. By
this time, of course, muleteers and soldiers
had gathered, and there was a babel of ex-
planation. It all concerned the sorceress,
and then I remembered the tame hyena. "All
right, all right," I said. "There's no harm
done."
HHHAT night we slept as if neither.*?
mules nor hyenas existed. No
sound disturbed us. We'd meant to
start early, but when I woke, the
position of the sun remarked on my sloth, and
a peculiar stillness pervaded the camp. I
shouted for water, and none came. I peeredbetween the flaps, and saw some crumpledfigures lying where they'd quite obviouslyfallen. Beside them were the Indications of
a meal, and, more ominous, several emptyjars. Hurrying into my clothes, I went out
and stamped about, shook the recumbent
muleteers, shouted at them, and did other
futile things, but it was no good.
Dusk came, and with it an unnecessarily
large meal, indicating that the cook felt
ashamed. While I ate I watched the men
wandering about as If neither their feet nor
their heads belonged to them.
With a
vaguefeeling or repetition, I saw
tlie hyena appear and lope across the edgeof the lamplight. It must be looking for
food, I thought. Swinging about, with the
clumsiness habitual to Its breed, it passedwithin a few yards of the place where a
Moslem lay. Presumably he woke and foundit almost on top of him. So he fired, and,unfortunately, the rifle was loaded. I heard
the shot as I scraped out the last spoonfulof jam, and, In the unexpected silence which
followed, I heard a scream.
The animal had been hit in the shoulder.
It struggled away, down, the slope, towards
the village, and a mound of men fell upon the
Moslem before he could fire a second shot.
The rest of the camp went into a trance.
They were too frightened even to scream.
Meanwhile, I'd never seen the tents BO
quickly struck, nor the luggage adjusted to
the right beasts with so little argument..Without waiting for food or drink, the cara-
van hastened to put as much space as pos-sible between itself and the village of evil
repute. I remained with my slave.The village appeared to be deserted. The
mud was deep as ever, but no pigs wallowed
In It. Doors were shut. Inside the hut a
figure lay upon the wooden couch. For a
moment I hesitated, because I thought thewoman slept. Then I saw the blood on herchamma.
I did what I could, but something had
passed through the body, between breast andshoulder. I thought it might have pene-trated a lung.
I remembered the way Abysslnlans nickedtheir bullets round the nozzle to make them
expand, while I tore up my shirt to make a
bandage, but it was useless.
Before I left I looked for any weapon which
could have inflicted such a wound. I lookedalso for an animal shot through the shoulder.But there was nothing at all-just a woman
dying from loss of blood-and no sign ofhow she came to be doing so.
Nothing further happened to us. At nightthe usual hyenas made the usual amount ofnoise, and no more. When I told the storyto tho casual, they laughed. When I re-
peated it to the learned, they cited so manymore conclusive examples of lycanthropy thatmy head swam and I visualised two millionsurplus women turning into beasts.