Encyclopaedia Felidae now has a Patreon! Go to www.patreon.com/EncyclopaediaFelidae if you want to help support this content!
Werelions, weretigers, werejaguars, oh my! That was my where my brain was at about thirty seconds into my research on ailuranthropy, or the phenomenon of humans transforming into big cats (from the Greek ailouros “cat” and anthropos “human”). I hadn’t intended for this to be a series, but I quickly realized that werecats were a much larger topic than I had expected. This means I get to draw the Halloween blogs out longer, so I can’t complain. We will begin the series with the cat people that stalk human prey in the folktales of Asia: the weretigers.
Weretigers are the most frequently occurring kind of were-creature in the folklore of tropical Asia (1, 2). Tales about these creatures can be found in the mythology of China, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia, just to name a few. Humans have lived alongside tigers in this part of the world forever, really, although the decline of tigers has tragically made that less the case. In Europe, the most fearsome natural predator was the wolf, giving rise to stories of humans becoming wolves. There was no more appropriate metaphor for the animal within. Where the tiger is the king of the jungle, however, humans become cats.
Under Their Skin
The stories about weretigers are almost as different as the people and places where they are told. In only some of them are people bodily transformed into tigers. Often, the transformation takes place once the weretiger puts on a tiger skin with or without an accompanying incantation (3, 4). The European werewolf is frequently made the same way. There are some stories where people became weretigers accidentally after slipping into a tiger skin (4). One story tells of a Chinese monk who put on a tiger skin to play a practical joke, only to become a tiger and remain so for a year (4).
Alternatively, a person may become a weretiger by burning incense, reciting an incantation, and throwing his clothes off (5, 6). By shedding their clothes, they are shedding their personhood, in a sense, and once naked they transform into a tiger (5, 6). If someone steals the clothes, the weretiger will not be able to turn back into a human (6).
My personal favorite tactic, however, involves circling an anthill seven times clockwise while repeating a secret charm (7). This lacks the obvious symbolism of stripping off one’s humanity but is infinitely more bizarre. To turn back, simply do the opposite: walk around the anthill counterclockwise seven times while repeating the charm (7). Does this mean weretigers can talk? Does it have to be the same anthill? I have no idea, but I love it.
Some transformation rituals require one or more accomplices. In one, a practitioner recites particular spells, or mantras, over a measure of water (1). An assistant then sprinkles the water over the weretiger to effect the transformation (1). To change them back, the assistant sprinkles the water over them again (1). In some versions of the throw-off-the-clothes ritual, the only way to become human again is for someone to hurl the weretiger’s clothes at them while they are in tiger form (1). If a weretiger’s accomplice is unable or unwilling to help for whatever reason, they will be stuck as a tiger, presumably for the rest of their life (5).
Tiger Spirits
In some beliefs, a person becomes a weretiger when they are possessed by a spirit. The Lisu people of Laos believe that weretigers can possess people and may then possess their family members in turn (8). They also believe that those who are thus possessed will put “the essence of the weretiger” into a valuable object and leave it lying on a path (8). Whoever picks the object up will be possessed, too (8). I can only imagine the chain reactions of weretiger possession that ensue from a single Weretiger Zero.
On the other hand, there is a folk belief in Malaysia that certain families are already tigrine by birth (9). After death, they become tigers that somewhat resemble their human selves and remember their human lives (9). These tigers visit their humans relatives during festivals or times of great turmoil and can sometimes be called upon for help (9). When a human member of the family is about to die, at least one of their tiger relatives will come to hold vigil outside the house, waiting (9). A few days after death, their grave will be found opened, and a representative tiger will appear in the nearby forest (9). The journal article describing this belief was written in 1922 (9), so it is possible that the lore has died out by now. Unless, of course, it’s not just a myth.
Dreamtime Weretiger
Interestingly, there is a major type of weretiger that does not involve any metamorphosis at all. These weretigers leave their human bodies in their sleep to become tigers. In the lore of certain indigenous peoples of India and south Asia, some individuals naturally have the ability to be this kind of weretiger (1, 2). When these weretigers dream, a part of their soul travels into the jungle and joins with the soul of a live tiger (1, 2). The weretiger then acts out the desires of the sleeping human, which can sometimes result in the property destruction, injury, or death of the weretiger’s enemies (1, 2).
The weretiger and their tiger have a close relationship. They always migrates into the same tiger, night after night, for their entire life (1, 2). If the tiger is wounded or killed while bonded with the weretiger’s soul, the human body suffers the same fate (1, 2).
The Khasis of northeastern India ascribe to a variation of the dreaming weretiger belief. Khasis people believe that humans are divided into the body, the soul, and the rngiew (10, 11). The rngiew is a sort of essential, divine essence integral to each person (10). When the weretigers sleep, their rngiew leave their bodies and transform into tigers in the spirit world (10, 11). However, the spirit world and the physical one are not entirely separate, and the weretigers are able to interact with the material plane as tigers (10, 11). People either inherit the ability to be a weretiger or are chosen to receive the gift by a deity (10).
The Good, the Bad, and the Stripey
I have read a lot of old werewolf stories because that’s the kind of thing I do for fun. I can’t think of a single one where the werewolf was presented as anything other than a force for evil. Modern representations are much more varied, of course, but folklore decidedly depicts werewolves as bad dogs. Weretigers, however, are painted in many different lights.
Sometimes, weretigers engender terror. They are thought to kill people and livestock (1, 2, 4). But other times they are protectors (9, 10, 11, 12). The Khasis weretigers have a sacred duty to protect their communities from harm, including other weretigers (11). There are Chinese myths about weretigers who are the instruments of heaven, meting out divine fate whether they want to or not (4).
Sumatrans believe that were-tiger homes are made of roofs thatched with human hair, walls made of human skin, and beams of human bones.
Joane le Roux, New Straits Times
Weretigers have a complicated place in the folklore of Asia, both within and between cultures. Should you want to know how to recognize them, just to be safe, there are a few ways. One of the most common signs is that weretigers lack the groove on the upper lip (5, 9). A person caught vomiting chicken feathers is considered a likely suspect for a weretiger (12). I would suggest that that should make them suspect for something regardless. The tracks of the weretiger are distinctive because there are five toes on each paw, whereas normal tigers, like all cats, leave prints with five toes on the front paws and four on the back (10, 11). If you see large cat prints with any number of toes, perhaps the best practice is to depart with haste rather than start counting.
Works Cited
- Brighenti, F. (2017). Traditional beliefs about weretigers among the Garos of Meghalaya. eTropic, 16(1), 96-111. PDF
- Brighenti, F. (2011). Kradi mliva: The phenomenon of tiger-transformation in the traditional lore of the Kondh tribals of Orissa. Lokaratna, 4, 11-25. PDF
- Casal, U.A. (1959). The goblin fox and badger and other witch animals of Japan. Folklore Studies, 18, 1-93. doi: 10.2307/1177429.
- Hammond, C.E. (1992). Sacred metamorphosis: The weretiger and the shaman. Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 46(2/3), 235-255. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23658449
- Wessing, R. (1995). The last tiger in East Java: Symbolic continuity in ecological change. Asian Folklore Studies, 54(2), 191-218. doi: 10.2307/1178941
- Wessing, R. (1994). “Bangatowa,” “Patogu” and “Gaddhungan”: Perceptions of the tiger among the Madurese. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 25(2), 368-380. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20071663
- Biria, S.G.D. (1947). The Muria and their Ghotul. Oxford University Press.
- Worra, B.T. (2012, December 20). Pondering weretigers of Laos. On the Other Side of the Eye. http://thaoworra.blogspot.com/2012/12/pondering-weretigers-of-laos.html
- bin Ahmad, Z.A. (1922). The tiger-breed families. Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 85, 36-39. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41561390
- Lyngdoh, M. (2016). Tiger transformation among the Khasis of northeastern India: Belief worlds and shifting realities. Anthropos, 111(2), 649-658. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44791292
- Kharmawphlang, D. (2000). In search of tigermen: The were-tiger tradition of the Khasis. India International Centre Quaterly, 27(4), 160-176. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23005708
- le Roux, J. (2014, November 1). In pursuit of a were-tiger. New Strait Times. https://www.nst.com.my/news/2015/09/pursuit-were-tiger
Published October 26th, 2020
