Tigers, Propitiation of.
Some tigers are supposed to be amenable to courtesy. In one of the Kashmîr tales, the hero in search of tiger’s milk shoots an arrow and pierces one of the teats of the tigress, to whom he explains that he hoped she would thus be able to suckle her cubs with less trouble. In other tales we find the tiger pacified if he is addressed as “Uncle.”35 So, Colonel Tod describes how a tiger attacked a boy near his camp, and was supposed to have, like the fierce Râkshasa of the Nepâl legend, released the child when he was addressed as “Uncle.”36 “This Lord of the Black Rock, for such is the designation of the tiger, is one of the most ancient bourgeois of Morwan; his stronghold is Kâla Pahâr, between this and Magawâr; and his reign during a long series of years has been unmolested, notwithstanding numerous acts of aggression on his bovine subjects. Indeed, only two nights before he was disturbed gorging on a buffalo belonging to a poor oilman of Morwan. Whether the tiger was an incarnation of one of the Mori lords of Morwan, tradition does not say; but neither gun, bow, nor spear has ever been raised against him. In return for this forbearance, it is said, he never preyed on man; or if he seized one, would, on being entreated with the endearing epithet of ‘Uncle,’ let go his hold.”37