ORPHOSIS COMPARED WITH OTHER BRANCHES OF LYCANTHROPY

The wolf is not the only animal whose shape, it is stated, man may
possess the power of assuming; and it may be of some interest to inquire
briefly into the varying branches of lycanthropy, comparing them with
the one already under discussion.

In Orissa, the power of metamorphosing into a tiger is asserted by the
Kandhs to be hereditary, and also to be acquired through the practice of
magic; many who have travelled in this country have assured me that
there is a very great amount of truth in this assertion; and that
although there are, without doubt, a number of impostors among those
designated wer-tigers, there are most certainly many who are genuine.

As with the werwolf, so with the wer-tiger, the metamorphosis is usually
dependent on the hour of the day, and generally occurs cotemporaneous
with the setting of the sun.

But the lycanthropy of the wer-tiger differs from that of the werwolf
inasmuch as there is a definite god or spirit, in the shape of a tiger,
that is directly responsible for the bestowal of the property. This
tiger deity is looked upon and worshipped as a totem or national
deity--that is to say, as a divine being that has the welfare of the
Kandh nation especially at heart. It is communed with at home, but more
particularly in the wild dreariness of the jungle, where, on the
condition that the prayers of its devotees are sufficiently concentrated
and in earnest, it confers--as an honour and privilege--the power of
transmutation into its own shape. Some idea of its appearance may
perhaps be gathered from the following description of it given me by a
Mr. K----, whose name I see in the list of passengers reported "missing"
in the deplorable disaster to the "Titanic."

"Anxious to see," Mr. K---- stated, "if there was anything of truth in
the alleged materialization of the tiger totem to those supplicating it,
I went one evening to a spot in the jungle--some two or three miles from
the village--where I had been informed the manifestations took place. As
the jungle was universally held to be haunted I met no one; and in spite
of my dread of the snakes, big cats, wild boars, scorpions, and other
poisonous vermin with which the place was swarming, arrived without
mishap at the place that had been so carefully described to me--a
circular clearing of about twenty feet in diameter, surrounded on all
sides by rank grass of a prodigious height, trolsee