Woman Turns into Hyena (1936)

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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



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



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.

Documents

Woman Turns into Hyena (1936)