Courage, and Courage!

I’m going to take another self-indulgent detour here, because I often hear the word “courage” used when someone is willing to take a stance about any issue where exposure to peer or public criticism is probable. I’m going to quote one of the heroes of my youth, whose exploits remain as stellar to me today as they did when I read them in 1955. Major Jim Corbett, of British Colonial India wrote books about his experiences, perceptions, and values as he lived in the Kumaon area of India, near the SW corner of Nepal. As a service without compensation, provided because he felt his abilities came bound with responsibilities for their proper use, he hunted and killed man-eating tigers and leopards. He did this alone, and often into or through the night. Lest he be considered brave by his own words, he described what true bravery in the face of man-eating tigers required. In “Man-Eaters of Kumaon” (Oxford University Press, India 1944, New York 1946. My First Edition, with dust jacket, is a personal treasure.)

Corbett describes a man’s search for his son:

“The father of the lad returned to the village at sunset and was greeted with the very gratifying news that his son had been accepted for the army, and that he had returned from Landsdowne on short leave. Asking where the lad was, he was told that he had gone out earlier in the day to get fodder, and surprise was expressed that the father had not found him at home. After bedding down the bullocks the father went from house to house to find his son. All the men who had been out that day were questioned in turn, and all had the same tale to tell – that they had separated at the head of the valley, and no one could remember having seen the lad after that.

“Crossing the terraced cultivated land the father went to the edge of the steep hill, and called and called again to his son, but received no answer.

“Night was by now setting in. The man returned to his home and lit a small smoke-dimmed lantern, and as he passed through the village he horrified his neighbors by telling them, in reply to their questions, that he was going to look for his son. He was asked if he had forgotten the man-eater and answered that it was because of the man-eater that he was so anxious to find his son, for it was possible that he had fallen off a tree and injured himself and, for fear of attracting the man-eater, had not answered to his call.

“He did not ask anyone to accompany him, and no one offered to do so, and for the whole of that night he searched up and down that valley in which no one had dared to set foot since the advent of the man-eater. Four times during the night –- as I saw from his footprints – when going along the cattle track he had passed within ten feet of where the tiger was lying eating his son.

“Weary and heartsick he climbed a little way up the rocky hill as light was coming, and sat down for a rest. From this raised position he could see into the ravine. At sunrise he saw a glint of blood on the two big rocks, and hurrying down to the spot he found all that the tiger had left of his son. …

“I do not think it would be correct to assume that acts such as these are performed by individuals who lack imagination and who therefore do not realize the grave risks they run. The people of our hills, in addition to being very sensitive to their environments, are very superstitious, and every hill-top, valley, and gorge is credited with possessing a spirit in one form or another, all of the evil and malignant kind most to be feared during the hours of darkness. A man brought up in these surroundings, and menaced for over a year by a man-eater, who, unarmed and alone, from sunset to sunrise, could walk through dense forests which his imagination peopled with evil spirits, and in which he had every reason to believe a man-eater was lurking, was in my opinion possessed of a quality and degree of courage that is given to few. All the more do I give him credit for his act of heroism for not being conscious that he had done anything unusual, or worthy of notice. When at my request he sat down near the man-eater to enable me to take a photograph, he looked up at me and said, in a quiet and collected voice, ‘I am content now, sahib, for you have avenged my son.’ “

When India achieved independence, Corbett left the only home he and his family had known since 1815, and moved to East Africa, where he died in 1955. He felt that he did not belong in India; that he would be a distraction from their restructuring of the Kumaon as a part of a free India. He had been an influential voice for appreciation for and the preservation of natural habitat and wildlife, and he is more broadly renowned for his wildlife photography than his exploits with a gun. The first and largest National Park in India bears his name. It is the only National Anything in India that is named for a non-Ethnic-Indian.

When I checked the statistics for 2002, as of late summer, significantly more than 100 people had been eaten by tigers in India. The numbers for Bangladesh and elsewhere in SE Asia were not available. Various other critters were more lethal and easily hidden than large smelly cats.