Spell of the Tiger: The Man Eaters of Sundarbans

The Sundarbans, a huge, swampy area in the Bay of Bengal, remains the largest tract of mangrove forests on the face of the earth and is the only place where tigers eat men. Elsewhere in Asia, tigers are rapidly being hunted to extinction, but here they are the hunters, routinely carrying away fishermen, honey gatherers and woodcutters and feasting on human flesh. SY Montgomery has devoted years to this mist-shrouded, forest screened region, and in Spell of the Tiger, she tells us all about the peculiar relationship between tigers and their human prey, how it feels to know that as a human being you are, to the tiger, merely a source of meat. Although they fear tiger attacks, the men and women of Sundarbans have turned the tiger into an object of veneration. Montgomery investigates the strange forms of tiger worship. She comes to the conclusion that Sundarbans has been protected from destruction by the tigers who prevent humankind from destroying their own habitat.