Beast
Page 17
Lion/Beast of Gévaudan connection:
• There is one historical artwork (circa 1764) depicting a carnivorous predator resembling a big cat sporting a clear visible mane and a long tufted tail in the region of the Gévaudan. The creature depicted, which looks very much like a lion (with a relatively short muzzle), is attacking a young girl. We can also see the creature’s back leg and one is tempted to see the typical big cat-furred paw with rounded toes without claws (which seem to be retracted).
The Gévaudan “lion” attacking a girl. Note the mane, long tufted tail, and big-cat paws. Black-and-white engraving circa 1764. Private Collection/Bridgeman Images.
• There are also some vague witness descriptions that stated the Beast was a “monster sired by a lion but with a mother of undetermined species.”
• In Smith’s book we learn that “Morangiès [the count] was among the first of the local inhabitants to hypothesize that the beast had African origins, and he signaled to Lafont his readiness to face a ‘lion’ if necessity required.”
Weakest characteristics for Beast identity:
• Males have manes (they are shorter in very hot regions)
• Short muzzle
• Retractable claws (not visible when relaxed)
• Not capable of surviving long harsh winters
• Exotic/tropical hyper-carnivore
Strongest characteristics for Beast identity:
• Big size
• Some cold-temperature resistance
• Uniform color
• A classic, much sought-after animal for all sorts of private collections and menageries
• A typical attraction in zoos, menageries, etc.
• Former European distribution (becoming extinct here approximately two thousand years ago). A population of Asiatic lions survived until the tenth century in the Caucasus (southeastern Europe), their last Continental outpost
• May become a man-eater with environmental or health stress
The Man-Eaters of Tsavo: Parallels to La Bête
In 1898, the British Foreign Office appointed Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. Patterson to oversee the building of a portion of a railway from the coastal city of Mombasa, Kenya, into the country of Uganda. For nine months during construction, in the vicinity of the Tsavo River in Kenya, Patterson and his workers were the prey of two man-eating lions. Work completely stopped for one three-week period due to the cats’ predations.
The lions were full size—over nine feet in length, and one measured just under four feet in height at the shoulder—and, like La Bête, they were extraordinarily bold. The animals would simply thrust their heads beneath the walls of workers’ tents or in their tent doors, lock jaws onto the throat of the nearest man, drag him off, and consume him nearby. Patterson speaks of their “dreadful purring.”
As the Gévaudanais found the Beast’s behavior eerie, Patterson describes the lions’ hunting tactics as “uncanny … the workmen finally believed they were not real animals at all, but devils in lions’ shape.” Patterson’s workers told him it was useless to try to kill the lions. They believed the cats were two deceased chiefs from the area whose spirits had become lions to oppugn the building of a railroad through their land.
Like Duhamel, the d’Ennevals, and François Antoine, Patterson found his environment one that made hunting the man-slayers next to impossible. Tsavo’s terrain was choked with undergrowth, such as the hook-thorned “wait-a-bit” bushes that grasped at clothing and impeded movement. An additional note on the environment: Research conducted by the University of Lausanne in 2009 concluded there were ecological and biological reasons for the lions’ anthropophagic tastes. First, the area’s grasslands and populations of natural prey (hoofed animals) had been diminished by elephant hunting. Second, the lions were of an advanced age, indicated by the fact that the pair had no manes. The cats also had bad teeth. Between the lack of normal food and the condition of their dentition, it makes sense that the lions would look to an alternative foodstuff: people.
Meanwhile, the lions grew more daring; they ignored fire, rocks, bullets, and poisoned bait in the form of deceased, tsetse fly-bitten service animals. Patterson says “the wily man-eaters … much preferred live men to dead donkeys.” As in the Gévaudan, there was a generous helping of hoodoo: rifles misfired, the lions’ trails were lost on rocky ground, the nocturnal-hunting cats were fired upon but vanished, seemingly unhurt, into Tsavo’s total darkness. The hunters’ misfortunes resulted in a number of workers from India becoming “more than ever confirmed in their belief that the lions were really evil spirits, proof against mortal weapons. Certainly, they did seem to lead charmed lives.”
Finally, workers began to leave the site en masse, and construction stopped for three weeks except for the lion-proofing of the quarters of those willing to stay on. Some of the crew even dug pits in the earthern floors of their tents to sleep beneath them, after positioning logs above.
Nearly thirty workers were lost to the man-eaters before the cats were eliminated. And the men remained fatalistic until the lions’ end. One worker, in relating how his late roommate was dragged from their tent in the middle of the night, commented, “Was he not fighting with a lion?”
Hyenas
Last but by no means least: For many researchers, the hyena is the favorite, and perfect, contender for the Beast.
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Hyenas are carnivorous animals that also consume carrion, and externally they do physically resemble typical members of the canid group (wolves, coyotes, foxes, dogs, etc.). Because of these similarities—including a dog-like head, a wide snout, powerful jaws, large teeth, a stocky, furry body (approximately the same size as a big dog)—many people might misidentify one as a large wolf.
Upon a number of occasions, the Beast of the Gévaudan was described, and portrayed, as a hyena.
The Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution, grew up in Auvergne, France, at the time. The young Lafayette and a friend reconnoitered nearby forests, eager to catch a sight of “the hyena of the Gévaudan.” Later he wrote, “Even at the age of eight my heart beat in sympathy with the hyena.”
Many illustrations, pictures, and historical images depict the Beast as such, explicitly expressing that the animal portrayed was a hyena. There are even historical documents in the collection of the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, connecting the hyena identification with the ferocious animal responsible for many human deaths in the Gévaudan region. Hyenas, with their typical predatory and scavenging habits, their capacity to inflict lethal bites, their wolf-like appearance, and insatiable appetites, can easily become a possible explanation for the enigma that we are investigating. Further, through a document that apparently shows the presence of hyenas in the Gévaudan, this species’ man-eating monster candidacy seems more than justified.
We start with a prehistoric candidate from the hyena clan:
Giant Short-Faced Hyena (Pachycrocruta brevirostris)
Classification:
Order Carnivora, Family Hyaenidae
Reproduction of an illustration from 1764 that represented one of the ferocious animals loose in the Gévaudan. Original, Bibliothèque nationale de France.
This large hyena was distributed throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia. Said to be as big as a lion, it weighed approximately 160 kilograms (more than 350 pounds). Likely evolving from African prehistoric brown hyenas, it moved into Europe and Asia, making its home in cave settings in savannas and woodlands. An active hunter, as opposed to a carrion eater, it consumed large herbivores. Some researchers believe it also chased other predators away from their kills, and that it occasionally hunted in small packs.
Records from some parts of the world suggest that members of the hyena family (Pachycrocuta) commonly preyed on humans (Peking man, Homo erectus pekinensis, in China). There is also evidence of competition between archaic humans and giant hyenas for a mammoth carcass at a site in Spain
(Fuente Nueva-3) dated to over one million years ago.
Giant short-faced hyena/Beast of Gévaudan connection:
Mainly this animal’s huge size, being as big as a lion. Some eyewitness descriptions describe a hyena-like animal of immense size, as large as a big cat.
Weakest characteristics for Beast identity:
• Extinct in the Pleistocene (approximately twelve thousand years ago)
• Cause of extinction: Competition with spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta)
Strongest characteristics for Beast identity:
• Big size
• Relatively recent European distribution
• French fossils
• Flesh-eater, hyper-carnivore (not as much a scavenger)
• Probably similar morphology as brown hyena (big mane)
Spotted Hyena (Crocuta crocuta)
Classification:
Order Carnivora, Family Hyaenidae
This shy but robust dog-like hyena dwells in sub-Saharan Africa. Specimens may measure 160 centimeters in length, with heights of up to eighty-nine centimeters, and weights of as much as eighty-six kilograms (about 190 pounds).
Coats range from sandy to gray/brown with dark spots which may fade in time. Tails are thin but end in a dark bushy tip. As with other hyenas, the front legs are longer than those in the back, so the back slopes to the tail. The spotted hyena has massive jaws, a powerful neck, and a large head with rounded ears. Its wide feet each have four clawed toes.
The spotted hyena prefers savannas and mosaic forests (transitional areas between moist tropical zones and drier areas) and non-alpine altitudes. They avoid deserts except those along mountainous areas and waterways.
Spotted hyenas are often thought of as scavengers and carrion eaters, but they are also skilled hunters, killing as much as 95 percent of their food. Spotted hyenas sometimes attack and kill livestock in rural parts of Africa, creating conflicts with humans.
The awesome late-Pleistocene predator, the cave hyena (Crocuta crocuta spelaea), ranged from Africa to Europe. The modern African species was also distributed in Europe during the Pleistocene, but it was smaller than its relative, not much larger than the spotted hyena of today.
Skeletal reconstructions and body outline of different carnivores. Top, spotted hyena; middle, wolf; bottom, lion.
Though rare, spotted hyenas are reported to injure or kill rural Africans each year. These events occur usually when victims are sleeping outside unprotected or are in country areas near dawn or dusk. This hyena may also enter tents when they are open, or when there is meat inside the tent.
Spotted hyena/Beast of Gévaudan connection:
Basically, the many historical artworks depicting carnivorous predators identified as hyenas in the region of the Gévaudan.
Weakest characteristics for Beast identity:
• Conspicuous dark spots all over body
• Incapable of surviving long harsh winters
• Poor and clumsy jumper
Strongest characteristics for Beast identity:
• Former range (Pleistocene) includes most of Europe, including France
• This is a powerful predator capable of taking large prey, including adult humans, easily
• Highly mobile; strong runner, capable of reaching 55 km/h
• Extinction in Europe is recent, historical
Striped Hyena (Hyaena hyaena)
Classification:
Order Carnivora, Family Hyaenidae
The striped hyena is a large and powerful animal that can be confused in the distance with a German shepherd dog or similar. It is found northern Africa, the Middle East, and Asia from Turkey to India. Length-wise, the striped hyena measures a little over 100 centimeters, and is about sixty to seventy-four centimeters high at the shoulder. Males weigh up to forty-one kilograms, females thirty-four kilograms.
This hyena has shaggy gray/tan fur, with black vertical stripes covering its sides and legs, a dark muzzle, and a black throat patch. The back, from its neck to its rump, is covered with a thick, erectile mane (which can be raised, making the hyena appear quite large; it is used in combative displays against other hyenas). Body and neck are thick and heavyset. All hyena species present a sloping profile as their front legs are longer than their rear legs, making the animals poor jumpers but good runners. Tails are fluffy and long.
Habitat-wise, the hyena prefers a dry environment: steppes scrubland, woodland savannas, semi-desert, and mountainous surrounds. It cannot survive at temperatures of minus fifteen to minus twenty degrees Celsius.
These are carrion eaters, consuming the flesh and bones of large vertebrates killed by other predators. They are also opportunistic, feeding in gardens and trash dumps and consuming smaller animals as they can: birds, mice, reptiles, turtles, and invertebrates.
The prehistoric form, sometimes regarded as a different species (Hyena prisca), was widespread in Europe, especially in France, until approximately ten thousand years ago (Pleistocene). It was a somewhat larger animal.
Striped hyenas rarely attack livestock or people and are unaggressive, even allowing dogs to attack them without attempting to defend themselves. If cornered by dogs, they may choose flight rather than a fight. And if unable to get away, they may foil dogs by playing dead. Then, with their attackers off guard, they are likely to jump to their feet and bound away to safety. There are, however, reports of hyenas attacking humans. In the 1880s, Russian news outlets reported a number of attacks south of the Caucasus mountains. These were mostly nocturnal attacks on sleeping children (in one year, twenty-five children were hurt) and on people overnighting outdoors on their properties. Random attacks on other adults were also reported, and bounties offered. Attacks were reported in 1908, and in the 1930s and 1940s, hyenas were again said to be seizing youngsters resting outside at night. Other reports of more than twenty children being carried off by hyenas came from India in the 1960s and 1970s, though one asserted that, when incidents involving other dangerous animals were taken into account, such attacks were low.
Striped hyena/Beast of Gévaudan connection:
The hyena hypothesis is supported by certain sources. Let’s start with the comments of the foremost authority on zoology in the eighteenth century, French naturalist Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de (Count) Buffon. The killings in the Gévaudan region could have been linked to the African striped hyena. This connection can be seen in Buffon’s famous Natural History, specifically Volume IX, Quadrupeds VI, 1761. Buffon tells us that the hyena:
• “Though in size equals the wolf … has, nevertheless, a contracted appearance.”
• “The hair of his body and mane is of a dark grey … yellow and black … disposed all along in waves.”
• “He lives like the wolf, by depredation, and is more strong and daring.”
• “He resides … in dens, which he forms for himself under the earth.”
• “It is a solitary animal.”
• “When at a loss for prey he scrapes up the earth … [and] the carcasses of animals and men.”
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In the 1990s, Franz Jullien of the Collection Conservation Services of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France, located a museum-published pamphlet dating to 1819. In it, there is a reference to the Gévaudan in connection with both a live hyena on display and a specimen hyena. This document states the following:
Description of what there is remarkable in the Menagerie and the Cabinet of Natural History. About the life and habits of wild animals that are enclosed both the Menagerie in the Valley of the Swiss; monitoring Places that lie [in] the Cabinet of Natural History. At the end of the garden, on the edge of the Seine, the ferocious animals are living, the care of MM. Richard Rousseau and whose familiarity with them is frightening. The king of beasts, the lion, seems to forget his voracious instinct. Note: To use this form, it is necessary, by entering through the gate, turn right. The first animals found are namely:
• No. 1 and 2: A gr
ay wolf, given the Menagerie by Mr. Sachai, and is tamed like a dog when his master comes, is done out in the yard and he lavishes his caresses. With him, the wolf-dog.
• 3. and 4. Both male and female Cape of Good Hope porcupines, sent by Mr. SM Jansens, Governor of the Cape.
• 5. Striped Hyena from the East. She was taken to Tippoo (Tipu) Sarb (Sahib) by the English, and bought in London by the French governor, brought to Paris by Bernard Lazardi, former keeper of the Menagerie. This fierce and indomitable animal is ranked in the class of lynx: he lives in Egypt; he traveled the tombs to pull the corpses, during the day attacks men, women, and children, and devours them. Sports a mane on his back, crossed like the royal tiger, it is the same species as we see in the Cabinet of Natural History, and devoured in the Gévaudan a large amount of people.
• 6. Speckled Hyena from Africa sent to France by Captain Baudin, during his expedition to Botany Bay.
• 7. Jaguar or Adive, private American animal, arrived at the Menagerie on November 14, 1817.
• 8. Belle Constantine, widow of the king of beasts [obviously a lioness], she lost her husband four years ago, was ten years old.
• 9. The lioness with dog Braque, who was raised with it.
• 10. The African Lion.
For obvious reasons the most interesting number from the list is number five, in which the eastern striped hyena (clearly differentiated from the speckled/spotted hyena, number six) is identified with a man-eating animal associated with the Gévaudan region. The connection seems important: This animal, donated by an Indian sultan, Fateh Ali Tipu (also known as Tipu Saib, 1750–1799), to the British, and later purchased by the French, is undoubtedly compared to one specimen of the museum collection that then roamed the Gévaudan–responsible, it seems, for devouring a large amount of people. This would mean that in 1819, there was a striped hyena registered in the museum’s collections as an animal coming from the Gévaudan (and responsible for attacking many people there). Is this the right interpretation? Or could this document actually be stating that a similar type of hyena, not necessarily “that one animal,” attacked and devoured people in the Gévaudan? (In other words, perhaps predators were misidentified and erroneously labeled as hyenas.)