Man Eaters of Kumaon

[James Harvey]

#2602

I remember reading Don Thomas saying something very complimentary about Jim Corbett’s book about the Indian man eaters. I don’t remember if it was in TBM or one of his books, but I’ve been looking for it in every bookstore I visit, alas the natural history and outdoor sections of all the stores I find are woefully lacking.

Once again in this absurdly information rich world, the internet has provided and I’ve found a copy of the Man Eaters of Kumaon, only one of Corbett’s books on his Indian adventures. You can read it online at the site or download the book in various formats.

https://archive.org/details/maneatersofkumao029903mbp

I haven’t read it yet, but it’s on the list and comes with high praise so perhaps some of you folks can enjoy it too 😀

Jim

[Brennan Herr]

#11180

Jim,

Not sure if you can ship it to your side of the earth… But here is a reprint http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0195622553

I have an old copy I have read several times…one of my favorites…wish I could have been in the tree with him!

[Murray]

#11209

I think I’ve read all his books, and loved every one. I’ve often said that if only half his stories were true, ( I believe everything he wrote is real, if only because he wrote so humbly about his adventures), he had to be one of the bravest men ever.

[Ed Ashby]

#11529

My all-time favorite. I have two copies. No telling how many times I’ve re-read it. I think Gentleman Jim understood more about what was going on around him in the wilds than any writer I know of.

Ed

[wahoo]

#11647

thank you very much . I was checking that out and this afternoon I am going to start reading that book. Thank you

[skinner biscuit]

#11744

A favorite of mine as well.I would also recommend Hemingway on Hunting.

[David Petersen]

#11905

Yep, I’m overdue to reread that classic, which I first found in junior high and have revisited several times since. Thanks for the reminder Jim.

Other nonfiction books in the same category–extremely well-written accounts of life-r-death hunting adventures lived and written not by wealthy sports on cushy safari, but by real people just trying to survive, include Patterson’s Lions of Tsavo (even better than the film) and Maxwell and Ruud’s The Year-Long Day (polar bear hunting and winter survival on an island off Norway, set in the 1970s). The latter is so amazingly well written that I more than once had to put the book down and go do something else for a while in order to get my BP back down enough to continue reading. Pretty much a gripping survival drama on every page.

God bless books, eh?

[Col Mike]

#12256

Jim

Went immediately to my library and pulled out my dogeared copy, first margin notes are dated 1962 so I was about 12 then, enjoy a real classic.

A minor correction on Dave’s review of “The year long day” it is about trapping for arctic fox—and the polar bears are hunting him:shock: Dave is right that you will never read a book so gripping in the emotion of the moment.

Enjoy both. Without books there would be no joy in life.

[James Harvey]

#12294

My reading list is getting loaded up at the moment 😀 Year long day is added!

[Ptaylor]

#13136

Year long day must be good. It sells for $130 new!

[David Petersen]

#13205

Shhhh! Don’t let ColMike hear that or he’ll demand back the hardcover first edition he “loaned” me. 😛 I’m thinking you should be able to find a reasonably priced used copy via the amazon network of booksellers, where I buy most of my books these days. I hadn’t checked on that one. Hurry before others here beat you to it. 😛

[David Petersen]

#13281

Here you go, PT http://www.amazon.com/The-Year-Long-Day-Mans-Arctic/dp/0397011318 $35.04 used good condition. This book ran several editions in various languages following the original in Norwegian. Clearly it’s a collector’s item and a bargain in hardback for $35 smackers. Just hard to imagine anyone sharing our common interests wouldn’t feel it a worthwhile investment and lifetime keeper … just as I plan to keep Mike’s copy, unless and until he comes here and pries it from my cold dead hands.

Yes, the Norsky is spending a winter alone on an arctic island to trap fox to sell the skins in order to finance yet another winter there (the book is a collation of his first four winters, but he did 10 in all). But once the ice comes in and the seals are accessible, he also hunts polar bears for their valuable hides, though as noted he usually doesn’t have to go looking for them as they do their best to come inside his plywood shack with him! Damn, now I have to go read it again. First page and you’re happily hooked.

[Col Mike]

#13301

When referring to me and my fiscal knowledge Linda says that dumb Marine is redundant:lol: Well it was a gift given freely –because it is a good work and I knew Dave would appreciate it—however I’m thinking a good bottle of scotch around the next campfire we share:D

Seriously—it is one of the best reads you will find. Maybe check out your library and if they don’t have it they can borrow from one that does. That’s how I got a Dr.Geist recommendation from Dave that sells for $900:evil:

Good book hunting.

Mike

[David Petersen]

#13311

Mike, I sure appreciate your offer to provide a bottle of good Scotch for our next campfire! 😆

[Col Mike]

#13338

Dave

Nice thought you wouldn’t know what was good. The Patron and cigars are on you:D And Bruce has provided the info to ensure we can get the darn fire started—although my bow and drill are good backups–you just might have to wait a bit.:?

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#13350

colmike wrote: When referring to me and my fiscal knowledge Linda says that dumb Marine is redundant:lol:

Now that’s love, eh Mike? 😀

[Ptaylor]

#13359

Yep, used on amazon. Might as well pick it up and Clay’s book at the same time. Books are how I go into debt…

[Charles Ek]

#13943

There are two books that mothers should burn every time they find them on the premises. “The Year-Long Day” is one; the other is “Call of the Wild”.

Had my own mother heeded this dictum, she would not have been asking scant weeks after my wife and I moved to Alaska (the first time), “When are you coming back?”

BTW, the price was $8.95 when I bought it new. 😉 But of course gas was something like $0.599 a gallon at the time as well …

[Don Thomas]

#15726

Corbett is a model for all of us. No one has ever seriously disputed the veracity of the stories, the heroes of which are, in this order: 1. The great cats, 2. The people of the Himalayan foothills who dealt with them, 3. The terrain, and 4. (and a distant #4 at that), the writer and hunter. Quite a contrast to today’s TV hunting stars. Bear in mind that although Corbett tracked down more man-eaters than anyone, ever, often under terrifying conditions, non/anti-hunters named India’s first tiger sanctuary in his honor, AND a threatened subspecies. As a hunting writer I’ve always found Hemingway disappointing despite the brilliance of his early fiction. “Green Hills of Africa?” Hunting as competitive sport–are you kidding? If you want great American writing about hunting, go straight to Faulkner’s “The Bear.” Don

[skinner biscuit]

#16284

Anyone ever read Sasha Siemel’s “Tigero”?

[Etter1]

#16346

Great. Now I have to order three more books. I live reading of these man eaters. Its nice to know that we get to be the prey once in a while as well.

I have “the tiger” and “maneaters of tsavo”. Cant wait to add these to the collection.

[James Harvey]

#16554

I’m only half through Kumaon, but a remarkable thing I have noted is that I have to keep reminding myself that what Corbett is doing is in fact incredible. As Don points out, he writes himself in as a minor actor, an observer of all these wonderful things. Which he is in a way.

But in another more incredible way, he zig zags across a head wind because he knows the maneater he is hunting, which is also hunting him, would sneak up behind him and kill him if he just walked straight into the wind. Think about that next time you’re in a lonely bit of woods with the breeze in your face :shock::D

[David Petersen]

#16585

Etter–thanks for reminding us of “The Tiger.” Among all these great life-and-death tales, I’d be hard-pressed to say which I rate 1#, The Tiger, or The Year-Long Day. I think “The Tiger” because it has many interesting characters, some of whom get ‘et, while Ruud miraculously survives all his endless challenges. But if you’re into heart-pounding suspense I reckon, for me Year-Long Day has a slight edge on Tiger. You just can’t lose with any of these books. My daily reading is far less exciting, but necessary to satisfy my curiosities about life and death. When a book like one of these comes along it’s like going on vacation. There are parts of Doug Peacock’s “The Grizzly Years,” like the story of the black grizzly, that almost put it in the class with these others. Close but no donut, as he is not being actively hunted like these other fellers. All IMHO, as always.

[Col Mike]

#16596

“Death in the long Grass” Capstick. Another one for you Etter and Ptaylor’s book debt:D.

Ausjim—saw a report today on one of my science blurbs that show’s croc’s climb trees:shock: One scientist was quoted that you would have to climb about 5meters up to escape.

Put those thorn bushes around the camp and build the fire up:lol:

Mike

[Charles Ek]

#16642

donthomas wrote: If you want great American writing about hunting, go straight to Faulkner’s “The Bear.”

And for a whole lot more, as you are undoubtedly aware. Having read everything by Faulkner a few times, I’m unsure at this point what to advise someone who might never have read any of it and now contemplates “The Bear”. Perhaps this –

Leave “it” all behind, taking only a compass and a stick for the snakes as Isaac did, and just go into the woods with the bear, heeding Sam’s advice:

“You ain’t looked right yet,” Sam said.

He stopped. For a moment he didn’t answer. Then he said peacefully, in a peaceful rushing burst as when a boy’s miniature dam in a little brook gives way, “All right. But how? I went to the bayou. I even found that log again. I—“

“I reckon that was all right. Likely he’s been watching you. You never saw his foot?”

“I,” the boy said—“I didn’t—I never thought—“

“It’s the gun,” Sam said. He stood beside the fence motionless—the old man, the Indian, in the battered faded overalls and the five-cent straw hat which in the Negro’s race had been the badge of his enslavement and was now the regalia of his freedom. The camp—the clearing, the house, the barn and its tiny lot with which Major de Spain in his turn had scratched punily and evanescently at the wilderness—faded in the dusk, back into the immemorial darkness of the woods. The gun, the boy thought. The gun.

“Be scared,” Sam said. “You can’t help that. But don’t be afraid. Ain’t nothing in the woods going to hurt you unless you corner it, or it smells that you are afraid. A bear or a deer, too, has got to be scared of a coward the same as a brave man has got to be.”

The gun, the boy thought.

“You will have to choose,” Sam said.

[critch]

#17444

Man is the Prey (1969) by James Frederick Clarke. There are one or two of Corbett’s stories in there. This is one of my favorite books.

Congo Kitabu by Jeanne-Pierre Hallet is also very good, however, I have read some reviews that he may not be telling the whole truth..I have no idea one way or another on this one.

[David Petersen]

#17678

Critch — Writers rarely tell the whole truth. Nor much of anyone else for that matter, since NO one really knows what the truth is and anyone who claims to know is either a fool or a scoundrel. I know that’s not what you were saying, but sometimes I can’t help myself. 😆

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#17706

David Petersen wrote: Critch — Writers rarely tell the whole truth. Nor much of anyone else for that matter, since NO one really knows that the truth is. It’s impossible. 😆

Or, there is an over-abundance of it, depending on which way you want to look at it…:wink:

[Col Mike]

#17739

David

I believe you spoke the TRUTH:D Keep them EFOC statements coming they liven the evening.

Mike

[Ralph]

#18375

Hard to know what’s true when people tend to overemphasize the truth about themselves so often.

Good for the old brain to go off in a different direction and not worry about what’s real and what’s not. Sometimes one needs to be in the frame of mind of “who cares” and just enjoy the story.

[Doc Nock]

#18388

What’s that saying? there are Lies, Damn Lies and then Statistics!

Truth, in my view, is just a matter of time. There was a line in one of John Wayne’s movies where someone said, something about no god or law West of the Pecos… and Wayen’s character comes back with “sooner or later law comes to everywhere, and when people get anywhere, they find out God was already there!”

When stories are being told, I’m with R2. There are times when suspension of doubt is relevant to the enjoyment of a well told story. As long as it’s received as “entertainment” and not that on which one builds reality or their voting preferences! 8):roll:

[Bruce Smithhammer]

#18393

On a more serious note, though – I’ve heard that some of our most esteemed luminaries – Howard Hill, Fred Bear, etc. might have spun the details of a hunt to make a more entertaining yarn now and then…

[Doc Nock]

#18399

Ahhh, good one SH!

In my limited time on terra firma, I’ve come t o accept that “Truth is stranger than fiction!

And where else would that be more fitting than in hunting and fishing tales (or tails) 😆

[Ralph]

#18491

The bigger the fish, the better the story. Works for me.:)

[James Harvey]

#18665

I always reckon as long as the spin (or lies) are in the cause of the narrative, helping the story flow, they’re ok. Some truths can be a matter of perspective as well…

Jim

[David Petersen]

#18758

As one who has long written true stories for a marginal living, I must say from this point of view that I detest writers who insert lies in their so-called “nonfiction.” It gives them unfair advantage over those with a loyalty to the truth and it’s just plain cheating. And if such writers have an agenda, political or otherwise, that makes it even worse.

That’s why God created fiction–so that we can spin out yarns any which way that works best for entertainment. Lying in “nonfiction” equates to cross-breeding a skunk with a songbird.

I guess I’m old fashioned. 🙄

[Ralph]

#18812

Lily Tomlin as Edith Ann

“And that’s the truff”. 😀

I highly respect an author of non fiction that keeps the “I” part as such and doesn’t start expanding the “I” to “I” and the tale only continues towards self. A hunter sharing the story of a hunter hunting should be a hunting story, not an autobiography of the hunter.

The hunt or the topic is the subject of David’s writings, not David . As it should be in my book :lol:.

[Murray]

#19052

Speaking of suspending belief,, even though I’ve read and enjoyed all of Capstick’s books, the opinion of every African PH we’ve asked, said he was never a licensed hunter. The most popular thought train was that he was a resort/bar manager who collected all those tales, then just inserted himself in the hero’s slot. I don’t know the truth, but my brothers and I have questioned several people from several African countries, and that was the overwhelming result. He was a very entertaining writer, if you liked his wannabe Ruark style, and I guess I do, since I think I own all his books.

[James Harvey]

#19231

Dave, I should have also said that as long as the spin isn’t a matter of gravity or importance. Some subjects, or contexts that may never be the case. But if you wrote that you shot an elk in the morning then got rained on in the afternoon, when in fact it happened the other way round, I wouldn’t be too concerned.

[Etter1]

#20949

I own and have read several of capsticks books and while reading them, i thought to myself that they may be a little exagerated. After doing some research, I found out that capstick and his writing have been largely discredited. It bummed me out for the rest of his books.

[Ed Ashby]

#22067

Murray wrote: Speaking of suspending belief,, even though I’ve read and enjoyed all of Capstick’s books … He was a very entertaining writer, if you liked his wannabe Ruark style, and I guess I do, since I think I own all his books.

I met Peter and his wife, and Gordon Cormack (the PH I was ‘appie’ for) knew them well and spent many nights in their home. All I’ll say is that the stories Perer wrote about are all from real events … in the life of actual P.H’s. Enough said. All else notwithstanding, Peter’s writings attracted a lot of interest in African hunting, brought lots of new clients to Africa and made him a relatively comfortable living.

Ed

[Etter1]

#22089

Guess I should have read all the posts in this thread before responding about capstick. Lol.

[James Harvey]

#27126

Finished the book a week or so ago. “Excellent” doesn’t begin to describe it. Maybe “foundational to the genre” would be appropriate? The fact that all the elders here (I mean that respectfully 😉 ) chimed in and said it was high on all their bookshelves ought to be review enough I reckon.

I found another couple of copies of Year-long Day here for about 25 schmackos:

http://www.abebooks.com/products/isbn/9780575023062?clickid=3%3AKTyyWJZwGzRm7x1K03QWueUkTU%3AsWdPW-ZQA0&cm_mmc=aff-_-ir-_-64682-_-77798&afn_sr=impact

I already bought the one in Australia if you still see it listed! The one in the UK still has it’s dust cover though…

[Charles Ek]

#29595

It seems the services of the late Mr. Corbett would still be in demand:

Tiger Population Grows in India, as Does Fear After Attacks

Leopard on Loose Paralyzes Northern Indian City

[WyoStillhunter]

#35174

Yep, I was just revisiting this thread and was going to add that just days ago I saw an article about a recurrence of tiger attacks in parts of India.

Maybe I will re-read Corbett’s book…it’s been a while since I did.

[StickbowmanMI]

#36334

I understand that although Jim was a professional hunter that he was known as the Father of Conservation in India because he would not shoot the tiger unless he confirmed that it was a man eater. His stories are so simple and courageous. He must have had no fear at all in him. His descriptions of hunting and tracking are right on the money! You could tell that he was the real deal.

[Author]

Posts