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ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)

Guatemala GuateGojira Offline
Expert & Researcher
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(11-11-2019, 09:39 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote: What I meant was that Bornean natives revere the tiger in a similar way as say people in Western and Central Asia (where the Caspian tiger occurred) revere the tiger, as if the Bornean tiger was an animal that occurred recently, like the Caspian tiger. The Caspian tiger lives on the art and literature of Western and Central Asia, and likewise, the Bornean tiger is ritually revered by Bornean natives, as pointed out by myself and Phatio earlier. To quote Wijaya of Mongabay: https://news.mongabay.com/2016/11/was-bo...of-tigers/

"One recent morning I paid a visit to Iber Djamal, a leader of the Dayak Ngaju indigenous people. He had invited us to see his mandau, a traditional Dayak weapon. When I saw the mandau, which is a kind of machete, my attention focused not on the blade but on the fangs adorning it. What surprised me was that they were said to be tiger fangs. “These are tiger fangs, not leopard fangs,” Iber said. “The fangs that decorate this mandau are from the animals that have been killed by the weapons inherited from my ancestors. Besides tigers, there are crocodiles, bears, leopards and boars.”

“What kind of tiger was killed with this mandau?”

“A tiger in Kalimantan. It was killed by my ancestor. There used to be tigers in Kalimantan.”


*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

Iber Djamal shows off the tiger fangs on his mandau. Photo by Jemmie Delvian

Iber’s explanation certainly differs from the general understanding about tigers in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo island. Iber said that the tiger — called harimau in Indonesian and haramaung in Dayak Ngaju — was one of the animals most commonly hunted by his ancestors.
“We believe that if a man can hunt and kill a tiger when his wife is pregnant, the child will grow up to be a king or a leader,” he said. If a mandau is adorned with tiger fangs, it will endow whomever wields it with courage. “Maybe because they’re worth so much to some people, tigers in Kalimantan have been hunted to extinction,” he said. He added that if anyone in his tribe ever found a tiger, it wouldn’t be hunted, “because these animals need to be protected.”"






The Caspian tiger featured on Azerbaijani stamps: http://www.azermarka.az/en/1994.php?suba...cat=10&

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author


By contrast, we only know of the prehistoric Ngandong, Wanhsien and Trinil tigers and the Longdan 'tigrine' cat from fossils, and it was only after the discovery of their fossils that they have come to dominate the imagination of people, whereas the memory of the Bornean and Caspian tigers have been kept alive, even without having to dig up fossils, so it appears that the Bornean tiger was an animal that occurred recently, like its Caspian, Javan and Balinese relatives, and that the reason for its extinction was the same as that of those tigers: persecution by humans.

What @phatio posted earlier which IMO destroys the likelihood that the Bornean tiger became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene (we don't have skins of the Ngandong, Wanhsien and Trinil tigers and Longdan tigrine cat, at least none that we know of, unless say a frozen Wanhsien tiger is discovered, like for those Upper Pleistocene Eurasian cave lion cubs): https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-on-the-...s?page=146

Thank you for the information, and believe me that I am very open-mind about the existence in Borneo, but what Dr Hunter said in his book is also correct. Let's face it, there is no concrete evidence of the existance of the tiger in Borneo in modern times. There are "stories" about ancestors killing tigers in the area, but until someone can take a DNA test or make a Carbone 14 test on those canines or skins that the people still have, we can't be sure if the animals were as modern as they claim or if there were not introduced specimens, been a live animal killed in the island or just brough the canine/skins with them from the mainland or the other Sunda islands.

We can be sure that tigers did lived in Borneo in the Pleistocene at least, but if we base only in culture, many errors can be derived, as lions in Malayan region, dragons in China or even Yetis in the Himalayas. We do need genetic and quimical test to be sure about the true identity of those relics kept by the people of the island.
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Messages In This Thread
RE: ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris) - GuateGojira - 11-18-2019, 12:57 PM
Demythologizing T16 - tigerluver - 04-12-2020, 11:44 AM
Tiger Data Bank - Apollo - 07-28-2014, 09:54 PM
RE: Tiger Data Bank - Apollo - 07-28-2014, 10:02 PM
RE: Tiger Data Bank - Apollo - 07-29-2014, 12:56 AM
RE: Tiger Data Bank - peter - 07-29-2014, 07:05 AM
Tiger recycling bin - Roflcopters - 09-04-2014, 01:36 AM
RE: Tiger recycling bin - Pckts - 09-04-2014, 02:22 AM
RE: Tiger recycling bin - Roflcopters - 09-05-2014, 01:01 AM
RE: Tiger Data Bank - Apollo - 11-15-2014, 10:07 PM
RE: Tiger Data Bank - Apollo - 11-15-2014, 10:57 PM
RE: Tiger Data Bank - Apollo - 11-15-2014, 11:33 PM
RE: Tiger Data Bank - Apollo - 02-19-2015, 11:25 PM
RE: Tiger Data Bank - GuateGojira - 02-23-2015, 11:36 AM
Status of tigers in India - Shardul - 12-20-2015, 03:23 PM
RE: Tiger Directory - Diamir2 - 10-03-2016, 04:27 AM
RE: Tiger Directory - peter - 10-03-2016, 06:22 AM
Genetics of all tiger subspecies - parvez - 07-15-2017, 01:08 PM
RE: Tiger Predation - peter - 11-11-2017, 08:08 AM
RE: Man-eaters - Wolverine - 12-03-2017, 11:30 AM
RE: Man-eaters - peter - 12-04-2017, 09:44 AM
RE: Tigers of Central India - Wolverine - 04-13-2018, 01:17 AM
RE: Tigers of Central India - qstxyz - 04-13-2018, 08:34 PM
RE: Size comparisons - peter - 07-16-2019, 05:28 AM
RE: Amur Tigers - peter - 05-20-2021, 07:13 AM
RE: Amur Tigers - Nyers - 05-21-2021, 08:02 PM
RE: Amur Tigers - peter - 05-22-2021, 08:09 AM
RE: Amur Tigers - GuateGojira - 04-06-2022, 12:59 AM
RE: Amur Tigers - tigerluver - 04-06-2022, 01:08 AM
RE: Amur Tigers - tigerluver - 04-06-2022, 09:08 AM
RE: Amur Tigers - tigerluver - 04-06-2022, 11:30 PM
RE: Amur Tigers - peter - 04-08-2022, 07:27 AM



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