The Tribe of Tiger [Paperback]

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 1, 2001

From the plains of Africa to her very own backyard, noted author and anthropologist Elizabeth Marshall Thomas explores the world of cats, both large and small in this classic bestseller. Inspired by her own feline's instinct to hunt and supported by her studies abroad, Thomas examines the life actions, as well as the similarities and differences of these majestic creatures. Lions, tigers, pumas and housecats: Her observations shed light on their social lives, thought processes, eating habits, and communication techniques, and reveal how they survive and coexist with each other and with humans.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Anthropologist Thomas's (The Hidden Life of Dogs) probing of the minds and souls of felines, small and domestic as well as big and feral, spent six weeks on PW's bestseller list.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Intrigued by the hunting behavior of her pet cats and those in the neighborhood, particularly since they did not need to hunt in order to survive, Thomas has penned a study of the cat family that could well become a best seller like her Hidden Life of Dogs (LJ 4/15/93). Thomas was criticized for the dog-care practices and conclusions of that book, but her new work does not suffer from her unapologetically anthropomorphic view of the animal kingdom. In Part 1, Thomas engages in an entertaining and enlightening discussion of the history of carnivores, specifically cats. Part 2 focuses on the "culture" of cats, defined as a "web of socially transmitted behaviors." Part 3 explores the future of cats and addresses the issue of their captivity, particularly in zoos and circuses. One may not always agree with Thomas's conclusions or methodology, but her artistry is always engrossing and provocative. A delightful book for those who don't mind Thomas's sometimes wild observations.
--Edell Marie Schaefer, Brookfield P.L., Wis.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Gallery Books; Reissue edition (June 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743426894
• ISBN-13: 978-0743426893
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #587,015 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Insights into human/cat interactions, beautifully written April 2, 2004

By Dennis Littrell HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

This is without doubt one of the best books on animal behavior I have ever read. What Thomas does that others do not (and often cannot) is three-fold:

First, using her long experience with animals both domestic and wild, she INTERPRETS their behavior from her observations. Most of us do that, but scientists in general do not. They cannot because such interpretations, unless established scientifically, would be labeled "anthropomorphic," and prove dangerous to their careers. You and I interpret the behavior of our animals, but most of us have only a small fraction of the experience that Elizabeth Thomas has. She has spent decades in the wild, especially in Africa, studying animals and their interactions with humans.

This interaction between humans and their way of seeing the world and that of cats and their way of seeing the world--our differing "cultures" as Thomas rightly uses the term--is the second thing she does so very well. Her stories about how the Ju/wasi people, for example, treat lions and how the lions treat them--with mutual respect--and how that differs from the way non-indigenous people treat lions is just fascinating to read. She describes the Ju/wasi talking to a couple of lions, telling them firmly and politely that a certain fallen wildebeest was theirs and that the lions should leave. After listening, the lions left. (p.118) And how the Ju/wasi behaved if by chance they should come upon a lion in the wild: the person would take an oblique angle away from the lion and walk with purpose, keeping the lion in sight but not staring. Thomas discovered that a lion meeting people sometimes would do the same!

The third thing that Thomas does extraordinary well is to use her novelist's sense of description and IMAGINE how the cat is feeling.... She writes beautifully with love and understanding, but without mawkish intent or any phony sentimentality. Here's an example:

"Even people with very inconspicuous disabilities are quickly zeroed in on by cats...the entering tigers stopped...to stare...at someone they had spotted deep in the [amphitheater] crowd. Following their gaze I finally found what they had noticed immediately: a child with Down's syndrome sitting quietly and (to me) inconspicuously amid his family." (p. 123)

If you limp by a caged carnivore, a wolf or a leopard, say, your limping will excite the animal because an injured or disabled animal is its best prey. As Thomas explains, carnivores want to obtain their meals with as little risk of injury to themselves as possible because any injury in the wild can prove fatal.

Here's Thomas on the roaring of lions: "At about ten o'clock that night a lioness suddenly appeared between the two camps and began to roar. The loudness of lions cannot be described or imagined but must be experienced. My body was so filled with the sound that I couldn't think or breathe, and in the brief silences between the roars my ears rang." (p. 135)

She goes on to speculate later in the book that lions may use their roars to frighten and flush out their prey.

On page 161 Thomas describes exchanging yawns with a lioness lying by a water hole. Thomas yawned and then, "To my amazement, without taking her eyes off me she also yawned. Was it coincidence...Was it empathy? Fascinated I deliberately yawned again. She yawned again!"

I've had similar experiences with cats. A yawn is a signal that they are comfortable with your presence. Domestic cats in the yard will also turn their back on you as they lie on their side to signal that they are comfortable with your presence.

I always wondered about water holes on the savannas in Africa. How could the various animals come to drink in safety, and how did they manage to avoid one another? Thomas gives a convincing explanation. The lions, who are most active at night, come in the night to drink. During the heat of the day prey animals come when the lions are resting. And of course the humans wait until the sun is fully up before approaching. When the elephants come, the lions leave. Interestingly enough, Thomas claims that lions will not spoil the water hole with their scat.

Thomas's skill as a novelist shows in this passage. She is describing her friend Katharine Payne's experience with a lion that she had spotted just a few feet away as she lay in her sleeping bag: "He looked and looked at Katy. She looked and looked at him, hearing the wet noises of him swallowing his saliva and settling his tongue. He was thinking of eating. Cats are famous for their patience--the big lion watched Katy while the moon slowly rose behind him...The lion continued to think of eating. Eventually, he drooled." (p. 162)

One of the points that Thomas makes in this book is that all cats, from four hundred pound lions to our house cats, have much in common. Our domestic little kitties are more social than we think, and their hunting instincts are just as savage as those of a leopard. And yes lions purr.

She also claims that tigers are better off in circuses than in zoos mainly because they engage in regular activity that stimulates them, and that they enjoy their interactions with their trainers. She makes a convincing argument, and yet we must have zoos because without them most of us could not see these magnificent creatures; and indeed someday sadly zoos will be their only home. Maybe what is needed are zookeepers who know the culture of their animals well enough to provide them with something more than meat and boredom.

It is wonderful how Thomas becomes, for the purpose of this book, the animals she describes. Here she describes a lioness observing cattle: "One whiff of that dizzying, grassy scent would have set a lion's mouth watering." (pp. 181-182) Read more ›

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A serious insight into the feral nature of housecats. December 17, 1996

By Michael J. Tresca VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I was never a cat lover. I was definitely a dog person, and I (like all former dog owners) think my dog Jingles was the best dog in the whole wide world. Now we have a cat named Maya. All the myths I ever had about cats were turned on on their ear. In a similar fashion, The Tribe of Tiger gives a powerful insight into these animals without being overly sweet. Very often books of this type become unreadable to non-cat owners who get sick from the sugary references to cats at their cutest. Instead, Thomas examines all manner of cats, from the plight of the African lions to the triumph of the house cat. I wasn't aware that cats had a social organization at all, but unlike dogs (who have a distinct order in the pack), cats treat one cat as leader, with the others all equal in a kind of spoked-wheel formation. When you find out just how important it is that a cat meet another cat's gaze (and the trials of a blind cat who was unable to do so), you will have a new respect for cats, and this book.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Like my three cats, this book leaps all over the place May 5, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

When I first caught sight of this book it looked very enthralling. I am a huge lover of cats and of animals in general. However, I left somewhat disappointed.

It seemed to me that there was insufficient evidence to back up the numerous claims she makes, many of which seemed based on anctedotal evidence. I appreciate her not wanting to bog the book down, but I do think that more evidence was needed to back up many of her claims, particularly in the instances where she was more forceful about her claims. She could have done this by simply by providing more examples. I'm not saying most of them aren't valid claims, she just needed to provide more evidence.

Half of the book relates her family's experiences among African bushman in the 1950s and 1980s. In the the middle of the book I was uncertain whether I was reading a book on cats or on the culture of the African bushmen (much of which was very intriguing indeed, but it was just not what I wanted from this particular book.)

I loved her notion that cats have their own culture. However her book tried to awkwardly force the cat culture into the human cultural mould, as though the cat culture in and of itself was not valid unless directly paralleled to that of humans.

Also, as an animal lover, I did not like the episode in which she joined a researcher whose method it was to capture pumas for radio collaring by having his dogs tree them.

In the episode she recounts one of his dogs killing one of a young puma mother's kittens--not exactly what I wanted to read. After the kitten was killed the author came back later the SAME day with the researcher, who used a gentler dog to tree the remaining kittens as the mother paced about from afar. They were then safely fitted with radio collars.... I don't have a problem with radio collars so much as I do with the somewhat heartless methods this particular researcher used to capture the animals. That just kind of left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

The book is not all bad, there were some decent parts, but it just really was not what I was expecting. In addition, the book just did not seem to flow the way I would have liked it to, but was somewhat choppy. Read more ›

26 of 37 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars The Circus culture February 15, 2004

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

I spend a lot of time in India and am very knowledgeable about tigers. I was absolutely amazed to read that Ms Thomas thought it perfectly acceptable for tigers to be kept in tiny cages, and dragged around America only to emerge in a circus ring and then be put back in a cage. Ms Thomas seems to think this a wonderful life guaranteed to keep tigers alert and happy, and reccomends the practice continue. She even sings the praises of John Cuneo who breeds tigers for circuses in the US and is currently being prosecuted for animal cruelty.
On the tiger in a circus: Ôthe owners live in small trailers and tigers live in travellin cages on wheels, each cage about twice the length of the tiger who inhabits it. Sometimes nothing beteter than a large tarp or the edge of a circus tent shelters these little groups of people and tigers just barely protecting them from wind sun & rainÕ

The tiger is a top predator, it is extremely intelligent and built to hunt. That is its raison d'etre.

Even when not hunting a tiger will prowl may be 15 miles a night.
They spend 2 years teaching their cubs to hunt.
If Ms Thomas seriously think that learning a few miserable tricks to perform in a ring, keep an animal such as this stimulated and happy, she clearly has no knowledge of tigers at all and frankly makes one wonder what if anything else she writes about in the book has any validity.

If you are interested in tigers, don't buy this ridiculous book buy anything by Valmik Thapar, a man who really does know about this majestic predator.