The year the nightmare began is disputed. In the Njombe, usually, tribesmen tried to avoid British authorities when there was an animal on human death. Under colonial rule villagers reaching out for help was at best infrequent, British intrusion was severely disliked. So the first of many deaths past unrecorded. Then the increasing number of deaths in the remote Njombe region of Tanganyika and what was then Northern Rhodesia (now Malawi) were merely noted and filed away. Around 1935; the deaths were reaching a surprising level, yet the world’s eyes were turned north to Europe, the rise of a funny little man with a peculiar mustache. The European world was marching towards war, and England’s concern was Hitler’s Germany – not lions and tribal villagers. No one had time for crazy lion attack rumors in a remote backwater, of a sideshow, far past civilizations end of the line.
What brought this unique predation about – well not surprisingly it was human interference combined with colonial arrogance. The British authorities program of wild animal extermination changed the Njombe dynamics. Just like that… they were gone. Anything a lion might eat was culled in an effort to stop the spread of a livestock disease. The English District Commissioner was so focused on cattle they didn’t think of the repercussions. What the game wardens spread, instead, was death – human death on a grand scale. You see, the lions began to grow increasingly hungry. The growls in the pit of lion stomach became the purrs that haunted the entire Njombe. But these were not ordinary lions, not conventional carnivores. No, these were lethal assassins. So brazen was this pride that it hunted in broad daylight, the afternoon heat beating down on their golden fur. As the brutal predation increased, feeling warmth on the back of his neck, a Njombe villager had to wonder, “Is this the sun of life or the breath of death I feel?”
Snatched from the road, the path, or their shambas it became clear that doom had come. Few horrors exist worse than being eaten alive – the dying prays “if only the end would come quickly!” But the fanged executioners were not that merciful. The prey, the human, first had to endure being tossed from one lion to the next in a demented relay to be feasted upon under the cover of the bush – miles and miles from where the attack occurred. The gaze of each killer met that of his victim for a moment while the taste of flesh floated across his tongue. Not one, not twice. This dance with darkness did not happen ten or fifty or one hundred times. Not even one thousand kills could satisfy this feeding frenzy. Over 1,500 times, this horror visited upon Njombe and the number could be as high as 5,000 as whole tribes migrated from the region in abject fear. These lions recorded one of the most prolific killing sprees ever known. No one knew where these serial predators would appear next. One afternoon, life… then, just like that… you were gone. Finally, after the end of the horror World War II visited on mankind the British once again turned towards its colonies. The famous wildlife Ranger George Rushby was sent to end the scourge. It was a long battle to put an end to these uncanny killers. Cubs had been raised to feed exclusively on humans as well. Rushby finally finished the job and closed one of the strangest chapters in the history of animal predation.
Sources:
Tucker, Abigail. “The Most Ferocious Man-Eating Lions”; Smithsonian.com. Smithsonian
Magazine, 16 Dec. 2009. Web. 30 May 2016.
Packer, Craig. “Rational Fear”; Natural History. Natural History Magazine, Inc. Web. 30 May
2016.