As the cold winds howled around the corner, a lone Hmong woman stood on the banks of a small stream. She stared into the darkness, her eyes closed as she prayed for guidance. It was noon, and she had just been called to work by her church. But she refused to leave her home. As she sat on the bank, waiting for a boat that wouldn’t pour into the water, someone approached. A man asked if he could help her out of her hut. She told him she wasn’t their guest but they would ask no questions and let her go. The man left, leaving her empty-handed. When he returned later, he found blood all over her hut and said that it was from where a tiger had taken up residence there. The next day, another boat coming in from a fishing trip came ashore and found more bodies along with some knives and other instruments of violence in the water around them – signs that another tiger had nested here recently too!
The Hmong – fighting for their rights
It was February of this year, and a farmer from the nearby city of Bambu was out taking his morning walk when he encountered an old man with a wooden club on his back. “What’s this,” he yelled as he stepped in front of him and clubbed the old man on the head with the kickstand of the wooden club. The man was lifeless in the road. “Did you do that to her?” he yelled at the back of his own throat. No one answered. The man, who was a sympathizer, was soon pursued by villagers, who forced their way through the few who dared to challenge them. “Did you do that?” they asked, their anger turning to fear as they saw the man continue walking. “Did he hurt her?” they bellowed. The man finally turned, seeing the angry faces around him, and came running back towards his home in a daze. When he reached it, he burst into tears and told everyone that he had been hit by a tiger and that he was saving his life by doing so.
“Tiger in the wood!”
A few days later, when a neighbor heard that a swift and hard-charging Hmong tiger had been sighted in the nearby forests, he rushed to the spot. But as he and his family were about to enter the Tiger Woods, a herd of elephants, including the entire family, ran past, carrying the elephants’ tusks in their mouths. Caught up in the moment, the bear-like man didn’t see the elephant charge further and was easily captured by the elephants’ cohorts. The elephants then unloaded their loads onto the bear and he was spirited away in a trap.
“Did he hurt her?”
When a friend of the family heard that a man had been hacked to death by a tiger, he also rushed to the spot. But as he and his two young children were walking to school, they were unexpectedly intercepted by an enraged tiger. The family members ran into the forest and hiding in the underbrush, shouted at the tiger to come out and attack, but it kept lurking in the woods. Finally, the family members heard the thuds of the approaching vehicle, and they were saved from certain death by the timely arrival of their school colleague and friend, who happened to be the headmaster of their primary school. The car looked as if it was carrying a group of kids, and the boys, who were in the front, were accidentally hit by the car as it was going by. The young man, who happened to be a zookeeper, was sitting in the back with his two sons; he was nearly hit by the car as well. The family members rushed to his side, but the young man was already dead. “Did he hurt her?” their friend asked. “Did he kill her?” their teacher shouted. “Where is he now?” When the man was finally found guilty of murder, he was publicly strangled with the school’s school tie.
