#tsavo man-eaters

[queen-shiba]

Another fic idea I'm actually gonna write (Leona x black fem! Reader)

Warning: This fic will contain gore and other foul imagery and descriptions.

The Tsavo Man-Eaters were a pair of man-eating male lions in the Tsavo region of Kenya, which were responsible for the deaths of many construction workers on the Kenya-Uganda Railway between March and December 1898. The lion pair was said to have killed 135 people.

Now imagine these two, but as Leona and Falena.

Two deadly killers feared by all, fae included.

They're demons wandering the Savanah in search of lost souls who happen to be unlucky enough to catch their attention.

These bodies are feasted upon, and nothing but bones are left.

Reader is on the run from these demons, who have been targeting her for the longest time.

She is not weak, and she is actually known to be pretty intelligent and witty. There is a fragile side to her as well.

Having been confronted by Leona, she shows that she is not one to be trifled with.

She fought back and stood her ground against this demon, making him curious to know about her, even if she injured him greatly.

I want this fic to be inclusive to both African diaspora and Africans, so whether or not the reader is foreign is up to you because I'm about to not describe your backstory, or where you're from. Inclusive to all hairstyles, all skin tones, all body types, and all heights.

If anyone is interested in reading it, I'll place the link [here] once it's written, and it'll likely come in chapters. I'm excited to write it!

@seraphni

@captain-liminal (need your help supporting it)

[howlingday]

just realized you’re doing history stuff now. recently watched a movie about the Tsavo Man-Eaters. In RWBY, would they basically just be a Faunus serial killing team?

There is a story of a time before the White Fang, when the Faunus were still oppressed and forced into slave labor. Before the Faunus Revolution, the Schnee Dust Company was building the first ever railway across the continent of Anima, using the blood, sweat, and tears of the Faunus to fuel their machines of expansion. Living in these camps were the Mann-Hart Brothers, who would become the most infamous Faunus in history.

Ferrus and Noctus were not actual brothers, but accounts reported them as close as one could be without being of the same blood. Both born and raised free, the two lion-faunus would eventually find their freedom lost with the enforcement of Faunus slavery mandates. Captured by human slavers, they were shaved together, sold together, and worked together under the banner of the Schnee Dust Company. When one of the brothers was being beaten, records don't say which, the other murdered their captor and escaped together. Shortly after, a huntsman was sent to recapture them. He, too, would fall, though his fate was slightly different.

Driven to the brink of starvation by the environmental destruction of the land around them, the brothers cooked and ate the huntsman whom they had killed. This would be the first step down the darkest path in Faunus history. A response team would not find the remains of the huntsman until much later, though the brothers became a higher priority of the Schnee Dust Company after there was no response from the huntsman.

The hunger for human flesh grew as the brothers would return to outposts for the railways construction, killing and dragging guards from their posts, their lavatories, and even from their beds. Soon, rumors spread of more than a hundred men were killed and dragged into the night by these Faunus turned beasts. It wasn't until Nicholas Schnee himself, the founder of the Schnee Dust Company, stepped in with his own team of huntsmen that the killings would stop.

The first of the brothers, Ferrus, was killed after Schnee and his team had managed to wound him, with himself personally delivering the fatal blow later that night from the trees. The second brother, Noctus, had managed to elude a fatal injury until he had cornered Schnee inside a hollowed tree protected by vines. Accounts say that Noctus died chewing through the vines to reach Schnee.

The feral nature of the two brothers had acted as a double-edged sword for both the Schnee Dust Company and the White Fang, with the former instilling harsher restrictions on their slave labor force while the latter would be born from the hearts of those who knew the men before their dark turn, finding both empathy and inspiration in their violence against their captors.

[sloshed-cinema]

The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)

How far true stories have fallen.  Nowadays, all we can get is some limp-dick “Inspired by True Events” followed by absolute nonsense.  With The Ghost and the Darkness, we get full-on voiceover from a character assuring us that this is 100% actual factual truth, hand on the Bible cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.  Now there’s ballsiness.  Do I believe it for an instant?  Of course not.  For one thing, I can only assume the real John Henry Patterson had a better Irish accent and less gleamingly white teeth.  So too does the film amp up the quasi-supernatural bent to the Tsavo Man-Eaters.  These cats are clever as hell, absolute psychopaths in their drive to kill and devour.  It never quite manages to be as terrifying as it would hope to be, and there are a few moments of unintentional comedy as the mayhem breaks out.  But still, there is thrill to be found in the increasingly desperate squad of hunters thwarted at every angle by these unknowable creatures.  It’s tantalizing how little can be nailed down about them.  Maasai hunters refuse to acknowledge the pair of lions as even lions, viewing them as demons whose thirst for blood will never be slaked.  Charles Remington experiences his own version of this fear and apprehension upon discovering the lions’ lair, shocked and baffled at the collection of skeletons so clashing with his experience with the animals.  This mystery, never fully elucidated, makes for the most engaging aspect of the film.

Not that the movie doesn’t try to dissuade the viewer from enjoying it at points.  A sweeping James Horner-esque score oppresses the experience at every turn, blasting outtakes from The Rocketeer or something every time any character bats an eye.  Equally bonkers is Michael Douglas’ turn as seasoned hunter Charles Remington.  While Val Kilmer is content to turn in a stiff performance, Douglas evidently decided that a cross between Colonel Sanders and Jack Nicholson was on order.  Remington appears and disappears something of an enigma, late to the show to arrive and dragged off by a lion offscreen at the end of it all.  While he served as both predator and prey for these Tsavo lions, perhaps he wasn’t so unlike them in that sense, if a fair bit nicer.

THE RULES

SIP

Someone names a country or continent.

Anyone says ‘bridge’.

Lion-o-Vision

The lions’ demonic nature is asserted.

BIG DRINK

John gives a false fun fact about animals.

Someone starts to read a letter aloud.

[thecreativemillennial]

The infamous Tsavo Man Eaters on display in the Field Museum Of Natural History, in Chicago, Illinois. During March - December 1898, these ferocious male lions attacked and killed 135 people in Kenya, many of whom were construction workers, who were helping to build a railway from Kenya to Uganda. They were eventually hunted down and killed by an Irish British Army veteran called Lieutenant colonel John Henry Patterson, who later on went on to write a book about them called The Man Eaters Of Tsavo, which inspired movies such as Bwana Devil, Killers Of Kilimanjaro and The Ghost And The Darkness

[authortobenamedlater]

As I lay here next to you in our king bed enjoying the elbow room you so graciously are letting me have for the moment, you gonna bother to tell the Tumblr masses about the most recent Halo headcannon bug I’ve given you loosely based on the Tsavo Lions aka The Tsavo Maneaters?

(Send me 📁 + character(s) and I will share a random headcanon)

I really think you’re the better one to elaborate on this but since you’ve handed the microphone to me.

Based on this clip from The Ghost and The Darkness, and the story of the Tsavo Man-Eaters. I had not heard the story until yesterday and I’ve never seen the movie, but Halo fans should recognize the Tsavo Highway. My favorite level in Halo 3, coincidentally. And instead of a lion, the attacker here would be a Brute.

The headcanon is: Chief and either Johnson or Arbiter find someone they know (another Spartan? One of Johnson’s Marines?) and get mad and go off like this is personal now. A little like TV Chief does when he’s pounding that Brute during the battle on Eridanus.

I’ve been turning this over in my head for about 24 hours now and it might not be my kind of writing. Graphic violence (graphic anything, really) is not my jam. Plus a lot of the Halo 2-3 story is fuzzy for me now after a year and a half. I don’t even know which timeline I’d use for this story. So, if you see this and want to run with it, please do.

[mattykelevra]

What I'm reading at the moment.

[emondanexxus]

The Man-eaters of Tsavo. A pair of maneless male lions, who between them killed between `30 and `300 people working on the Kenya-Uganda Railway.

[publicdomaincharacters]

Here are 3 public domain famous animals,Gustave,Jumbo and Tsavo Man-Eaters

[spenceralexdutton]

[bishopaskblog]

want to know the story of the tsavo man eaters

Read this

[queen-shiba]

The Demon Lion's Prey (part 1)

Tsavo man-eaters au Leona kingscholar x black fem!reader

The sun sat high in the sky, shining over the hard workers in the village.

Children played or assisted their parents in their work. All was at peace.

Your home was far off from the village.

Isolated.

No one knew much about you or your family. They didn't wish to know. You seemed to bring in trouble wherever you went.

That trouble being beasts...

What sorts, you ask?

Plenty.

You brought aggressive and docile beasts alike. Most would come, seeking your aid, since you were talented with herbal medicine, and what foreigners in this land would call witchcraft.

Lately, there'd been quite a disturbance in nearby regions. Rumors of two brothers... No. Demons..

Demons who took the lives of many. 135 in counting... That's how many remains were found... Who knows how many lives those lions had taken!

Children were told to stay indoors at night. Lest they wished to suffer the same fate of those devoured under the dim lit moon.

It was a scary time for everyone, most certainly, but you didn't seem bothered at all.

You seemed... too calm about it...

In reality, you were terrified. You didn't know what you'd do if you came across one of those man-eating lions... or if you'd even live...

All you could do was pray that you didn't come across them.

.

.

.

You sat alone in your home, applying oil to your skin, keeping it healthy.

All your resources were natural. Most were developed by you, and you were able to make a living off these goods.

The night was quiet, and you were just about to put all your items away after finishing your self care before you heard a loud roar in the distance, accompanied by gunshots and the sound of human war cries.

What in the world were they out there doing out there!?

You kept inside, quickly blowing out all the candles that lit up your room, grabbing your bow and arrows.

A loud bang sounded at your front door, and the sound of wood being broken could be heard.

Quickly, you aim your arrow at the entrance to your room, steadying yourself as you watch and listen...

Foot steps were heard coming straight for you...

A pair of eyes, reflected by the moonlight that shined into the room through the window, appeared, accompanied by a low growl akin to a lion's.

No..

The being in your dark hall staggered forward, blood that was both his and someone else's splattered all over his body.

"Don't come any closer! I'll shoot!" You warn, keeping your back to the wall.

You knew damn well who this man was... his lion ears... his tail... That scar...

This was one of the murderous demons you heard of. You refused to be his next meal!

"Nnh..." He rasped out before collapsing in the middle of your floor, causing you to lower your weapon.

Oh dear... he was injured... terribly so..

You couldn't just leave him there! Even if he was a killer!

It was against your nature to just leave him to die...

With a sigh, you relight the candles in your house and bring him to the healing room in the back of the house, setting his nearly maimed form down on a bed.

He was in terrible shape...

The first thing to do was get those clothes off him.

They were messy...

You'd get him something new to wear.

You undress him, and examine his wounds. His body was well taken care of, it seemed.

Toned chest and very beautiful features.

You didn't think much of this. Your job was to heal him and get him out of your home and away from this region.

.

.

.

You get to work, beginning to clean his wounds, and treat them with ointment and pain relievers before stitching up any gashes and deep cuts.

He had quite a few bullet wounds... But that was no chore for you! Those bullets were no match for you!

Finally, you got him all fixed up and good as new. Though... he still needed to rest... so he'd be staying a while..

You thought it best to stay awake that night and keep a knife close in case he tried to end you at any moment.

You'd watch over him and keep him from doing anything everyone but him would regret.

The End!

Stay tuned for the next chapter!

[Next chapter here!]

[howlingday]

any more killer Faunus plans? Think there’s a gold mine in there. Love the effort put into the Tsavo case

Thankyou, and for the time, no, I don't have anything further planned.

When I received this ask, I considered an all-faunus murder team with Mama Arc, but that just seemed dumb to me. Not sure what to write, I decided to try my hand at a bit of fictional history, and made a story about Remnant's past to influence it's present.

[yashayskahson]

Ghost and Darkness, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo

[fatehbaz]

So even though the Tsavo Man-Eater story has clearly been mythologized and thoroughly corrupted by and for European and United States audiences, I think that I understand why you could still half-sincerely consider the infamous lion attacks as a sort of supernatural vengeance against British imperialism and the global expansion of industrial-scale resource extraction and finance capital.

Maybe, if only the victims had not been local African laborers and subjugated South Asian workers.

However, supernatural implications aside, all of this mass death in Africa -- death from both the Tsavo lion attacks and the mass death from famine following the 1890s rinderpest plague -- can still be attributed to European and US imperialism.

There is clear cause-and-effect, you can clearly see how death was caused by European industry, even if the agents enacting the killing happen to manifest as a Tsavo lion or a tsetse fly or a microscopic rinderpest virus.

The Tsavo Man-Eater story is such an interesting and eerily appropriate encapsulation of how European and US imperialism incite death, it’s almost too on-the-nose.

Radios, electric lighting, motor vehicles, convenient refrigerated food. And soon, in the near future, airplanes and motion pictures. In the 1890s, as the Gilded Age and Edwardian era brought wealth and “progress” to Europe and the United States, at a time when London and New York City and Berlin were experiencing a sort of golden age of prosperity, mass death swept across the rest of the planet.

And it wasn’t a coincidence.

---

The story was made famous across the planet after publication of the book The Man-Eaters of Tsavo (1907), authored by John Henry Patterson, the “hero” who killed the two voracious lion villains. Patterson was a British Army soldier, an adventurer, and a big-game hunter. His book later inspired multiple major Hollywood productions, including Killers of Kilimanjaro (1959) and The Ghost and the Darkness (1996). For those unfamiliar, British colonialist/imperialist military officers and engineers were constructing a railway bridge over the Tsavo River of Kenya as part of the major Kenya-Uganda Railway system to connect East African coastal ports with the interior of the continent to consolidate British imperial power at the height of the Scramble for Africa. Several thousand construction workers lived near the site in camps, and the British imported many workers from colonial territory in India and South Asia. The Uganda Railway contracted Patterson to oversee the construction of the bridge. Patterson was also the one who oversaw the response to the many lion attacks. (After service as an officer in the First World War, Patterson would become known, in Bi/bi Netan/yahu’s words, as “the godfather of the I/sraeli army.”)

Between March 1898 and December 1898, at least 28 workers were attacked and killed by lions. Probably two especially-cunning male lions, without manes. In his reports and book, Patterson himself claimed that at least 135 men were killed by these lions in 1898. (The 28-death estimate was reached by isotopic analysis of presumed human signatures in the preserved remains of the lions, but this estimate would be an approximation of how many humans were fully consumed and doesn’t account for humans that might otherwise have been killed but not entirely consumed.) We don’t know how many people were killed during this period, because many “missing” workers may have absconded, left the site. Records are also unreliable probably because British officers didn’t care too much for the well-being of African and South Asian workers. In December 1898, Patterson finally shot and killed the two maneless lions now on display at the esteemed Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

The British Empire moves in to consolidate power, to conquer Africa, and even in these initial stages of building railways and roadways, the empire sacrifices the lives of African and South Asian laborers.

---

Why would the lions specialize in hunting humans?

Another way to phrase the question: How can human injustice and institutionalized violence contribute to death from “natural” causes?

In Tsavo, specifically, it’s been proposed that the centuries of slave-trading in the Indian Ocean contributed to the lions’ preference for hunting humans. The local area around the Tsavo bridge/crossing was traversed by slave-trading caravans en route eastward to Zanzibar. For years, bodies of those enslaved people who didn’t survive the caravan were probably left behind in the Tsavo landscape, allowing -- in this proposal -- the lions to get used to the taste of humans. Hard to determine for sure.

But there’s more violence at work.

Italian colonialists brought imported cattle to East Africa in 1887 to feed their forces in war against Somalia.

It is thought that these cattle were the source of the rinderpest epidemic/epizootic plague which devastated Africa throughout the 1890s.

Rinderpest doesn’t just affect domesticated cattle and its attendant “modernized” agricultural industries. The 1890s rinderpest plague also devastated native ungulates, including gazelles, antelope, and wildebeest.

So millions of domesticated cattle died, leading to mass starvation across the African continent. And millions of native African ungulates died, leading to ecological upheaval.

In the 1890s, it is estimated that one-third of Ethiopian people and two-thirds of the Maasai people died due to this rinderpest-plague-induced famine.

Then, alongside this famine, global drought emerged in response to an El Nino event in 1897 (unfortunately quickly followed by more El Nino events in 1899 and 1902). The drought pummeled sub-Saharan Africa.

Because the rinderpest plague killed herds of native ungulates simultaneously as the famine killed humans, former grazing grounds in grasslands were colonized by thornbush. And thornbush is perfect habitat for tsetse flies.

These tsetse flies then spread sleeping sickness to humans, leading to more plague, misery, mass death.

The thornbush expansion also functions as part of a feedback loop: Ungulate herds diminsh, so thornbush expands, and the “new” thornbush habitat is undesirable for ungulate grazing, so the herds don’t return.

The mass death of cattle and native ungulates in the mid and late 1890s has also been proposed by some to be part of the reason why Tsavo’s lions resorted to apparently specialize in hunting and killing humans in the absences of ungulates to feed upon.

---

In the 1890s, the famines and plagues in sub-Saharan Africa coincided with the Third Plague Pandemic devastating Asia; catastrophic food shortages in Indonesia, the Philippines, and mainland Southeast Asia; smallpox epidemics in Brazil; cholera epidemics in China. Millions of people, from Korea across Asia and Africa to the ranches and mines of Latin America, died from famine alone.

Meanwhile, aristocrats played in parlors of London and New York, gazing from balconies upon new factories, new electric lights, new motor vehicles, new radios, new copper wiring, new technologies, and a new century.

Fin de siecle, indeed. How’d they pay for it? How did civilization purchase this prosperity?

Blame it on the lions, a tsetse fly, a rinderpest virus, “natural” El Nino events, whatever. Misery at this scale doesn’t just happen.

[parakaryote]

I'm seriously considering changing Mailhairer's animal form from an American lion to a Tsavo lion.

Pros:

Fits much better with his Secret Reworked Lore (having to do with how therianthropy works / how he got his animal form. It's complicated.)

Tsavo lions are generally maneless and (maybe) larger than the average lion, like American lions were. (It's a bit difficult to find information on the population as a whole because the results are clogged with stuff about the Tsavo Man-Eaters specifically.)

Still works perfectly with the story and symbolism

Cons:

Tsavo lions don't have the reddish coloration American lions did, so Mailhairer's hair colour would have to change... though maybe it's dyed?

[macabresymphonies]

Today's gay icons are The Tsavo Man-Eaters, pair of gay lions who actively hunted humans (in it around 130 colonizers) in Tsavo, Kenya between March and December of 1898. Happy pride everyone!