DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.811#0159
122 LION-HUNT COMPARED WITH 'SIMBA' FILM
lands over a thousand years later is shown by the well-known episode of
lions attacking Xerxes' camels during his march in the neighbourhood of
the Vardar.1 The legend of Herakles and the Nemean lion, indeed, brings
us to the very neighbourhood of Mycenae, and may reflect a stage in the
extirpation of these animals, of which we have an actual record in the scene
on the dagger-blade. At the same time,—such was the extended enterprise
of the Minoans in the great days of their culture, and so frequent their
relations with the farther shores of the Libyan Sea,—the possibility of
some hunting expedition on the opposite coastlands cannot be altogether
excluded.
It is to the African side, at any rate, that we naturally turn for existing
comparisons.
Com- Amongst these, certainly, the most thrilling commentary has been
with recently supplied by the remarkable film record of lion-hunting scenes
African [n the Tanganyika Territory taken by the intrepid American travellers,
scenes . .
of lion- Mr. Martin Johnson and his wife.2 The object of the native lion-hunts
inmodem recorded by them was in this case not for trophies or for meat, ' the whole
?'"? , , movement was a defensive one; a sortie against lions that had been
carrying off the black man's precious cattle'. ' I must say', observes Mr.
Johnson, ' I admired their boldness in deliberately planning to fight lions
with weapons as fragile as theirs and with no sort of defence against the
animals' poisoned claws save their hide shields.' Javelins with iron heads
were their only arm.
In order to equalize the chances in some degree, they attacked in a band
of a score or more, a circumstance which leads us to infer that on the dagger
scenes we have only a small part of the warring troop. Their ox-hide shields—■
which in this case covered only half the body—showed incurved bands in the
middle of each side, giving an inner outline that recalls the 8-shaped Minoan
type. In one scene displayed on the film a troop of four or five lions appears
in headlong flight to the right, the hindmost with tail trailing behind, while one
braver than the rest turns on his pursuers, his tail swinging above him.
He springs on the foremost hunters, but is pierced by ' a salvo of spears shot
1 Herodotus, vii, c. 125. He adds, c. 126, seeing it. A resume of part is given in Martin
that lions abound in that region and extend to Johnson, Safari (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1928),
the river Nestos (Mesta) in Thrace and to the p. 264 seqq., but there is no description
Achelous in Acarnania. there of the scene on the film presenting
2 The film 'Simba' (= the lion) was the nearest parallel to that on the dagger-
shown in London during the autumn season blade.
of 1928 where I twice had an opportunity of
lands over a thousand years later is shown by the well-known episode of
lions attacking Xerxes' camels during his march in the neighbourhood of
the Vardar.1 The legend of Herakles and the Nemean lion, indeed, brings
us to the very neighbourhood of Mycenae, and may reflect a stage in the
extirpation of these animals, of which we have an actual record in the scene
on the dagger-blade. At the same time,—such was the extended enterprise
of the Minoans in the great days of their culture, and so frequent their
relations with the farther shores of the Libyan Sea,—the possibility of
some hunting expedition on the opposite coastlands cannot be altogether
excluded.
It is to the African side, at any rate, that we naturally turn for existing
comparisons.
Com- Amongst these, certainly, the most thrilling commentary has been
with recently supplied by the remarkable film record of lion-hunting scenes
African [n the Tanganyika Territory taken by the intrepid American travellers,
scenes . .
of lion- Mr. Martin Johnson and his wife.2 The object of the native lion-hunts
inmodem recorded by them was in this case not for trophies or for meat, ' the whole
?'"? , , movement was a defensive one; a sortie against lions that had been
carrying off the black man's precious cattle'. ' I must say', observes Mr.
Johnson, ' I admired their boldness in deliberately planning to fight lions
with weapons as fragile as theirs and with no sort of defence against the
animals' poisoned claws save their hide shields.' Javelins with iron heads
were their only arm.
In order to equalize the chances in some degree, they attacked in a band
of a score or more, a circumstance which leads us to infer that on the dagger
scenes we have only a small part of the warring troop. Their ox-hide shields—■
which in this case covered only half the body—showed incurved bands in the
middle of each side, giving an inner outline that recalls the 8-shaped Minoan
type. In one scene displayed on the film a troop of four or five lions appears
in headlong flight to the right, the hindmost with tail trailing behind, while one
braver than the rest turns on his pursuers, his tail swinging above him.
He springs on the foremost hunters, but is pierced by ' a salvo of spears shot
1 Herodotus, vii, c. 125. He adds, c. 126, seeing it. A resume of part is given in Martin
that lions abound in that region and extend to Johnson, Safari (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1928),
the river Nestos (Mesta) in Thrace and to the p. 264 seqq., but there is no description
Achelous in Acarnania. there of the scene on the film presenting
2 The film 'Simba' (= the lion) was the nearest parallel to that on the dagger-
shown in London during the autumn season blade.
of 1928 where I twice had an opportunity of