As they traversed the archipelago, European tourists not only encountered the East Indies’ stunning nature, they were also confronted with unfamiliar animal species. Some tourists attended a rampok macan, a fight whereby tigers were pierced with pikes. Many condemned the cruelty of the ceremony. That ‘thousands of brown and white people, even children and ladies’ enjoyed watching the spectacle was beyond the comprehension of the nineteenth-century natural scientist Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn. He concluded that a tiger encircled by sharp spikes was as frightened as a house cat and ‘will never, except perforce, and not out of blood lust, start a fight with other animals’. Killing tigers during a rampok macan was sheer cruelty, he thought.
‘The tiger fight or Rampok feast in Java’, by J.S.G. Gramberg, picture from: De Indische Archipel. Tafereelen uit de natuur en het volksleven in Indië. ’s-Gravenhage 1865-1876. [KITLV 47A68]