Ik heb wel een vaag gevoel dat ik een vrouw met een luipaardhuid op een mozaiek heb gezien, maar dat zou dan wel een geromaniseerd beeld zijn.
Ik heb nog wat geprobeerd, en kwam op een pagina over Afrikaanse folklore wel een verhaal tegen uit Liberia.
http://www.angelfire.com/stars3/magicre ... k.html#t11
Ik plak het hier maar even in, want ik vind het altijd jammer als zulke pagina's weer verdwijnen.
The Leopard Woman (Liberia)
A man and a woman were once making a hard journey through the bush, The woman had her baby strapped upon her back as she walked along the rough path overgrown with vines and shrubbery. They had nothing to eat with them, and the longer they traveled, the hungrier they became. After a long while they emerged from the heavily wooded forest into a grassy plain. There they came upon a herd of bush cows grazing quietly. The man said to the woman, "You have the power of transforming yourself into whatever you like; change now to a leopard and kill on of those animals, so that I may have something to eat." The woman looked at the man with a hard stare, and said, "Do you really mean what you ask, or are you joking?" "I mean it," said the man, for he was very hungry.
The woman untied the baby from her back, and put it upon the ground. She removed her loincloth; a change came over her face. Hair began growing upon her neck and body. Her hands and feet turned into claws, In a few moments, a wild leopard was standing before the man, staring at him now with fiery eyes. The man was frightened nearly to death and clambered up a tree for protection. When he was nearly to the top, he saw that the little baby was so close to the leopard as to be almost within the leopard's jaws, but he was so afraid, that he couldn't make himself go down to rescue it. When the leopard saw that she had the man good and frightened, and full of terror, she ran away to the flock of cattle to do for him as he had asked her to. Capturing a large young heifer, she dragged it back to the foot of the tree.
The man, who was still as far up in its top as he could go, cried out, and piteously begged the leopard to transform herself back into a woman. She did so; slowly, the hair receded, and the claws disappeared, until finally, the woman stood before the man once more. But so frightened was he still, that he would not come down until he saw her take up her clothes and tie her baby to her back. Then he descended from the topmost branches of the tree. She said to him, in a voice that resembled the growl of a leopard, "Never ask a woman to do a man's work again." (Women must care for the farms, cook the food, tend the children, etc., but it is man's work to do the hunting and bring in the meat for the family.)
Wat de verspreiding van het luipaard betreft, ze schijnen in heel verschillende omgevingen te kunnen leven. Op wikipedia staat o.a. dit:
De leefplaatsen van luipaarden verschillen heel erg. Van droge woestijnen tot dichte regenwouden en van koude naaldbossen tot tropische savannes. Er is zelfs een dood luipaard gevonden op de berg Kilimanjaro, op 5638 meter hoogte, het beest was ingevroren. Het belangrijkste criterium voor een goede leefomgeving is de hoeveelheid voedsel. Ook voldoende schuilplaatsen, in de vorm van hoge begroeiing, bomen of rotsen, zijn belangrijk.
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luipaard
(De documentaire die ik bedoel werd trouwens waarschijnlijk gedraaid door Ernest Thiers (ook Ernest Genval). Dit even ter herinnering voor mezelf.)