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In "The Most Dangerous Game," what is a Burmese Tiger Pit?
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In "The Most Dangerous Game," a Burmese Tiger Pit is a type of booby trap Rainsford uses to slow down General Zaroff and claim the life of one of his prized hunting dogs. A Burmese Tiger Pit is a deep hole with sharp wooden stakes at the bottom, and this hole is camouflaged with light brush. The hole must be deep enough so that an animal or human cannot climb out, and the pointed stakes must be facing up.
A Burmese Tiger Pit is a classic trap used in hunting and war. Essentially, it is a deep pit, often more than ten feet deep, lined with sharp spikes at the bottom and covered with some weak material such as branches or a tarp covered in dirt. The object of the pit is to get an animal to fall in, injuring itself on the spikes and unable to climb out due to the high walls. A Burmese Tiger, being relatively smart and vicious, would be herded towards this pit by jungle beaters, and in a panic it wouldn't take time to look around and see or smell the human activity. Once inside the pit, the hunter can shoot down and finish it off, thus killing a prized animal without stalking or risking his own life.
Rainsford builds a quick Burmese Tiger Pit while fleeing from Zaroff and his dogs in...
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The pit grew deeper; when it was above his shoulders, he climbed out and from some hard saplings cut stakes and sharpened them to a fine point. These stakes he planted in the bottom of the pit with the points sticking up. With flying fingers he wove a rough carpet of weeds and branches and with it he covered the mouth of the pit.
(Connell, "The Most Dangerous Game," fiction.eserver.org)
However, General Zaroff has also hunted tigers, and so avoids the trap.
References
What is a Burmese Tiger Pit in "The Most Dangerous Game"?
In Richard Connell's short story "The Most Dangerous Game," General Zaroff and Rainsford, two well-trained hunters, square off in a hunt to the death. Zaroff is the hunter, and Rainsford is the game. It takes three days of playing Zaroff's weird and deadly game to finally come to an end. On day two, though, Rainsford prepares a Burmese Tiger pit with the hopes of trapping his hunter and ending it all sooner than later. Connell describes how the pit is created so the reader can get an idea of what it includes. First, Rainsford dug until the pit was higher than his shoulders; then, he cut and sharpened sticks into stakes; third, "these stakes he planted in the bottom of the pit with the points sticking up"; and finally, he wove together weeds and branches to cover the opening. All he had to do next was sit and wait for Zaroff to come by, fall in the pit, and give up. Unfortunately, only a dog was killed and not Zaroff. Yet, it is interesting to see that Rainsford knew how to construct such a deadly pit. The stakes at the bottom and the woven carpet-like covering over the top are key elements to is construction and effectiveness.