At least 373,000 people died due to tiger attacks between 1800 and 2009

Over the last five centuries, an estimated 1 million people have been eaten by tigers

I'm gonna guess at least some percentage of those people were just played with to death instead of eaten

Bad kitty.

For example, since tigers almost always attack from the rear, masks with human faces were worn on the back of the head by the villagers in 1986 in the Sundarbans, on the theory that tigers usually do not attack if seen by their prey. This had temporarily decreased the number of attacks, but only for a short while before the tigers figured out it was not the front of the human being so the villagers no longer wore them for protection.

The tigers were probably temporarily charmed with the pageantry of a whole village in backwards mask.