Or perhaps our presence excited it to immediate action.
Who can analyse the motives of a gorilla?
These attacks were generally spread over a year and a half.

On the first occasion the god which always accompanied the priest to the garden and back again, would show animosity by roaring at him.

On the second he would seize his hand and bite off one of the fingers, as happened to our Kalubi, a wound that generally caused death from blood poisoning.

If, however, the priest survived, on the third visit it killed him, for the most part by crushing his head in its mighty jaws.

When making these visits the Kalubi was accompanied by certain dedicated youths, some of whom the god always put to death.