MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES: A red tiger in India

We are all familiar with the tiger with black stripes and yellow coat,however Dr Karl Shuker in his` Mystery Cats of the World` mentions a species of red tiger which is pallid,although Shuker does not give an exact geographical location for these tigers which are described as "red."(1) Perhaps there is no one location. However whilst I was reading a book titled `Big Snake.The Hunt for the World`s Longest Python` by Robert Twigger ( Victor Gollancz 1999) the author makes the following comment about an eccentric character he knew called Colonel H and what seems like a genuinely red tiger.:

" In the old Oxfordshire house there were only two human statues(sic)Laughing Buddha and Saluting Man.Saluting Man was carved out of jackfruit tree wood by a Naga craftsman.He had a spear in one hand and saluted with the other and on his head was a hat made from the skin of a red tiger.  

The WWF knew nothing about red tigers,but Colonel H insisted they lived deep in the jungles of the Naga Hills (in )"too far from a town for these environmental johnnies" .The red tiger is slightly smaller than the Bengal tiger and instead  of having yellow and black colouring ,it is red and black. The hat on Saluting Man was a piece of aging tiger skin,reddish orange and black.(2)The Naga Hills are in north-east India on the border with Myanmar(Burma)