The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild by Lawrence Anthony (the ebook reader txt) 📕

The displaced people’s leader’s name at the time was Maxwell Mthembu and they eventually became known as the Maxwell people. Faction fights between the Maxwells and the Biyelas predictably erupted and went on for years until Maxwell, whose clan was on the run against the numerically superior Biyelas, finally acquiesced and paid allegiance to Nkosi Nkanyiso Biyela. In turn, Maxwell was appointed a Biyela induna, a headman, and his people continued to live where they were on Biyela land and were integrated into the Biyela clan.

Thus Nkosi Biyela got his tribe’s traditional land back with minimum bloodshed. But tribal loyalties are rooted far deeper than treaties of convenience forged in a fireside chat. The people of Buchanana were still very much ‘Maxwells’.

Now with the death of Nkanyiso Biyela, the Maxwells revoked their pledge to be loyal to the Biyela clan. That alone was serious business, but the Maxwells also wanted to keep the land that historically belonged to the Biyelas. The Biyela clan was incensed. Groups from both sides took up arms.

The initial clash was short and sharp. Then the skirmishes went underground, taking the form of isolated attacks and ambushes at night. This was all happening right on my doorstep. My problem was that nearly all of our employees were Maxwells and came from Buchanana. So while Nkanyiso Biyela was my good friend and my relationship with the Biyelas sound, I also knew the Maxwell leader Wilson Mthembu, who had taken over when Maxwell died in the early 1990s. Mthembu had a tiger by the tail and I knew there was no way his people could win the war, but to openly support the Biyelas with the Maxwells as my immediate neighbours would be juggling with live coals. This was a lose – lose situation and I decided to try remaining neutral. I sat it out with fingers crossed, hoping that the new Nkosi Biyela could sort it all out soon.

To a Westerner, even someone as close to it all as me, Zulu tribal politics is mind-bogglingly complicated. I soon discovered to my dismay that instead of being an impartial observer, I was overnight a central issue in this imbroglio. Still lurking in the background of all this unrest was that powerful cattle-owning cabal who hankered deeply for the Royal Zulu land and wanted to torpedo the game-reserve project. I knew who they were from the hostile questioning I’d faced at tribal meetings while promoting the project, butI knew nothing of their background. Whenever I asked, my informers would just shrug and say ‘they’re the cattle owners’.

Just as the Maxwells saw the death of Nkanyiso Biyela as a convenient moment to declare independence, the cattle cabal saw the death of the highly esteemed Nkosi and the hostilities with the Maxwells as an opportunity to wreck my relationship with the late Nkanyiso Biyela’s family – and especially with his son, the new chief.

Zulu society is prone to rumour and gossip. It’s the national pastime, and the cabal had been planting a host of ‘hearsay’ stories about me, claiming I was secretly supporting the breakaway Maxwell faction.

This was blatantly false. However, they had somehow discovered that, without my knowledge, members of the Maxwells had been using remote bush in Thula Thula as a hideaway at night during the fighting. The cabal then spread the word that I was harbouring the rebels. The story caught like wildfire.

But even worse, the malicious whispering campaign claimed that I was also supplying the rebels with guns and ammunition. Such rumour-mongering can have potentially fatal consequences. In a blink, my hard-earned reputation in the area was tenuous. I had been completely outmanoeuvred.

If Nkanyiso Biyela was alive, he would have guffawed at this nonsense. But he wasn’t. His successor, his son Phiwayinkosi, was a good man of iron integrity but he didn’t know me well and he was being force-fed false information by the bucketload.

I needed serious help to quash this rumour quickly. I phoned my old friend, the highly esteemed Prince Gideon Zulu, uncle of the Zulu king and head of the royal household and explained the situation. He was aghast and warned me of the potential danger I was in – as if I didn’t know.Thankfully he agreed to use his considerable influence, stressing that the first thing I had to do was contact the new Nkosi directly and tell him what was going on, while he used his contacts to find out the source of the rumours.

I phoned the young chief and assured him that if some of his enemies had indeed been on my land, it had been done so illegally. There had been no consent from me whatsoever.

He listened politely. I knew about the misinformation swamping him, and the fact that he was giving me time to defend myself over the phone showed unequivocally that he was a fair leader. I felt infinitely better.

‘It’s good you phoned,’ he said. ‘There’s a meeting this weekend in Buchanana on this exact matter. Come and address us.’

I would far rather have had a private session with him where we could sort matters out face to face. Instead, I was going to have to confront the issue head-on. Being the only Westerner at a highly charged tribal gathering in the midst of a bitter fight was challenging enough – but to be accused of gun-running while people were dying was not good. Not good at all.

But I recognized the wisdom in his choice. He was giving me a platform to state my case. How I handled it was up to me. I thanked him, said I would be there, and then let Prince Gideon know of the meeting.

He tried to reassure me. ‘I will have some of my people there and they will do some work in the background, but they cannot speak for you or defend you. You must speak for yourself and you must speak strongly.’

Then, if the situation could possibly have got worse, it did. I got wind that Thula Thula itself was