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

I looked at the old but well-maintained Rossi .38 revolver lying on the grass.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked surprised. ‘They can’t shoot a wildebeest with a revolver.’

‘We questioned them and they told us half lies, half truths,’ said Ngwenya. ‘They are not locals. They work for a Sangoma in the north and say their job was only to collect the tail – which they don’t even have. They say the wildebeest was shot by two professional poachers also hired by the sangoma. The poachers took most of the meat and left them here. The revolver is just for protection. They are very inexperienced these two, but dangerous.’

‘So, these are the magician’s assistants?’ I said out loud. ‘Where is their transport?’

‘They have none,’ said Bheki. ‘They will walk and then take a bush taxi home.’

‘And the vulture heads?’

‘As you said, we didn’t ask but they had a sack. We left it in the bush close by. Don’t worry, it is safe,’ replied Ngwenya.

‘Good.’

I then lowered my voice to a whisper. ‘It’s a waste of time taking this to the police, just a wildebeest and some vulture heads. So today we will teach them a lesson they will never forget. They are a sangoma’s lackeys and they will take a message back to their boss that neither they, nor anyone else can ever come here again. We will fight this with our own witchcraft. Here is the plan.’

Bheki and Ngwenya listened with big smiles as I outlined some impromptu Thula Thula muthi. Then, according to plan, they strode across to the two poachers, stood them up and marched them into the bush.

I called the two back-up rangers who came in carrying wood and we lit a small fire about twenty yards away to boil the beef ribs in a three-legged cast-iron pot. They then took out the skulls of a crocodile and large baboon from the bags that I had brought from the storeroom, placing oneon either side of the wildebeest corpse. The older man pulled a hyena skin over his shoulders and wrapped beads from our curio shop on his arms and legs. To finish off the special effects he stuck guinea-fowl feathers through his hair and swished about the all-important wildebeest tail.

For my plan to work, it was essential that I be out of sight. This was no place for a white man. I hid the Land Rover in a small copse and then walked back to the clearing with the younger ranger where we secreted ourselves behind a tree with a good view. The twilight was perfect for the surreal atmosphere I wanted so I radioed Ngwenya and told him to bring the poachers back, blindfolded.

As I put my radio down I heard a sudden crack of a branch behind. I almost leapt out of my skin. The herd! They were here. I was just about to radio Ngwenya to move off at speed when a shadowy silhouette caught my eye. It was a bachelor herd of large kudu bulls, their spiralled horns corkscrewing above thornbush.

‘Whew!’ Both the young ranger and I exhaled noisily with relief. If that had been Nana and her family, the whole plan would have backfired spectacularly.

We watched in the gathering murk as the two poachers were led to the wildebeest carcass where their blindfolds were removed. They stood blinking, taking in the new surroundings and as they saw the skulls by the carcass they flinched almost in unison and started backing off. Both crocodile and baboon skulls are malevolent symbols in a sangoma’s arsenal. Their spontaneous reaction was good news for it signalled that our charade was working.

‘Sit!’ ordered Ngwenya, as he pushed them to the ground.

‘But why is he here?’ one asked, looking across at our ranger sitting fifteen yards away, covered in a hyena skin. I grinned with satisfaction; they definitely believed that they were in the presence of another sangoma.

‘This is his place. All of this area around here right up tothe mountains is his,’ replied Ngwenya with an imperial sweep of his arm. ‘He is here because many of his family have died here today. The vultures, they are all his children. Some say he flies with them.’

Ngwenya spoke slowly and deliberately with cold anger. He then gazed up at the vultures in the trees, nodding meaningfully. I felt like awarding him an immediate Oscar.

‘What does he want from us?’ one asked, his voice quavering.

‘What do you have that belongs to the impotent man you work for? Or is it a woman who controls you?’ Bheki suddenly roared.

‘We have muthi to protect us,’ said one hurriedly. ‘It’s here in our pockets. We will return it to him when we go back together with his gun.’

Bheki reached over and searching their pockets retrieved two small pink and white river stones wrapped in snakeskin. He walked over to our ‘sangoma’ and handed him the muthi, along with the revolver.

Then, swift as leopards, he and Ngwenya moved in, held the first man down and using their razor-sharp bush knives sliced off a lock of his hair and a tiny piece of fingernail. They did the same to the second poacher and placing both men’s hair and fingernails on a leaf, ceremoniously gave it to our ‘sangoma’ who was sitting with his back to them. For muthi to be truly effective the sangoma needs either to have some body part of the targeted person or at least one possession. And the poachers knew it.

They were now petrified. They believed they had trespassed on the turf of a powerful sangoma who now possessed their hair and fingernails as well as their master’s possessions – the stones and gun. This was juju at its most malevolent. They sat staring straight ahead, rocking mindlessly on their heels, just like trapped animals, I realized.

Our ‘sangoma’ called out in what I thought to be animpressively haunting tone and Ngwenya went over and came back with