ALL ALONG THE BANKS OF THE Limpopo grow considerable, centuries-old sycamore fig trees. In spring each year, huge clusters of wild fruits hang from the branches and are greedily gobbled up by baboons and monkeys, birds of many kinds and other arboreal animals. The copious groundfall is quickly set upon by antelope, zebras, mongooses, jackals and elephants which hoover them up with relish. If the fig trees disappeared from Africa many wild creatures would not survive.
Southern Africa enjoys a fruitful confection of slang enriched by many African, Afrikaans, English, Portuguese, Yiddish and even Indonesian words. Voetsek tells off a belligerent dog, and tsotsi is a petty crook. A mamba is anyone or anything that is deadly, in a good way, and muti can mean medicine or poison. The word muti actually means tree, because in old Africa almost every tree is a pharmacopeia of potions.
Your mother might give you muti for a sore throat or put some muti on a cut. An African person will visit a nyanga (a traditional healer or shaman) to get good muti to cure an ailment. For magic, takati (pronounced “tagati”), you would consult a sangoma, what in English we would call a witch or witch doctor.
To fight takati you would need to get strong muti, maybe taken from a vulture or a lion (although human parts make the strongest kind). You will not survive long in the African wilderness without a passing knowledge of muti and takati because the dangers are manifest at every footfall.
A black mamba does not visit anyone by chance but always has been sent to bring harm. Only the most powerful of sangomas can catch or counter it. The embodiment of takati is the tokoloshe who does much mischief by night. But he is a little fellow and if you put your bed on top of bricks, or old paint tins, he cannot get to you. Many a teenager with child has claimed to have been impregnated by the tokoloshe. Not enough bricks, clearly.
Humans have used the plants of the wild since time immemorial for muti as well as for takati, whether witch doctor or druid. But so have animals. When a dog or cat starts eating grass or some other garden herb you know something is upsetting their stomachs. Plant emetics are by far the most common type of human muti; there is even a tree with the scientific name Trichilia emetica, the Natal mahogany.
Chimpanzees, which have neither doctors nor nyangas, will eat a poisonous plant, Vernonia amygdalina, to void intestinal parasites. Parrots in the wild eat mainly fruits and nuts, some of which contain small concentrations of arsenic that helps to kill stomach parasites. Their favourite drugstore hangouts are along exposed riverbanks where they scratch for clays to neutralise alkaloid toxins found in some fruits. Some fruit flies lay their eggs in rotting fruit where the alcohol deters parasitic wasps.
Many animals, as well as humans, living on the hot African plains look to the arboreal giants, the baobabs, as a pharmaceutical supermarket. The bark contains a mild antibiotic, which is one reason you will often see the lower trunks extensively gnawed. Elephants use their tusks to open up the skin and in times of drought chomp on the water-retentive fibres inside. Humans use the bark to make paper and fabrics.
The fruits of the baobab look like velvety maracas dangling from the bare branches, ready to rattle a mambo whenever the wind blows. Break one open and inside you’ll find lozenge-size seeds that are extremely rich in oils, protein, calcium and vitamin C. They have a tangy citrusy taste and are much loved by animals and rural children alike. Their parents make a cool drink with them like ours used to make ginger beer.
The simple but astonishing fact is that just about all animals have their veld pharmacies well worked out or they could not have survived, zebras included.
Animal biologists at Onderstepoort have long puzzled over why zebras appeared to be immune to African horse sickness while horses are extremely vulnerable. They noted the distribution of the disease almost perfectly overlapped the historic range of the plains zebra. That pointed to an evolutionary explanation: that the two organisms, zebra and virus, co-evolved. Zebras that developed immunity survived to pass on the necessary genes to their offspring. And yet during all his years of running free, Zulu, who was clearly not a zebra, never succumbed to the disease that is almost always fatal for horses.
There were no people around to witness it, but the curious case of Zulu and the time he was bitten by a snake and survived would have informed any aspiring naturalist. Had they sought an answer in the volumes of evolutionary biology they would have been disappointed. The truth was completely unexpected but could hardly have been more elementary.
Equids have excellent, almost all-round vision. They also have a height advantage over most other animals to see things on the ground or in the grass, not least of all snakes. Horsey folk will vouch that, with a few notable exceptions, horses are extremely inquisitive animals and sometimes dangerously so. If, for example, they see a python in the grass they will approach cautiously, standing over it and staring. A large python will generally lie still when danger comes calling, relying on camouflage or, if detected, its intimidating size to act as a deterrent.
Most other snakes would almost always flee, “hearing” as they do by picking up vibrations in the ground – excepting for puff adders which rely on camouflage alone and will strike in a flash, mouth fully agape with fearsome fangs ready, armed and loaded with potent cytotoxin. Most serious snakebites in Africa are inflicted by puff adders. If not treated hastily, a good bite will lead to atrocious flesh decay and even the loss of a limb.
In spite of his height advantage, Zulu did not see the three-metre-long rope of black death as it lay in the lee of a fallen rain tree. As he stepped over the log, the serpent’s coffin-shaped head opened like an old clamshell phone to reveal its ominous black gape and white needle fangs.
As its teeth sunk into the horse’s lower leg, the serpent coiled its upper body around the leg in order to protect itself. Zulu jumped with fright more than pain, then kicked and stomped trying to shake off the writhing reptilian accessory. He reared and with the second stomp broke the black mamba’s hold. The snake shot off out of harm’s way and then reared up, threatening with its partial hood spread and menacing mouth wide open, hissing as it swayed back and forth.
A black mamba has the most advanced poison delivery system of any snake. For its large size the fangs are not particularly long, only about one-and-a-half centimetres, but they are located at the very front of its wide-hinged mouth that seldom misses with a strike. Just one pinhead-size drop of its neurotoxic venom is more than enough to kill a large animal in less than one hour. The poison causes the nervous system and muscles to shut down and death will come from a heart attack or asphyxiation, or both. There is a saying that if a black mamba bites you there is only one remedy: sit on your haunches, bend your head as far under as you can and kiss your sorry butt goodbye.
Zulu was unnerved by the incident. Within minutes of being bitten his head felt dull, extremely heavy and it dropped down to his knees. Progressively he began to perspire and salivate uncontrollably. His eyelids drooped and his movements became lethargic. His breath was short, heart racing, his movements laboured and he had trouble walking without stumbling. He leaned up against the column of a termite mound that rose up next to a large jackalberry tree, not sure he could keep himself from falling over.
His females looked on, concerned that their protector was in dire trouble. His mate paid him close attention, nudging him fretfully with her muzzle. He was in dire trouble, but when it came to being bitten by deadly snakes, Zulu had two advantages over most other creatures.
Being an equid, the leg just above the fetlock where Zulu had been struck has virtually no flesh and therefore a very limited blood supply. Once bitten the venom would not travel nearly as fast into his body as it would in the case of a human being bitten on the lower leg. This meant the symptoms of the bite were slow to take effect.
Also, Zulu had spent three years at Karl Plaas being injected with snake venom, mostly of the same predominantly neurotoxic type delivered by cobras and mambas, and developing antibodies. The sturdy black horse had been – as the old Arlo Guthrie rap-sheet went – injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and see-lected, and was as close to having acquired immunity from snake bites as was biologically possible.
Still, that did not mean he was completely in the clear. An hour after being bitten he had collapsed in a blind, shaking heap on the bare mound of the termite nest. There he lay for the rest of the day with his herd milling around, not sure what was going on or what they could do about it. Among the trees, as evening approached, they would be easy lion bait.
When Zulu stopped moving and the sun slid into the tree canopy, instinctively the herd moved off to stand in open ground where an ambush was less likely. The ground underneath was a tangle of dry burr-bristle grass that was about as palatable as rolls of barbed wire and generally about as disagreeable. What with the discomfort of constant thirst and the urge to find a drinking place, the pricks of the burrs and the attentions of biting flies out there in the open, all they could do was stand and wait. All through the night they waited, jumping at any and every sudden sound.
Next morning Zulu was still lying prone on the ground and the herd gathered around, the females anxiously nuzzling him and softly nibbling his flanks. The warming sun of late morning seemed to ignite a spark in the old nag and he gave a shake, lifted his head with some effort and snorted. By that time he was desperately thirsty and ever so slowly raised himself, one reluctant joint at a time, looking more like a comical camel than a noble horse. A sense of joy gripped the herd and the young ones, which had been sullen since the previous evening, began nipping and headbutting one another.
The bite had dealt a hammer blow to Zulu’s body and he ached all over, like malaria on top of the worst hangover ever. He had a pounding koppestamp and tongue-thickened nadors when it feels like every cell in your body has shrivelled and urgently needs water. It is no coincidence that the word “intoxication” means to be poisoned, originally referring to being shot with a poison arrow or bitten by a poisonous snake. Walking on stiff, painful legs he had only one thing on his aching brain – water. The entire herd had been without water for going on two days; they had been on their way to the Majale to find water when fate had struck.
They trudged through the late morning haze, the females encouraging the younger zebras, pushing their rumps and nuzzling their legs. Finally they neared the riverbank where they faced two problems. One was that it was late and would soon be getting dark when they would prefer to be settling in at some safe spot for the night rather than looking for water at hunting time. The other was that any remaining waterhole in the riverbed would be like the only saloon in the Kalahari serving cold beer with bar predators in close attendance.
When the horse safari business started there had been no resident male lions in Mashatu. However, there had always been a nomadic population that ranged along the Limpopo River, often crossing the Shashe into Zimbabwe for easy pickings around the villages there. But as often as not, farmers would shoot them on sight. Killing a lion is still widely regarded as a sign of virile manhood, although the custom comes from a time when it was done with a spear rather than a high-powered rifle with telescopic sights.
The general absence of lions was good for the horses as well as the other plains game that are the principal lion food in the savanna ecosystem. But every ecosystem needs its apex predators to remain healthy. Take out the top predators and there follows a cascade of consequences. It starts with a slow but steady increase in the numbers of smaller predators such as jackals and baboons, smaller cats and “mesopredators” like genets and mongooses.
Herbivores proliferate and have a knock-on effect on the insect populations and on the vegetation, cropping off all new growth and denuding the riverbanks, which renders them susceptible to erosion – which is exactly what had happened to the Limpopo’s banks prior to the great storm of 2000. Huge trees that had stood rooted for centuries were washed away. Then suddenly – or so it would seem – there would be a plague on the land, and all because there were no lions.
At Mashatu, the most obvious effect of having no resident male lions was that the hyenas took over as the dominant predators. As their numbers grew they became progressively bolder, loping around brazenly – even through villages during daytime. However, increased safari activity and conservation allowed two mature male lions to take up residence in Mashatu: one-eyed Matswane and his brother, scar-nosed Dumatau. A single male lion is formidable but a coalition of two siblings in their prime is all but invincible. Almost immediately things started to change, the most noticeable being that the hyenas went underground and returned to their conniving nocturnal ways.
For three years life was good for the brothers and during that time the more dominant Matswane sired many cubs. The flying claw of a lioness had blinded one of his eyes when he stepped in to break up a jealous spat between two pride females. The two male lions specialised in seizing eland, the largest antelope, which gave them more than enough food for three or four days at a time.
One time they went walkabout into Zimbabwe, as male lions will when there are no pride females in oestrus, but only Matswane returned. Possibly sensing the opportunity, several months later two younger male lions moved into his turf and immediately challenged the king. Being larger, stronger and more experienced, he easily sent them packing, but he knew they’d be back. It was around this time that Zulu encountered the black mamba.
On the far bank of the river, Matswane’s eyes glinted in the low light, one gold and the other silvery-blue. He was poised squat on his haunches like the Lion matchbox icon, looking disdainful but keenly watching the approaching zebras. They were in such a weakened state that he could have ambled over and without much effort taken any one of them. But, lucky for them, the king did not know it. In the riverbed between them was a pool of scummy water.
The herd would advance no closer and just have to wait and hope for an intervention. They barely had the energy to complain: qua-ha, qua-ha. As the last embers of the sunlight glimmered and started fading to lifeless ash, a small herd of elephants approached the water, only to encounter a male lion in their path. Matswane stood up to confront them and the elephants charged, trumpeting as they came. The lion snarled once before losing his composure and fleeing into the darkness.
A thirsty adult elephant can drink 200 litres a day. It took ages for this dirty dozen to fill their tanks, water slowly siphoning into the pool from the aquifer below. Zulu and his herd waited. A half-moon projected a latticework of shadows on the pale riverbed by the time the lead horse made his way gingerly down, slipping on the steep bank and walking cautiously to the pool. Only when he had slaked his thirst and taken up a guard position did he give the call and the rest of his herd rushed down.
It was a gargantuan battle when Matswane was finally dethroned by the new coalition and sent packing to lick his wounds in the land of solitary nomads. The new ruling elite built their own empire, which broke up into successive new prides as each new batch of males matured and was forced out to found their own dynasties. The balance was restored in the Tuli. Lion muti had been applied and the land had healed.