And, of course, there had been Mnumzane, my big boy who had become one of my dearest friends. Like anyone, there are things I regret in life – and to me the biggest one is that I did not somehow guess that an excruciating tooth infection had been the cause of him going ‘rogue’. I console myself knowing that no other game ranger would likely have worked that one out either. Indeed, he would have been shot out of hand a lot earlier on most other reserves.
But perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that there are no walls between humans and the elephants except those we put up ourselves, and that until we allow not only elephants, but all living creatures their place in the sun, we can never be whole ourselves.
I looked at them through the fence, feeling not only the warm peace of being home after six months of mayhem in a war zone, but revelling in the fact that my greater family was now also with me. The rumbling of their stomachs as they gathered at the fence was the most soothing sound I have ever heard. Just as Nana had done to me in the boma eight years ago, I felt surrounded by a sense of extraordinary well-being.
Mandla and Mabula were off on the side now. I knew they would go through the same heartache of ostracism asMnumzane had and I wished there was something I could do about it. In larger reserves, they would team up with other adolescents forming a loose bachelor association with an adult bull. They’re called askaris and do what most young groups of men do: hang out, chase girls and test their strength and wits against each other and the world.
The older male becomes the father figure they never had in the matriarchal herd, teaching them masculine etiquette as well as more practical matters of survival in the wild, such as where the best watering holes and the most succulent branches and berries are. These geography lessons they never forget – hence the cliché about elephants’ long memories.
In return, the askaris treat their father figure with utmost respect and affection. When he is too old to strip the bark off branches, they escort him to marshes or swamps where the leaves are softer. For elephants do not die gracefully of old age, they starve to death after they lose their sixth set of teeth. And when their leader is too weak to stand and dementia sets in, the askaris sometimes even guard him as he sags, preventing hyenas or lions from attacking him. Even when he dies, the askaris have been known to chase scavengers off the carcass. After he has gone they will visit his bones for as long as they are there, paying respects to a fallen leader. The fact that almost all elephants which perish naturally do so in the soft-food wetlands has led to the myth of secret graveyards and ivory troves where elephants instinctively migrate to die. The truth is they all usually die in the last areas where food is soft enough to ingest.
This is also why those who hunt old bulls don’t – or refuse – to understand the harm they are doing. An ageing elephant male is not something surplus to be dispatched by some meagre trophy-gatherer. He is a breathing reference library; he’s there for the health and well-being of futureelephants. He teaches the youngsters who they really are and imparts priceless bush skills to succeeding generations.
It was now clear that a wise masculine role model is needed in our ever-growing family. With Thula Thula being expanded dramatically into adjoining tribal trust lands as part of the Royal Zulu project, we would be able to import a mature bull to teach the growing number of young males on the reserve the facts of life.
I have subsequently put the word out, and judging by the enthusiastic response, I know that soon we will get a sage patriarch to teach my askaris good manners. And I know that Mandla and Mabula will grow up to be fine young males. As soon as the Royal Zulu is established, we will have a piece of Africa as the mother continent was always meant to be, protected and enhanced by the people rooted in the region, people with a stake in the future of their land.
I was mulling over all of this later after spending time in the bush with Bheki and Ngwenya when I noticed the entire herd grazing about half a mile away. The sun glowed on the hills that guard Thula Thula, back-lighting them like golden sentinels, the elephants before them silhouetted on the savannah. It was a vision of this timeless Africa at its most inspiring and I understood once more why elephants are so iconic of this continent.
Nana and Frankie stood together, the matriarch and her deputy. Next to them were their older daughters, Nandi and Marula, both in the prime of womanhood, and with them the first elephants born in the area for more than a century, Mvula and Ilanga. On the periphery, perhaps 400 yards away, I saw the bachelors, Mandla and Mabula. Scattered throughout were the babies.
I will have no interaction with the new generations. The whole idea when I initially adopted the herd was to release them directly into the bush. I never planned to have anyconnection with them, as to me all wild animals should be just that – wild. Circumstances, such as their escape and their anguish at being relocated and witnessing siblings being shot, made my intervention a reluctant necessity. As I said previously, I only wanted to get Nana the matriarch to trust one human to ease her bitterness over our species as a whole. Once that
