Snakes Alive!

I have listened over the years to zoologists and herpetologists trying to convince me (and the rest of the uninformed world) that snakes and other creepy crawlies are for the most part harmless creatures. I never had the benefit of a university education to study that subject in great depth, I am afraid that my response is...the only good snake is a dead snake... I have never hung around to find out. I am in a sense more of the General Practitioner type than the Specialist naturalist, my knowledge coming from practical experience and application. As a very young boy, playing in the dirt and experimenting as most inquisitive children do, I learned very early to leave bugs and beetles strictly alone. I have picked up an innocent looking insect, only to end up with a painful rash all over my hands or having been squirted with pungent stinky liquid, leaving me walking around, smelling like a sewerage farm.

Like most of us at some time in our lives, I have been bitten by mosquitoes, stung by bees and cursed by flies. Well, the thought of a spider, scorpion or centipede lurking near me makes me shiver in fear, and my immediate reaction on meeting one of them is to stamp on it hard. I have seen centipedes 10 inches long, gigantic hairy spiders as big as your hand, and large black scorpions with four inch tails. Most of them I have kept well clear of, but I remember once climbing into my blankets, and having a sudden sixth sense that something was not quite right. Lifting the blankets I peered underneath. Boy... oh boy oh boy oh boy.. there sitting as calm as you please was a scorpion, 3 inches from my thigh. A combination of adrenaline, oxygen, lightning reflexes and a fart and I was standing against the bedroom wall, panting like I had run the 100 yards in 4 seconds flat!! Need I tell you, that the space shuttle couldn't have blasted off quicker than I leaping out of that bed? A minute later, there was one dead scorpion thrown out the window. Jeez I quaked for days after that. On another occasion there was a huge hairy spider on the wall and when I approached it it actually anchored itself with four of its legs against the wall and reared up facing me, rattling like a seed gourd, it was scary to know that the huge arachnid was prepared to fight me.

One day my father received a delegation of blacks who were living on the ranch and called me, saying, "There's a big snake that is frightening the blacks in a kraal near the river, take the 12 gauge and go with these people and shoot it. I was about 13 at the time and I felt good that my dad trusted me to do the job. I followed the tracker, he was reading sign I could not even see and I soon lost interest in what he was doing, and was looking at everything around me as we walked. We had gone about a mile when I noticed what looked like a honeycomb under a bush, far off to my left. I stopped the tracker and pointed it out.. and he said quietly, "Nyoka!" (Snake). My eyes popped out of my head. I could not believe what I was seeing. What I had thought to be a honeycomb, was in fact sunlight reflecting off the scales of a huge python, the biggest snake I had ever seen. We walked up to within a few yards of it and I was ready to just blast off at it. The tracker restrained me, saying "Kangela ikandhla" (look for the head). We circled the bush cautiously and found it. The snake's huge coils were wound around the bush and the head and neck were stretched straight away from the body, giving me a "beaut" of a clear shot. I blasted the top of the head off the body, and we carefully unwound the snake. We stripped a length of soft bark off a tree and tied it around the snake to drag it all the way back to the house, there was no way were were able to carry it. It measured 14 feet and was 6 inches thick at the girth.

A beautiful but deadly snake is the Banded Cobra. It has 6 inch broad yellow and black bands around its body, from head to tail. They were common in our area, and it was commonplace to eradicate them whenever we came across them.

Gideon and I were as usual out hunting one day when we heard a commotion coming from a nearby tree. A flock of birds was screaming and chattering and frantically flying in and out of the tree. We investigated and saw a large green snake on a branch. What kind it was, I do not know, but true to my convictions of "the only good snake is a dead snake" I shot it and it fell out the tree. It was around 6 feet long and, in the usual way, we tied a strip of soft bark around it and headed for home, dragging it along. As we walked we suddenly heard the sound of singing, and saw in the distance a very fat black woman with a huge bundle balanced on her head walking along the path. Gideon said.. "Let's play a trick on her," so we quickly laid the snake across the path and hid behind some nearby rocks. She came closer, still singing as she walked. At the very last moment she saw the snake and with a scream that set a flock of egrets flying in panic, she leapt off the path, bundle going one way... she legging it, fat wobbling, the other way. Gideon and I were rolling around killing ourselves with laughter, but boy, there was one angry woman who came down at us like a ton of bricks and soon we were legging it to get out of her way. Suddenly she saw the funny side of it herself and began to laugh, more in relief than anything else, I imagine. We came to her, and said, "Sorry, Mother,"chatted a while, picked up her belongings and helped her carry them along the way.

On another occasion we came upon an Antbear (Anteater and Aardvark are also names for the same animal). It is very unusual to see one during the day because they are essentially nocturnal creatures. It was about 4.30 in the afternoon, the sun was still high in the sky. Why this animal was up and about was a mystery to us both. They are lumbering ungainly shortsighted creatures about the size of a large pig. They have large ears, a long snout and a longer heavy tail. Their back legs are very powerful and the front legs have heavy claws, with which they tear anthills apart to get at their meal. Once the anthill has been ripped open, their long pencil thin tongue is inserted into the passages in the nest, and they guzzle as many ants as they can. Their diet is exclusively ants so for their size they have to eat a huge number to stay alive. But...... back to the story.......We were walking into the wind and the smell of this animal was being wafted strongly towards us... and it wasn't Chanel No. 5, I can tell you! We crept quickly but quietly up to the antbear, until we were directly behind it. Gideon lunged forward and grabbed it on the end of its tail and I was just a split second slower, as I too grabbed on. The antbear got such a fright it started off as fast as it could go, a lumbering run, with a black man and a white boy hanging for dear life onto it. It was so powerful that there was no way in the world that we were going to bring it down or even stop it in its tracks and we just hung on, being ya nked along by this mini tank, through thorn bushes, and brambles, clothing snagging on twigs and branches. After what seemed to be an age but in fact was not more than about half a minute, we let go of the tail and collapsed in a heap on the ground convulsed with laughter, watching the poor antbear disappear into the bush. I thought later, maybe it had been up and about because it had had a nightmare ( or should I say daymare) and when we appeared, its worst fears were realised.

There were several dogs around the homestead, coming and going as they saw fit. One old mongrel bitch called Evie was the mother of them all. She was a mixture of so many breeds that I called her a  Heinz ( the 57 Varieties people). She was built like a pointer, but was a patchwork of colour and I could never decide whether she was brown with white patches or white with brown patches. There was a sprinkling of dalmatian in her too, with light spots like freckles showing through the white.She had been born without a tail and so whenever she greeted us she would waggle her whole rear end from side to side. Sometimes she was so glad to see us that her backside would waggle back and forth furiously through nearly 180 degrees. She spent her days lolling around the homestead, and, in season, offering herself to whoever happened to be passing by at the time, so producing yet another litter. One day as I walked out of the yard with a gun slung over my shoulder, she decided to accompany me. I tried to make her stay at the house but she would have none of it... she wanted to come and bloody hell, she was gonna come! I told her that I would string her up by her ears if she didnt obey me and stay at home, but she just waggled her bottom, smiled and ignored my threats. I finally gave up and said, "Ok, you win, you little bitch, but behave yourself!" We walked through the bush, Evie running around, sniffing this, investigating that but generally behaving herself, until we suddenly noticed a big porcupine ahead of us. Evie forgot all her manners and careered off after the porcupine, all caution thrown to the winds, barking and yelping and causing a god awful din. The porcupine scrambled down a nearby anteaters burrow, and Evie disappeared into the hole right on the tail of the animal. I heard her barks coming from underground about 12 feet from the entrance to the burrow. and I knew I'd lose her if I did not get to her quickly, she did not have the sense to back pedal out the burrow and could suffocate if there was a cave in. I ran back to the house and grabbed a spade and yelled to one of the hands to come with me. Even though we lost no time getting back to the burrow, about 15 minutes had passed and I could still hear muffled yelping coming from underground. We started digging in haste but were being careful in case the spade hit her, and finally her back legs appeared. I grabbed her and yanked her out, to find four or five quills stuck in her nose. She was in pain and as gently as I could I pulled them out, but because it hurt she tried to bite my hand off.  Finally I had them out and turned my attention to the porcupine which was still in the burrow. We continued to dig until we began to uncover quills. I was on the point of shooting it, because it is a delicacy enjoyed by africans, but as I lifted the gun, I found I could not fire, I just knew I was shooting something in the back, without giving it any chance to escape and I left the beast in peace, to worm its way out of the hole after we had left.

One of the saddest moments I have ever experienced happened when I was looking after a little fox terrier called Tups,  for my father-in-law while he was away on vacation. I was living in town at the time, and one day I was driving back to my house and saw a huge commotion in a side street nearby, a crowd of bystanders watching a dog fight, but making no effort to stop it. I saw immediately that it was Tups and he was being killed by a big bull terrier. I drove as fast as possible into the street and jumped out to see Tups lying in a pool of blood, and the bull terrier being pulled away by its owner. As I ran up, Tups stood up, covered in blood and to my horror I saw that his left front leg had been chewed right off. He turned and on three legs, ran away before I could pick him up. I hunted the neighbourhood to find him and on returning home to get more help,  found him lying barely alive  in the front garden, under a bush. I rushed him to the vet, and was told straight away, that there was nothing that could be done for him and that the most merciful thing was to put him to sleep. I  could hardly keep my emotions in check and the thought of giving the news to my father on his return was a frightening one.

A famous person (don't ask me who!) once quoted ."A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." I was thinking about the ethnic differences between Africans and European s not only in the different lifestyles but in their names. Common names such as Mr. Brown, White, Green, Black, or Brewer, Butcher, Baker ( I haven't yet heard of a Mr. Candlestickmaker), Chandler etc, all have their origins identifying their ancestors by a trait or a trade they practiced. Africans have to tems. Tribes and families ally themselves and identify with something in their natural surrounding, wild animals for example. The wild animals are not always "big 5 varieties" like lions elephants, leopards etc., but can be birds, rodents, crocodiles, frogs, pigs or goats, in fact anything in nature, even trees and fruit. I was looking at some names the other day and translating them into English to give you an idea of how funny some of them sound. I know a Mr. Tau Kgomo. That's Mr. Lion Cow, or how about Mr. Monang Letsetse ( Mr. Mosquito Flea) and Mr. Tlou Tshwene ( Mr. Elephant Baboon). Imagine being in the workplace, being greeted by the President of the company, something like this: "Good morning, Baboon" (company presidents often don't bother to even stick a Mr. in front of your name!) Or, greeting a friend, like this: Dumela, Kgabo (Kgabo is his first name) it translates: "Hello Ape". The language I am using here is Northern Sotho, but whatever the language, whatever the tribe, the totem system applies throughout the whole of Africa. Then I had some fun translating western names into an African language. My own: Rocky Brewer, becomes Matjezinenge Twalankosi (as near as I can translate). Africans have a habit of giving people nicknames which aptly describe them (something similar to the American Indian - Remember "Dances with Wolves" or "Sitting Bull"?)The name I was given and which I have to this day is Maztulela ( "The Quiet One"). I tend to simmer when I am angry, not given to jumping up and down on my hat, and I keep my temper on a tight rein. It's not a good trait, I should let go and shout and get it out of my system. Africans are generally brash and very loud and do not trust a quiet man, they consider he has something to hide, so I was always treated with caution.

Pidgeon Patter

At one time in my life I owned a small suburban "Superette," It was the traditional neighbourhood store, carrying everything from pins, needles and cotton to bolts of cloth, patent medicines, groceries, icecreams and cool drinks.  We met many interesting people in that store and were well known in the neighbourhood. There were many itinerant workers who would pass by, people who had come in from the rural areas to find work, and who had a scant knowledge of English. Townspeople in their turn had little knowledge of the african dialects and the africans themselves had some difficulty understanding each other, because of the several tribal groupings in the country.  Over the years, a  language evolved  which was a mixture of  English, Ndebele,  Shona, some Shangaan and Afrikaans. This bastardised language  was called Chilapalapa or "Kitchen Kaffir"  ( kaffir is extremely bad language and is as hated in Africa as the word nigger is, in the United States). Now, the Coca Cola Company advertising campaign is so strong that the word "Coke" was synonymous with cool drink. If someone wanted a coolie of any type, they usually just said, "lets go have a Coke" even if they were actually wanting a lemonade.  Rural Africans would come in to the store and buy cool drinks and cigarettes always asking for a Coke. I  would ask "What Coke?" and the answer would come back, Red Coke ( Strawberry) or  Orange Coke ( Fanta Orange) etc., and the accents that went with it sometimes had me in stitches with laughter. Here are a few gems:

Givimicock = please may I have a Coke?
Iwantigrinicock = Can I have a Cream Soda?
Orinjicockatoo = Two Fanta Orange, please.
Givireddicocki = Have you got strawberry cool drink?
On one occasion, it took me a while to figure out what the customer was getting at... he asked for "Medicine"...I said, "What medicine do you want?" he said impatiently..." medicine... MEDICINE!!" I was getting a little frustrated myself and tried him  in Sindebele, which he didn't know anyhow ( he was probably a Shona, I never found out), so I said, "Do you have a headache?" pointing to his head. No luck. I picked up a box of aspirin and showed him. No luck. I tried a bottle of cough mix. No luck. He began gesticulating in the direction of the cigarttes, and , the penny dropped....... I picked up a pack of 20 Madison, and he beamed all over his face. Success... at last!, I wonder how long it would have taken me to figure out if he asked for "Kemmel''

On a more serious note

I have often pondered the hypocrisy of man in general and politicians in particular. The Aztec Indian of South America fought the white man, and lost. The Red Indian of North America, the Australian Aborigine, the New Zealand Maori and the African all suffered the same fate. There was one major difference between the African and all the others. The white man poured into Australia, North and South America in his millions and soon outnumbered the remnants of those natives that he had slaughtered and defeated. But it was not the case in Africa. White men came, not in their millions, but in their thousands, and the racial balance was always heavily weighted in favour of the African.

As a white man born and bred in Africa, I have all my life had to put up with accusations from americans and europeans,  of being a racist and it sometimes sticks in my craw to think that many uninformed people  pontificate on this subject and automatically label every white person born here as "racist". This "holier than thou" attitude really pisses me off and I would like to try in some small way to put my point of view across to my readers. I hasten to add that this is a purely personal view, I am not a scholar or philosopher so please forgive some inaccuracies.

From time immemorial Africans have lived very simple rural, pastoral lives. Their dwellings were (and still are) circular thatched huts made from saplings and plastered with mud, with the floor inside being made of a mixture of mud and dried smoothed cow dung. The whole family, man wife and child(ren) live eat and sleep together in that one small dwelling. On marrying a wife, a man pays the father of the bride, "lobola" (the bride price). In previous times it was always a gift of cattle, nowadays it is paid mostly in money. If a man is wealthy enough he may buy as many wives as he wishes, and for each wife he builds an adjoining hut in which she lives. He surrounds his huts with a rude fence of cut down thorn trees and bushes just laid haphazardly in a circle around the huts to keep wild animals and marauders out.

In this day and age, although most Africans embrace modern medicines, there are many rural dwellers who still use traditional methods to cure illness.When anyone gets sick out there in the bush, they are treated by a "nyanga" (traditional healer or witch doctor) using potions made from plants, herbs and parts of dead animals. The witch doctor is also called upon to exorcise evil spirits, to intercede with a family's ancestral spirits and to seek out witches (who can still at this present time, be put to death in the most gruesome fashion by angry and fearful mobs). I have often asked myself this question: How many innocent women have died, purely on the say so of a nyanga? There are also, in this "enlightened" age, ritual murders of babies and very young children, whose mutilated bodies are found, minus certain body parts which are used as "muti" (medicine).

Now, in those not so far off days in the past, while Europe, Asia and China were busy building imposing structures, inventing new weapons and machines, building carriages and ships, paving roads, making earth shattering discoveries, waging war, exploring, mapping documenting and colonizing, Africa seemed to be frozen in time. The African had no written language, only the most rudimentary tools and his weapons were the knob- kerrie, spear and oxhide shield. His clothing was made from the skins of animals and until the first explorers appeared, he had never seen a wheel. He used a cut down fork of a tree as a conveyance pulled by oxen to move his bulkier belongings from place to place. Today it is a common sight to see African women carrying very heavy loads perfectly balanced on their heads, and the "tree sleigh" is still often used in outlying areas.

When Africa was colonised, and "civilised" structures were being put into place... the African seemed not even to care what was happening in front of his very eyes and continued in his age old traditional way, building his rude huts, wearing his skins, marrying his wives. Since he had no clocks or mechanical means of measuring time (not even a sundial) his concept and utilisation of time was cyclic, (day / night / summer /winter) as opposed to the civilised world's usage of linear time (8am/9am/10am etc). He sat back and marveled at the miraculous machines, weapons and structures which were becoming a part of his life and considered white people to be gods. He made little attempt to emulate or investigate the why and wherefore or to try in any way to improve his lot by his own efforts. In his very simplicity, of his own choice and free will he became a servant to the white colonists (gods) of Africa, and was used for menial tasks and work that required more brawn than brain. The tragedy of this is that the white man, in treating the native in this way, instilled into him a huge inferiority complex, which is still apparent in this more enlightened age.

But the black man was also enslaved against his will by other, supposedly "civilised" men, Arabs, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Spaniards and Portuguese and ripped away from his birthplace to be treated like an animal in far off lands. Even today, 134 years after the American civil war "freed" the black man, there are states in which he is considered a 2nd class citizen and racial tension rears its ugly head with monotonous regularity.

Just as the whole world's attention was drawn to apartheid in South Africa I cannot help but draw the reader's attention to the Jewish Holocaust, and the violence and killings in Ireland as well as to the  crisis in Kosovo, where supposedly civilised white men systematically slaughtered human beings just because they differed ethnically. Even more bestial  were the rapes committed to "ethnically cleanse" the population. What is this madness that consumes humankind?  And what is all this crap about being "humane" whilst being surrounded by such inhumanity?

So..... all you " holier than thou do-gooders" out there, how about throwing a few stones at your own glass houses?

At the same I have to mention the black on black slaughters in Burundi, and the civil wars and atrocities that are happening around the African continent at this moment. So I am forced to conclude, whether you are black, white or multicoloured it seems that human beings in general lack humanity.The perpetrators are not MEN - they are beasts.

 

 

Author: Rocky Brewer.
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