Life Is A Jig-saw puzzle For the Elephants That Live In The Game Park

Sleep, eat and drink. This was Mayafudi’s routine the first few days at home. A bounteous summer was passing and the undergrowth was still lush in May. Sheaves of tasty grass and a variety of succulent leaves were freely available.

An isolated pool which had been carved out of the rocks by the recent floods, offered him a convenient drinking spot and a cool bath. Other elephants had already made an easy tramping trail to that spot.

Mayafudi’s brain was working overtime. It was a laborious process to marshal his memories. He concentrated very hard to unearth the deeply buried parts in order to build the jig-saw puzzle of his past.

Then he tried to justify – according to the standards which were set by Ukuthula – his later, “strange” and “wrong” behaviour. The transition from playful malice to responsibility to aggression was difficult to understand.

When, where and why did the values inculcated by Ukuthula and other teachers go astray?

Especially his total lack of self-control at Shingwedzi – the direct cause of his blind haste back to his birthplace – caused a heavy burden of guilt. Mayafudi was not naïve. He knew what the rights of humans entailed. By those standards he would be judged. There were no extenuating circumstances.

Even worse than his violent reaction to the armed poachers near Letaba, was the chaos he caused after the fire made by the illegal Mozambique trespassers in the Shingwedzi incident. Whether there was provocation or not, he knew that he would be hunted mercilessly. If they found him, he would be destroyed. He was just very fortunate to flee in good time.

The attack on innocent tourists was classed in the worst category of unacceptable elephant behaviour. This would place the highest price on his head, he realised. Probably heavily armed game rangers had searched a wide area around Shingwedzi for a riotous elephant. Probably they may still be searching.

He could rationalise that he had attacked arsonists, even though his reaction might have been somewhat drastic. But that he has lost all reason with the Land Rover and the hikers, was in his own judgement, unforgivable. He could not justify his actions.

But to be put to death? This punishment seemed disproportionately harsh. Fortunately there were few clues along the Sabie River which could lead to him. A large, loner elephant bull? Beautiful symmetrical tusks? Markings, probably caused by fire, on his body? This “identikit” would also be applicable to quite a few other giants.

To elude hunters of flesh and blood was one matter. But to escape from the talons of one’s own conscience and feelings of guilt was something else. Mayafudi would give anything to eradicate that event from the jig-saw puzzle of his life. He would love to hide that piece of guilt in a hole in a tree or a crevice in the rocks or in a deep pool.

But such an easy way out did not exist. He would have to make his peace, or allow these incidents to disturb him for the rest of his life.

Time and again his turbulent thoughts turned to all the tribulations he had to endure over sixty years on earth. In his mind’s eye he saw swooping helicopters, darts from the sky and the capture or culling of his family and friends.

He remembered Ukuthula and her uncharacteristic demonstration of hopelessness after Nkosikazi had been slaughtered. He experienced his own sympathy with a torn mother and his own embarrassment, which he could not handle.

He also relived Ukuthula’s own tragic death – man’s blind revenge against a leader-elephant, who was, like no other, a friend of humans. The reason? That she had led her flock, as was her responsibility according to elephant tradition, amid a period of extreme drought and famine, to a place where food was to be found.

His thoughts strayed along far trails, to Moholoholo’s story about Mafunyani – the victim of so-called “research’, which, as far as Mayafudi was concerned, was useless anyway. A proud animal was humiliated. Eventually, to be carted around like a useless nonentity in a front end loader.

Must elephants always take a back seat when man makes the rules? Or would it be fair that in certain circumstances an elephant’s instincts, traditions, rights and rules should be respected? The questions kept gnawing.

He knew that Ukuthula, if she was still alive, would have faced these rebellious thoughts of her son in her own usually calm manner. She would have calmed him by explaining patiently why some things had to happen, why elephants would have to accept the fact that they would be hunted, albeit for trophies, biltong, culling of protection of crops; why research was necessary, for which you had to wear a sende

Why elephants are treated they way they are in this age

“Mayafudi,”, she would say, “do you realise that elephants eat mountains of food, drink enormous quantities of water, and destroy, unintentionally sometimes, large amounts of vegetation? There are too many of us, my son. Our population must be curbed. Albeit a bitter fact, excess elephants have to be culled or sold. Or medical science will have to intervene. We have no choice. We could even endanger our own existence or that of rarer species.”

In his thoughts he could again hear her peaceful voice sounding the well-known philosophy: “The rangers are our friends and allies, even though it may not always seem to be the case. They defend us against poachers and illegal hunters. They dig boreholes and erect windmills. They care for ill and injured animals.”

He also heard her admonishments: “You must respect everything and everyone in nature, Mayafudi. Don’t purposely uproot a tree and at the water holes, don’t throw your weight around and terrorise people.”

She would even defend the right of farmers to protect their crops. Or inexperienced and clumsy fire-fighters. “Give them a break” she would plead. “They have to learn.”

But for poachers and arsonists? For criminals who have no business in the Game Park, who enter the Park illegally at night and cause mayhem? No, such tolerance is unthinkable.

Who knows, perhaps Ukuthula would have agreed with him if he could show her the three dead calves on the way to Skukuza. Or the burning soles of his friends; the blood trails of those whose foot pads fell from their feel like pods.

Perhaps she would understand if he could only have the opportunity of telling her of his own pain: pain in his parental heart; the pain everywhere on his huge body when he braved the flames to try rescuing the three young calves.

Maybe she would agree, who knows, if he could explain: “Mother, people are also like elephants. Both have their good and bad.” Or: “Mother, elephants and people could be friends, even though they don’t understand the cultures of each other, or our souls. We clash over something very basic. It is that one in his own right, does the right thing, but according to the rights of the other, the wrong thing.”

She might even concede: “Your life, Mayafudi, is different from mine and that of your sire, Moholoholo. It is different from the life of most of the elephants of our generation. We had also suffered during droughts and floods and fires. We had also been hunted for trophies and other reasons. We were also the victims of poachers. We also lost parents and children and friends and family during culling. But you, my son, suffered more than we did. Maybe you were hunted more than us, and might probably have lost more. Your rage is understandable. I forgive you.”

Gradually peace and calm came to Mayafudi

Suddenly he heard the sonorous cock-cock of the three purple crested loeries, jumping from branch to branch in the tree above him. A family of crested francolins thrashed through the tall grass to reach their nests and their little ones. Four bushbuck, one as large as a nyala, pussyfooted round and round. Mayafudi was intrigued by their graceful movements. The Kruger National Park Life Story Of The Elephant Bull Mayafudi.

Whilst watching them, he saw a leopard waking up in a jackalberry nearby. Slowly he came erect, yawning copiously and then, giving his body a good rub against the trunk of the tree, he glided down to earth in readiness for the night’s hunt. In the bush this was a common occurrence. To Mayafudi it felt like an intensive first experience.

At that moment he also became aware of a regiment of banded mongoose scuffling nervously around his feet. He heard the call of guinea fowl near the water, interrupted by the noise emergence of a family of baboons from the Sabiepark side of the river, coming to spend the night.

How wonderful life was, Mayafudi thought. I am also alive. Tomorrow I’ll look further a field.