ZULULAND LETTER: How Tiger saved us from the lion

The dogs were in front and yelping, followed by the skinny guys, with the fat ones in the back and screaming like pigs being herded to a slaughter house.

Someone was going to die but it wasn’t going to be me because I was actually overtaking a few of the slower dogs, but wait, let me start at the beginning:


White Zulu

In 2010 and 2011 I was a resident of the Kwambonambi Zulu Reserve area.

I acquired the plot of someone who lost the battle against Aids, paid R1 400 together with a bottle of Smirnoff and a case of beer, and then just like that, Bob was my uncle.

Or in this particular case; Val van der Walt was an instant Zulu and everybody in a radius of 1km became my uncle, brother or cousin.

That’s why I was out hunting a lion, on a Tuesday morning in March 2011, after some of these big cats escaped from the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park and made it all the way down to the Sekhulu area just north of Richards Bay.

They were killing goats and cattle as far as they went so the people wanted revenge.

That was decided at a tribal meeting under a tree which I was compelled to attend, being a Zulu and all, but I didn’t quite understand what it was about and thought we were just getting together for some beers.

Next thing I knew the uncles shoved a knobkierie in my hands and told me to follow them.


Cat kills six

A few produced 9mm pistols so my initial thoughts were:

‘Oh crap, someone slept with someone’s wife and therefore we attaching another village!’, but when the dogs were called I sort of figured that we were off to hunt.

Duiker, monkeys, crocodiles or maybe even some illegal hippos were what I thought we’re after, until we found the spoor.

When I saw the size of that cat’s footprint – somewhere between a dinner plate and a tray – I actually thought that attacking a village might have been a better idea.

I’ve read books on hunting dangerous animals and knew a pack of anorexic dogs, some sticks and a few pistols are not the stuff to take on a lion hunt.

Those are good for a cane rat infestation but for Mufasa you need to pack a bit more fire power.

Like something the Terminator would’ve used had he featured in Jurassic Park.

I immediately envisioned tragedy and a newspaper front page along the lines of; ‘Cat kills six tribesmen and one dumb white guy’, so I got rid of the stupid stick.

I reckoned that it was going to boil down to whom can run the fastest and I didn’t want anything to hamper my pace.

Anyway, you might as well hold on to your manhood because anything smaller than a medium-sized cannon is useless in a lion hunt.


Honourable death

When my fellow tribesmen saw me ditching my weapon, they saw it as a sign of courage:

‘Haibo! This white man is fearless! Not only is he not scared to live among Zulus, but wants to kill a lion with his bare hands…’

That spurred them on and soon I was battling to keep up.

I didn’t want to be in the frontlines but also not all the way at the back – alone and easy prey.

I was busy moving up to put flesh between me and the beast, when it happened…

There was a sudden rumble in the jungle up ahead and the next moment a mangy mutt called Mohammed Ali came past me with tremendous speed.

He wasn’t floating like a butterfly but flying rather, with the kind of pace which creates the impression there’s no legs – just a body shaped like a bullet.

Despite the handguns no one even managed one shot.

There was just a lot of running, screaming and yapping in the air, mixed with the smell of fear coming from some dogs and from one guy’s trousers.

It turned out that African dogs are good at killing the neighbours’ chickens but spectacularly useless at hunting lions, except for one dog called Tiger.

He was 13 years old and half blind so couldn’t get away quick enough, or in the right direction.

Tiger paid for our stupidity with his life.

He was our salvation.

His ancestors must be proud because his was an honourable death.