AHC#3 Lion is Death Pt II | african-hunter

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The Lion is Death Part II

By I J Larivers

Noted South African author T V Bulpin wrote a masterpiece in The Hunter is Death in 1968. It is the story of the legendary poacher-turned-game-keeper George Rushby (the man who also introduced trout into the streams of Mbeya in Tanganyika - I saw them myself in 1985 but didn’t have a rod to hand) and his almost single-handed battle with another pride of seemingly supernatural lions.

These lions had terrorised the community around Njombe for decades and were believed to have killed well over a thousand people. The Second World War fell within a portion of their reign, and had succeeded in diverting most of the colony’s resources away from wildlife management.

Rushby, also a friend of the fabled snake hunter C J P Ionides, was transferred to Tanganyika’s Southern Highlands Province just after the war - his superior, Monty Moore VC, respected George’s crack skill with a rifle, and cautioned him that “those Njombe lions are something more than a joke...I think it’s time that we had an end to them.”

But if local beliefs were to be taken into consideration, these were no mere lions - the cult of mbojo - lycanthropy - was prevalent in the Singida district, and it was also “common practice” for men to turn into hyenas - a subtle difference from the mudzimu belief where the lion is possessed by the spirit of a deceased witchdoctor or chief. George Rushby had not heard of any supernatural content in the Njombe lion saga until Moore briefed him, but the locals believed these to be watu-simba, or lion men. Rushby would be stymied in his initial efforts to rid the district of the man-eaters by villagers who believed the killers to be incarnations of the local witchdoctors and by the witchdoctors themselves who were content for that bit of PR to get around. The run of the mill villagers have a fatalistic approach to life at best, and especially where other-worldliness is concerned - best for the white man to leave well enough alone, even if they were being slaughtered by the hundreds.

The lion men first came to prominence in 1920, when some two hundred killings occurred in the Singida area and the circumstances attracted the attention of the media. Were all these killings the work of real lions? Survivors invariably described their attackers as genuine lions, but probably not. The local witchdoctors were not only running a lucrative extortion racket whereby they offered protection against the lions for a fee, but there was little first world policing there then, and a human murderer in the employ of the sorcerers could kill his victims in such a way as to be accepted as a lion attack in the light of what would be a cursory investigation by colonial authorities. Rushby was intrigued by the supernatural implication for the Njombe lions - the Dark Continent exuded more mystery then than now, but he was confident in the efficacy of the well-placed bullet on a rogue lion or the hangman’s noose on the murderous witchdoctor. George left with his family for Mbeya in October of 1945.

Shortly after Rushby’s arrival, he was confronted by the road foreman engaged in maintenance of the Mbeya-Iringa section of road, a logistically-important conduit. (Man-eating lions just love construction camps.) The foreman, Watermeyer, had lost as far as he knew seventeen of his labourers, and for some obscure reason replacements were hard to find. George Rushby’s predecessor, Dusty Arundell had been somewhat lacking in his response to the lion challenge, and men like Watermeyer were demanding change.

When George Rushby arrived at Njombe, he was advised that the current reign of terror had commenced around 1932, but despite a half-hearted response from the game department and police, to date not one lion had been killed in the area since the start of the depredations. 1932 coincided with the overthrow of one Matamula - a powerful chief and witchdoctor at Iyayi village, who was claiming to control man-eating lions. Only one chief in the area had kept any record at all of the killings, and in the previous four years, his list sported two hundred and thirty names from the Wanginombe district. From his as yet limited knowledge of the area, George concluded that the killings in Mtwango district must be on a par and those from Rujewa even worse. His estimate was over 1,500 souls. He went to work immediately.

In Rushby’s first two weeks, he saw nary a lion paw print, and he was diverted from Njombe by government bureaucracy which gave priority to the control of red locusts. The real function of African colonial game departments was always to dovetail wildlife areas with rapidly expanding human populations with the priority being given to agriculture. In January of 1946, George Rushby returned to Njombe with his six best game scouts and numerous trap guns. He soon found that the killers fed securely through the night, and then abandoned their prey and travelled hard - their track was always cold by the time a hunter arrived on the scene. Conventional hunting strategies would not work, and Rushby instead set up a series of blinds, tree machans and pits at strategic locations.

Arriving at the village of Mambego, where informants had told him there had been “a bad night”, he found the cluster of huts all but deserted. A small girl had been overlooked, and the old and infirm left behind to their own devices as those who were able to fled. Without much optimism, Rushby erected a hide and settled in for what was to be an uneventful night. The following morning, some inhabitants began to trickle back in, including the girl’s father - her mother had been eaten the previous night in the village where they had gone for refuge! Going in pursuit, Rushby soon cut fresh lion spoor, only to find his game scouts less than enthusiastic. They tracked down four lion resting in the shade or a large tree, and George dropped a lioness with two quick shots. Approaching cautiously, his retainers seemed relieved when the carcass failed to transform into its human form or - worse - some malodorous demon. Four days later, George’s party killed their second lion. Rushby knew that soon the news of the mortality of the lions in the shadow of the white man’s magic in the form of powder and lead would spread through the bush.

Administrative duties called George back to Mbeya, and it wasn’t until March that he was able to return his attention to the man-eaters. Very little progress had been made by his scouts, though one had followed up and killed one more lion. Matamula, meanwhile, was being petitioned by one faction to return to his chiefdom, and had intimated that he would call off “his lions” if this were effected. On Rushby’s return, he followed up the spoor of a young male lion and shot the cat in full charge at a distance of no more than ten yards.

English bureaucracy being what it is, George was directed to return to Mbeya to receive an urgent message - it was that all officers who had not been able to take leave during the war were now, effectively, being given six months more or less forced leave. He was happy to be back in Mbeya in October of that year, and again made the lions his first priority.

Only nineteen people had been eaten in George’s absence. One of whom was the little girl from the village where he had made his first lion kill. The following day, George and one of his best game scouts killed two more lions. His attention was diverted until after Christmas by an inquest into the death of a European cattle trader involved in a poaching conspiracy with one of Rushby’s own game scouts. The scout had recovered a pair of large elephant tusks from the bush, and the cattleman was trampled when they ventured out to shoot a small elephant on license and substitute the ivory.

It was February of 1947 before George was free to return to his lions. Eight suspected man-eaters had now been eliminated by George or by his scouts, and the killings were starting to decrease proportionately. The most recent predation had occurred in the Ilembula-Malimzenga region, and George tried to second-guess where the lions would strike next. They had in the past shown a consistent pattern in their movements whereby they would take their leave from one area and then move in a straight line until something compelled them to turn off at a tangent - each track and turn were geometrically concise, and when one of their paths crossed human habitation they would kill again. Consulting the map, and perhaps using The Force, George headed for Halali village, which was about ten miles away from their last known depredations. After his first morning’s hunt out from Halali, Rushby returned to find that a pair of lions had taken a man from that very village about an hour after he had set out. In a follow-up that afternoon, George shot two more lions, bringing the total to ten. While following up these two lions, George had come face to face with a magnificent large male that he had not been able to dispatch. This great lion had surprised George as he was following up one of the other Halali lions, mock-charging him from his blind side. Taken off guard he had spun around and brought his rifle to bear but had not been able to fire a shot before the cat melted off into the bush. Its visage was forever inscribed on his memory - his own, personal Moriarti. But he was now distracted for a full three months with crop protection duties and guiding VIP visitors.

By June, George was on his way to Singida, where the high court was hearing the case of a number of locals involved in the lion-man killings, which had commenced in that area in 1946. The implication was more of lion-men - the hatchet men of a recalcitrant chief or sorcerer - than lions. Game scouts who had been sent into the area could find no lions and became easily convinced that a supernatural agency was at work. The police had been able to gather enough evidence pointing to murder to arrest 27 local villagers. But while there were still real lions prowling about, the lion-man was something wholly different to anything George Rushby had yet encountered. They were real, but of course not lycanthropes - villagers who had been brainwashed by a combination of mumbo-jumbo and drugs to become ferocious killers on demand - they were then hired out for around thirty shillings a kill. Some were even surgically crippled so as to walk and move in lion fashion - I have myself seen similar techniques employed in Egypt to create cripples who can in turn be hired out as beggars.

To give an insight into the process, the testimony of one Mande is worth looking at. At the age of around twelve, he was kidnapped and taken to the house of Mama Kitoto, a local witch and purveyor of lion-men and women. There he met a number of people “turned into” lions by having been dressed in hides and monkey skin cowls. Mande was accorded the same treatment, and also described being drugged with various medicines which made him “incapable of thinking”. Mama Kitoto finally told him it was time to make his first kill; following which he was to kill his sister Baha. Having been given two knives and a machete, he was directed to where some local villagers were grinding grain, and instructed to kill one of their children - in this he was fortunately unsuccessful as the locals attacked him and a more experienced lion man came and dragged him away by the leg. He sustained a more or less permanent injury to his knee, and was no longer considered lion-man material. One hundred and three people had been killed in Singida since the troubles began, but the area was quiet during George’s sojourn there - though his visit had been instructive insofar as he was now enlightened into the lion man phenomenon as opposed to the predations of genuine man-eaters. Matamula at Njombe was merely making the best of a genuine population of man-eaters.George travelled to Wangingombe in the Njombe district to settle the man-eaters - and Matamula - once and for all. Once the man-eaters were gone, so he hoped, would be a large part of Matamula’s power. On George’s arrival, he heard that one of his scouts had killed a man-eater ten days previously; extrapolating from the decline in killings, George felt that there couldn’t be more than a handful of man-eaters left. Probably because of their depleted social structure, they were now behaving more like rogue lions, and less in concert.

It was a little over a week before George and one of his best scouts cut fresh lion spoor one morning. After a three hour follow-up, they found them - George’s nemesis from that day at Halali, and a smaller female. George’s .404 took the lion through the heart, and his scout dropped the lioness with a simultaneous lung shot. George was pretty sure this was the end of the saga of the man-eaters of Njombe. He was almost right. On his return to Mbeya, he had scarcely reverted back to his normal duties when he received notification that a woman had been killed at Matipu village - but he had taken the precaution of leaving a number of good game scouts in the area, and they followed up and shot the two lionesses responsible. In all, George Rushby had shot fifteen known man-eating lions and five possibles, and the killings ceased. Coincidentally, the Paramount Chief of the district had returned Matamula to his chiefdom. The old scoundrel was therefore free to claim that it was because he now had that which he desired that he had “called off his lions”. Superstition is a powerful ally among primitive peoples.

Today, the locals have become more sophisticated, but the lions haven’t changed so much. In 1984 I camped for the night near Third Bridge in Botswana’s Moremi National Park on my way into Savuti - in the same spot where a German tourist had recently been dragged from her tent and eaten by a lion - I opted for my sleeping bag across the back seat of the Land Rover that night! According to a Zimbabwe National Parks warden’s report from July of 1997, the locals near the Chirundu border post asked Parks to deal with a midzimu lion that had stalked several people. In 2010 a Zimbabwean professional hunter was called into the Kanyemba area where the mighty Zambezi flows through the convergence of Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique to deal with a number of man-eaters who had killed and eaten five people. Villagers around Mushumbi Pools are living in fear after a pride of lions killed two cattle and five goats, read The Herald in May of 2010. A lioness mauled a man camping at Tashinga in Zimbabwe’s Matusadona National Park on 24 May of this year. The man was dragged out of his A-frame while sleeping, and had to be evacuated by the Medical Air Rescue Service from Bumi Hills. The saga continues into a new century.

“Just a cry in the night – then a roar, and a shout,

And the grass springs alight, and the fires blaze out-

Is he here? Is he there? Let us peer, let us stare!

But he’s off to his lair though the scents still about.

Just a rending of flesh and a crunching of bone.

And a Growling Afresh, and a pitiful groan-

Do you hear it – A ssh! How they scramble and push!-

See! There is blood on that bush! Did you hear the man moan?

Not a star in the sky and the moon wasn’t out

When His Lordship went by And there isn’t a doubt

That the poor devil’s dead …he was cooking they said

When he clawed at his head with a deuce of a clout.”

Cullen Gouldsburry - Rhodesian Rhymes

By Ganyana

Lion at Night

The above poem describes an incident on a police patrol in the Zambezi valley around 1910 - one of the porters being taken by a lion whilst cooking dinner. One hundred years of enlightened human rule, the creation of national parks and safari areas and the passing of many ordinances to protect lion hasn’t had one iota of civilising effect on them. Lion in the Zambezi Valley are the same man-eaters today that they were a hundred years ago - or a thousand for that matter. Man-eaters of Tsavo; Man-eaters of Chirundu, the gravestone marked ‘Killed by a Lion’ at the old Pioneer cemetery at Tuli - all serve to remind us, that, wherever lions occur in any numbers man will feature on their menu sooner or later. And as Tich Atkinson points out in his article, it is always after dark. Shumba has fifth generation night vision and full stealth gear - he is the ultimate ninja of the African veldt.

A couple of years ago we experienced a series of attacks on the Zimbabwe proficiency exam by an old lioness at Chimutsi dam in the Zambezi valley. Early in the evening she had a go at one candidate who was in the shower - she was deterred by appropriate use of a spotlight by one of the camp members whilst the individual target rapidly made his way into a better-lit area and the camp manager fetched a rifle.

Towards midnight she was back and pulled the fly sheet off the pup tent that some of the camp staff were sleeping in and was driven off by a shower of burning brands from the fire thrown by other staff. In the early morning she walked into a tent that had been left open, but the apprentice hunter had already left to go and complete skinning an elephant. She had been hanging around for a few days getting ever bolder and National Parks had finally had enough so she was followed up to a thicket less than 100m from camp and shot. She was a classic case though, old, injured (she had a horn wound through into one lung), broken teeth, etc., and could fairly be said to have been driven to attempt to take a man through sheer hunger. Others I have had to deal with in the same area were in no such need. Lion in the prime of their life, and part of an active pride which had recently killed a young elephant - the young male simply fancied a bit of person to round off the meal. And at night they are bullet-proof - or at least seem to be. Lion are very susceptible to a well placed bullet but when snap shooting at night by the light of headlamp or torch held by another, one’s shooting is seldom up to daytime standard. Once wounded and with adrenaline surging they seem able to absorb an immense amount of bullet energy. Part of this is that tensed muscles are considerably harder than relaxed ones and many soft point projectiles simply blow apart – ones that on a broad side shot on an unaware lion would pass through without hardly expanding. When hit the lion often turn, snapping and snarling to chew at the bullet entry point for a few seconds before returning their attention to you - it is a useful flaw. It gives the bullet time to do its job internally and gives you time to rack another round into the chamber. Then, having shrugged off the bullet, the lion turns, growls, thrashes its tail and comes on anew, only to go down in a heap chewing at the next bullet wound - and then on again until it runs out of blood or a bullet connects the spine. It certainly makes dealing with a known man-eater at night an overly exciting occupation…

“Have you matches? Ah good! And a candle to spare?

I should put on the hood – it’ll lessen the glare.

I’ve the small .303 What have you?

SSG?

Well here’s luck till we see if He’s left us the hair!”

It gives me new respect for those old timers going out with a .303 and a shotgun (loaded with 0 Buck) and candle lamps looking for a lion. Not my idea of a fun evening! Never forget that when you are in the bush, top of the evolutionary tree or not, you are at the bottom of the food chain - “soft and pink with no teeth or claws” as Gary Larson aptly summed it up.

On 30 October 2010 Pete Evershed was killed by a lion at Chitake 2 (alternative camp) near the source of the spring in the zambezi Valley.

The circumstances were that the lioness and four subadult cubs were in the vicinity for most of the day. They had an opportunity to attack a herd of buffalo which came to drink but made no attempt which indicates that hunger was not a motive.

At about 4pm I took my clients to the big fig tree on our way to view the sunset later. We had watched the lion with the buffalo in the morning and as expected found them resting on a grassy bank in the shade of the mahoganies at the waters edge. I conducted a walk into the river bed to photograph the lion from across the stream. At 4.41pm the lion started moving up to the terraces of the river bank. Soon after, we left the fig tree and went by vehicle to the baobabs and met Mr and Mrs Zietsman who were staying in Chitake 1 camp. A herd of buffalo was making its way over the hill and we stayed to photograph them in the sunset. We then left the baobabs and drove past the Evershed’s camp and then past the fig tree and saw the lion in a young raintree just beyond the fig.

We continued on to our Camp at Chitake 3. At about 6.45pm we heard the sound of vehicle horns blaring from the Evershed’s camp. I realised immediately that there was a lion problem and within a space of three minutes we were at their camp with my weapons and spotlight.

On arrival we found their two vehicles parked on either side of Mr. Evershed’s body at the shower area. This action had kept the lion away from him. I located the lion walking amongst bushes 10 to 15 metres away and fired a round from my revolver into the air. There was very little reaction to the shot and I found that the spotlight was more effective. With its use there was no sign of aggression or of them stalking us. The lion seemed now to be more interested in the shower and one of them ran off with a towel while another was investigating a bucket. While I concentrated on spotlighting the lion and keeping track of them Mr. Evershed’s body was recovered and we retreated to the camp.

Contributory factors which led to the incident are the somewhat far distance of the shower from the camp, use of the shower after last light in darkness, the lack of a screen barrier, and insufficient lighting of the shower area.

This incident is not a case of some lion being maneaters and others not. It is generally believed that maneaters are old or injured lion that are unable to hunt normal prey. This case shows that all lion, even the habituated ones at Chitake, are potential maneaters – all they need is the opportunity. From the fact that the persons who showered after sunset but before last light were not attacked it is evident to me that if the lion see that you are aware of them they will keep their distance. However, if they see that you are not aware of them the situation is extremely dangerous. At night this means having sufficient light in camp so that they will stay at a safe distance on the periphery. The use of spotlights or good torches to be aware of their presence is important. It may be thought that these lion are now “potential” maneaters because of this attack. The fact that this occurred in the first place shows that they were potential maneaters before the fateful night, so nothing has really changed. For this reason they have not been shot.

The following advice is offered for any who may be in close proximity to lion. Firstly, stay within the camp perimeter at night and have at least one powerful spotlight of 1,000,000 candle power or more, which should be capable of keeping lion at bay. Each person should have a personal torch, good quality and reliable, with replacement batteries. The headlamp type are useful and leave both hands free. There are also very powerful LED hand held torches, some that are able to focus the beam to a spotlight.

There should be at least a few canisters of the fog type pepper spray to be carried by persons going to the toilet or cooking or using the shower. When a person is going to the shower or toilet a careful inspection of the vicinity should be carried out. Lion’s eyes will reflect light so they will be easily seen by the keen observer.

The toilet, shower and kitchen should not be too far from the central area of the camp, and it is advisable to refrain from consuming excessive alcohol. Not only does it impair judgment it also increases the need to visit the toilet after dark.

Keep doors of tents closed even on hot nights – hyena and lion have both entered tents with doors open and attacked the occupants.

Death at Chitake Springs

By Steve Pope

I believe it is very important that we understand the dramatic transformation that takes place in the behavioral characteristics of cats - particularly lions - between the hours of daylight and darkness. I have experienced many examples of this during the years that I have spent living in the bush amongst lions.

Lions seem to morph into almost fearless creatures once they are enveloped in darkness. Whilst I must emphasise that it is dangerous to generalise about the behavior of any animal, one is able to identify certain patterns which emerge in the general reaction of certain species to the presence of man.

I am a firm believer that individuals of any of the more advanced species have characters which vary considerably, and have moods – understandable, as such behaviour can be influenced by hormones among other stimuli. The boldness and sometimes aggressiveness of certain sharks is apparently related to the fact that they are reputed to have the highest levels of testosterone of any animal on earth.

During the course of taking almost daily guided walks in the Mana Pools National Park in the Zambezi Valley, I came across lions on numerous occasions. On a good number of these occasions, depending on the distance of the contact between us walkers and the lions, the reaction of the lions varied little - in general, the closer the contact the more agitated the response of the lions. I am happy to say that with the exception of lions protecting a kill or lionesses with cubs, the reaction was the same, i.e. to put distance between us and them.

In many cases, particularly in areas adjacent to the hunting zones, the lions displayed open fear of man and immediately ran away. Further into the park where the lions were more habituated to people and where they were not being hunted, they were much more relaxed and many people I am sure have experienced lions at very close quarters from the safety of a vehicle.

In cases where the walking party unintentionally stumbles upon lions at short distances, either because the lions are sleeping or the walkers have walked over a blind rise with the wind in their faces, the reaction is often an indignant growl/grunt whilst the big cats immediately stand with tails thrashing from side to side. Mostly this reaction will calm to an unhurried walk away on the part of both parties.

However should the contact occur within what I call the lion’s comfort zone, more often than not the pride leader will make a charge at the walkers which normally ends a short distance off, and is what many term a “mock charge” which is in effect a threat display. This is extremely impressive especially from a large maned male and yes, is very frightening.

When darkness falls, this all changes dramatically and Lion-Jekyll turns to Lion-Hyde - they become bold and unafraid.

I have had a number of frightening confrontations with lions at night including cats “swotting” members of our party sleeping around a fire and “patting” and sniffing at tents. The deciding factor in moving these lions away, in all instances has been light and on one occasion fire.

I had one incident, where having completed an afternoon walk, my party remounted our vehicle to return to the camp, some 3km away. The vehicle would not start. The light was fading fast, so, to avoid wasting time I quickly decided to walk back to the camp. This was in the days of no electronic communications and in retrospect, was probably not the correct decision. One of my staff would in due course have suspected there was a problem and because my vehicle was on the road would have come and found us.

At the time, I was not overly concerned, and so set off at a good pace, sticking to open areas whilst urging my somewhat elderly clients to try and get a move on and keep up before complete darkness overtook us.

About 500 metres on, one of my clients said that she thought there was a lion following us! Sure enough there was a lone male, some 120 metres away walking purposefully towards us. I decided immediately that it was the moment to discourage the lion from continuing, and whilst I could still see him. I fired a shot with my .458 about a half metre to the side of the lion. He stopped for about five or six seconds, lowered his head a little, and carried right on walking toward us! Very luckily for me, a short while later one of my staff had come out to find me and we clambered aboard another vehicle. On hearing the vehicle the lion stopped and watched but did not move away.

One has to ask, what would have transpired had the other vehicle not arrived? Trying to shoot a determined lion with no light would have been more than a little challenging. Anyone who has been in front of a .458 when it is discharged will tell you that it is an extremely significant report and shockwave – yet this lion was not deterred.

Living permanently in the bush as I did back then, one comes to know the individual lions reasonably well and I had had a good few encounters with this male in the past; many whilst on a vehicle and some whilst on foot. He had mock-charged me on a number of occasions, but always stopped at the shout, a short distance off and then moved away. I never even considered having to pull the trigger during daylight encounters. Such is the effect that darkness has on lions.

Remember, lions own the night and we must take every reasonable precaution during the dark hours. Good light makes all the difference. If you are going to spend time in our (still) magnificent wild places, take with you good lighting of whatever description.

My sincere condolences to Lizzie, Megan and Tom Evershed on the tragic loss of a very fine man who loved these wild places.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Lion

By Tich Atkinson