The Hunter

THE HUNTER

“I may not know what actually, made him shrink that much,” came the voice of Sulfika. Now the one spoken of was the chief village hunter and in fact an ardent member of the craft. In my community it was common for all men to embrace hunting, I don’t want to say gathering because it only leads to cultural redundancy. Sulfika Lando, his full name that was accorded to him by his late grandfather Pio Gama Olotembe. The name Pio Gama was given to him by the villagers because he spoke of a strange activist, I opine think ably that he was also a journalist, the former name was fond of coming out of his buccal cavity every then and then, I refuse to say now and then, this is because it was so common for him to refer to anything solution as, “How I wish Pio Gama was here, this child couldn’t be sick,” another time,” if Gama could be here, this cow couldn’t drink my bathing water.” In fact, there was a time when he said, “if our Gama Pio could be here, this river could be flowing or retreat upwards the Kanyikela Mountain.” This made all the present beings break into a rib-cracking chuckling that one could think, a pack of hyenas had found a herd of elephant carcasses.

My next paragraph, I think, it is second, because the aura of guilty susceptibility am displaying, forces me to describe the hunting life of my people, sorry, our livelihood. Hunting from time immemorial has been my hobby and also my people’s livelihood. In hunting there were major rules to be adhered to not only by my people, but also all the neighboring communities. Rule one dictated that, for a man to go back home minus a piece of game after a hunting expedition, it was prohibited. This brought about a good communism among the people, that one could think the village kidhedhe; area assistant chief was a Max Webber’s Apologist. He regulated the community very well with his full stamp on communism and equality as opposed to equity.

Another rule stated that, on not any occasion was any kind of immoral act was to be displayed by one of the hunters. Now this rule when broken, it was very difficult to make judgments based on the kind blame game that could arise from the discussion. One could claim, of course the suspected womanizer, that it was the woman that who tempted him to do the act, another was that, how can a woman be found deep in the forest at such a time during the hunters’ season, if not that the accuser wanted to make the hunters horny. The manned woman, could also defend that, how could the men not be focused by the hunting rather than seeing any feminine person, as not only a tool but also an equipment for quenching their thirst based on their lewd and sensual anticipations.

However, despite all these “valid” reasons, the area kidhedhe, Giuseppe Burra, has laid out a tight jurisprudence that no one found guilty could move scot-free, people received due penalties for each and every crime they committed. There was a time that such a case appeared before him, where a man reported to him that he had been defiled by his wife by spirited beating to pulp. This was an uncommon phenomenon and thus many were surprised how Giuseppe could dissolve the case and still leaving the couple, happily married. Aha, for Giuseppe, it was too simple, he told the man to bring the tools used during his beating. After the tools had been set before him, he told the woman to stand like a man. He then asked the man to wield the crude weapons which comprised a pair of his own trousers, his hunting stick and a cooking stick used to stir our local delicacy, kuon anang’a, this was made from pounded groundnuts, cassava and sorghum with a mild tinge of millet, which when consummated could make the weakest of all body parts wield the heaviest cast iron billet.

After the man had wielded the weapons, he was told to take his own belongings from among them and put them at the assistant chief’s feet. This arose many questions and it almost made the whole gathering reject him. He then told the man, to clutch at the wife’s back and lift his weapon in an attempt to strike him. The man who was now holding only the cooking stick, lifted his hand but retreated and knelt before the assistant chief, was trembling with much melancholy pasted on his face. This act shocked everyone, how, when, why, where on earth? The man when asked about it just said, “it is a taboo for a man to cut the hand that once fed him, what if the cooking stick breaks in my hand, what will may wife use to prepare me the kuon anang’a, I still refuse to hit back.” By this the case was over, the chief advised the entire seating, that for all people to live in peace, they must be able to account for all their property at any given time of the day whether they were asleep of awake.

Since that case was dismissed, all men nowadays keep their clothes well and all property like the hunting tools, but do I say, no such cases of wives humiliating their spouses has been reported up to now. And the Giuseppe’s prowess as an avid juryman has remained as a long tale of ancient Sponono story in the Khoisan culture even Tales from a Troubled Land. The zeal of temerity that he exhibited has never been seen in any state, in fact anywhere. Allow me to give more rules on hunting, for surely there is much to be written and spoken of. Sulfika Lando also was always a diehard of Chief Giuseppe as he called him. He could come out of his hunting journey and deposit to the chief a ham of a wild pig. The skin of an impala or eggs of the local bird gwergwer or guinea fowl, were also much delicacies embraced thereof. All these gifts to the Great Chief Giuseppe Burra depended on the produce from the savanna grassland to the Tropical rainforests.

Burra said that he had vowed to please the hunters like before they went hunting.