Uvana could not have gotten to the slope at a better time -for the lion cub that is- for the lioness, roused from her slumber by the gnawing hunger that usually accompanies childbirth, had just left her rocky perch with her chosen cubs in tow. The hyena waited patiently until she had disappeared into the undergrowth. Then, like the cowardly dogs his specie are, he had started approaching the cub in a roundabout way, still wary of the mother. So intent was he in his would be meal that he did not hear Uvana as he silently crept up hill, his lame legs more of an advantage than not with his tight crouch-like walk.
The hyena had then abandoned all pretensions and was looping towards his target, the advent of a juicy meal conquering even his inborn fear of man and dulling the significance of the strange scent the noon breeze has just blown his way. There was a brief hesitation as he appeared to sniff the wind, but by then the scent of blood and urine coming from the little cub was so overwhelming he just shook of his misgivings and lounge forward once more.
The hyena’s powerful jaws was only a few finger lengths from the cubs succulent neck when a well aimed arrow pierced through his brain to exit between his red rimmed eyes.
There was no outcry from the hyena, he only stretched once or twice and lay still where he fell, his head brushing the cub’s fore legs.
Uvana smiled merrily, singing a silent praise to his father who had laboured for years teaching Uvana how to shoot the single kill arrow, believing it a remedy to his lameness. In those days, Uvana had silently fumed at having to cradle a bow and arrow all day long while his peers wrestled, learnt combat skills and partook in gruelling endurance races across the length of the seven hills and beyond. Uvana does not begrudge his father much now, his training had being relatively easy, for his keen eyes and long arms, made extra strong and steady by years of having to move around with them, made him a natural. It did not take long for people to notice his steady hands. He was known to shoot straight with the stone, straight enough for people to fear his wrath and mind not to call him the lame one, so calling him only when they are sure he is out of ear shoot.
Now, Uvana stood before the slain hyena looking beyond its bloodied head at the strangest sight he had even seen or had spoken off, a hairless lion cub. He was scared out of his wits and would have hurried down the slope and taken the shorter route to the hill that bore his kin had not the little cub open her eyes then and looked straight at him. He stood there, watching as the little cub, still layered with dried blood and whatnot slime, lifted herself on shaky legs and took the few gingerly steps it took to reach where he stood.
As she sniffed his legs he felt it then, fate. Strange but true, fate it was that brought them together. For how come it happened that it was today that he had agreed to bring along a skin of milk given to him by his doting mother, that he will meet a hungry, even if strange looking cub.
Sitting on the same rocky outcrop that the lioness had just vacated, Uvana proceeded to feed the hungry cub. Though the milk was not that plentiful, he was surprised when the cub drain it to the last drops. Exhausted by hours of crying and hunger now sated, the cub feel asleep in his arms and he gently wrapped it with an extra leopard skin he carried for his lame leg with on cold weather – it usually gets very sore on cold days and wrapping provides some sort of relief.
As he made his way slowly down the slope, careful not to jar the cub, he did not spar the dead hyena even a brief glance. Hyenas are a foul creatures, too cowardly to be considered honour kills and oily for human consumption. Even their skin, the only thing they posses useful to man, take too much time and care to cure. Logging it home will be a waste of time, better to leave it here for the buzzards to claim.
He had just picked his deer skin bag and long spear and was about turning towards the well trod path that leads home when a movement up ahead caught his eye. He was still trying to shift the cub to his right arm to free his stronger left, when a blurry gold and grey figure burst from the undergrowth and he found himself face to face with a huge lion, bearing all the signs that marks him out to be an elder lion of the hills.
The lion growled at him sniffing towards the sleeping cub as if inquiring. Though Uvana was scared enough to wet his pants, he decided to play it by the rules. Being a child of the hills, he knew the lion will not attack him, it knows his smell.
Showing posts with label lions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lions. Show all posts
Thursday, December 31, 2009
The taming of the plains lion
The taming of the plains lion
The lion was born without fur; her white skin glittered in the morning light, as naked as a human baby. The sun had not yet risen and the cold wind that travelled across the night still blew from down the valley making her shiver and her vocal cords opened up wide to allow for the passage of a shrill cry that rents the morning’s ambiance. It was a cry that conveyed distress enough to break many a heart, filled with longings and pleading for care, but it moved not the birth mother.
That great lioness was deaf to her child’s call. She only managed, once, to pad over and sniff at her like she had done before, right after the cub was born, before rejecting her all over again, choosing rather to pay heed to her other cubs who appear whole.
Rejected by her mother and seeming to know it, the little cub cried all the more, her tiny voice carrying across the valley only to be thrown back as faint echoes that appeared to mock her efforts.
Time past somewhat slowly, the cold morning gave way to a hazy, Cloudy afternoon. Still the cub's cry could be heard, though intermittently, across the valley. It was inevitable that her cries will attract other attentions, and it did. It reached the ears of a hungry hyena that crept surreptitiously closer, wary of the lioness who eyed him balefully from the corner of her eyes as she reclined on a nearby rocky outcrop. Though she was not concerned about the cub’s welfare, she was not inclined to allow the hyena easy picking. More so when her other cubs are sunning themselves on her belly. Her warning growl sent the hyena scampering back to hide behind a fallen tree trunk, from where he sneaks looks at his prey where she lay amongst the short grasses, still covered in birth fluids and blood –which already was attracting ants whose bite may also be adding to her distress.
The cry was also heard in the opposite slope where a young lame trapper from the hunter’s clan of UmuEze, a hamlet in the seven hills, was sitting squat beside a little brook, bemoaning his ill luck while taking sips of the cool mountain water. The trapper’s name is Uvana and he was on his way back from checking his traps. He had hoped for a big kill today, having placed traps across the well beaten track of a large antelope. For days he had read the antelope’s tracks and was very sure that it will pass through where he laid his trap on its way to drink from the same brook he is sipping from now. He had even boasted to his friend, the ill tempered hunter Anyari, that he will bring the biggest Antelope to the two markets today. Only for him to get to the trap and meet only gnawed bones and mangled tendons, amongst which a pack of hyenas and vultures were making merry.
Overcome by anger, he had scattered them, the hyenas looping away with their mocking laughs and the vultures fouling the air with their greasy wings and dirty ways as they took to the skies only to return when he moved a little way off. He had continued this aimless pursuit of the birds – the hyenas had chosen to watch his antic bemusedly from a safe distance, patient as ever, knowing he will go away sooner or later- until he grew tired and left them to their devices, sure that they were not the culprits in this blind robbery. No, they are only partakers of this great wrong that has been visited him.
He guessed that it is probably an old hill lion, too weak to catch his own game or a pregnant female, very near birth that stole his catch and that made him madder than ever, surely he heard a lioness growl sometime earlier. If it had being a leopard or tiger, he would have had the pleasure of tracking it down to exert his revenge, but the lions are taboo and he is forbidden to cause them pain.
So he was squatting by the brook fuming and gnashing his teeth and cussing intermittently, when the cry reached his ear. He instantly knew it to be the cry of a lion cub and wondered aloud ‘how come?’ a lioness will never leave her pup even in the face of danger to herself. Something about the cry told him that it is a new born cub and he wondered if the mother is the same one that stole his catch.
He was of the mind to go about his business, not that he had anymore today, thanks to the thieving lioness, but the cry came again this time punctuated by a hyena’s long drawn crackle. Wonders! He mouthed, a hyena close by where a lioness just birthed. Shaking his head slowly he straightened up and started the short walk down first, then up, towards where the sounds are coming from. Not that it was his wish to investigate things like this but because his oral tradition demands he help out whenever a lion of the hills is in trouble, as this one obviously is.
The lion was born without fur; her white skin glittered in the morning light, as naked as a human baby. The sun had not yet risen and the cold wind that travelled across the night still blew from down the valley making her shiver and her vocal cords opened up wide to allow for the passage of a shrill cry that rents the morning’s ambiance. It was a cry that conveyed distress enough to break many a heart, filled with longings and pleading for care, but it moved not the birth mother.
That great lioness was deaf to her child’s call. She only managed, once, to pad over and sniff at her like she had done before, right after the cub was born, before rejecting her all over again, choosing rather to pay heed to her other cubs who appear whole.
Rejected by her mother and seeming to know it, the little cub cried all the more, her tiny voice carrying across the valley only to be thrown back as faint echoes that appeared to mock her efforts.
Time past somewhat slowly, the cold morning gave way to a hazy, Cloudy afternoon. Still the cub's cry could be heard, though intermittently, across the valley. It was inevitable that her cries will attract other attentions, and it did. It reached the ears of a hungry hyena that crept surreptitiously closer, wary of the lioness who eyed him balefully from the corner of her eyes as she reclined on a nearby rocky outcrop. Though she was not concerned about the cub’s welfare, she was not inclined to allow the hyena easy picking. More so when her other cubs are sunning themselves on her belly. Her warning growl sent the hyena scampering back to hide behind a fallen tree trunk, from where he sneaks looks at his prey where she lay amongst the short grasses, still covered in birth fluids and blood –which already was attracting ants whose bite may also be adding to her distress.
The cry was also heard in the opposite slope where a young lame trapper from the hunter’s clan of UmuEze, a hamlet in the seven hills, was sitting squat beside a little brook, bemoaning his ill luck while taking sips of the cool mountain water. The trapper’s name is Uvana and he was on his way back from checking his traps. He had hoped for a big kill today, having placed traps across the well beaten track of a large antelope. For days he had read the antelope’s tracks and was very sure that it will pass through where he laid his trap on its way to drink from the same brook he is sipping from now. He had even boasted to his friend, the ill tempered hunter Anyari, that he will bring the biggest Antelope to the two markets today. Only for him to get to the trap and meet only gnawed bones and mangled tendons, amongst which a pack of hyenas and vultures were making merry.
Overcome by anger, he had scattered them, the hyenas looping away with their mocking laughs and the vultures fouling the air with their greasy wings and dirty ways as they took to the skies only to return when he moved a little way off. He had continued this aimless pursuit of the birds – the hyenas had chosen to watch his antic bemusedly from a safe distance, patient as ever, knowing he will go away sooner or later- until he grew tired and left them to their devices, sure that they were not the culprits in this blind robbery. No, they are only partakers of this great wrong that has been visited him.
He guessed that it is probably an old hill lion, too weak to catch his own game or a pregnant female, very near birth that stole his catch and that made him madder than ever, surely he heard a lioness growl sometime earlier. If it had being a leopard or tiger, he would have had the pleasure of tracking it down to exert his revenge, but the lions are taboo and he is forbidden to cause them pain.
So he was squatting by the brook fuming and gnashing his teeth and cussing intermittently, when the cry reached his ear. He instantly knew it to be the cry of a lion cub and wondered aloud ‘how come?’ a lioness will never leave her pup even in the face of danger to herself. Something about the cry told him that it is a new born cub and he wondered if the mother is the same one that stole his catch.
He was of the mind to go about his business, not that he had anymore today, thanks to the thieving lioness, but the cry came again this time punctuated by a hyena’s long drawn crackle. Wonders! He mouthed, a hyena close by where a lioness just birthed. Shaking his head slowly he straightened up and started the short walk down first, then up, towards where the sounds are coming from. Not that it was his wish to investigate things like this but because his oral tradition demands he help out whenever a lion of the hills is in trouble, as this one obviously is.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
