Wild life in Swaziland

Between Mozambique and South Africa lies a country of elephants, rhinos - and polygamy.

Otago Daily Times sports reporter Alistair McMurran visits the kingdom of Swaziland.

Polygamy is a practice frowned on in the West, but it still exists in Africa.

It has been toned down a lot in Swaziland compared to what happened in earlier centuries.

Some past kings in Africa had almost 150 wives.

It developed in the early days when there was a need to increase the population so the nation could survive.

One of the most prolific wife-catchers was King Letsie I, the Paramount Chief of Basutoland, who had 140 wives.

He reigned between 1870 and 1891.

The practice is still acceptable in many African states, where the usual dowry paid for a first wife is 17 cows, with 14 for the second.

A cow is worth 3000 South African rand ($NZ561).

It is unusual for any man to have more than four wives today.

"In ancient days, people had a lot of wives so kids could do labouring work in the fields," our Swaziland guide, Sifiso, says.

King Ngwenyama Sobhuza II, the Paramount Chief and later King of Swaziland from 1899 to 1982, continued the tribal practice of keeping many wives.

According to the Swaziland National Trust Commission, King Sobhuza II married 70 times and had 210 children between 1920 and 1970.

When he died in 1982, at the age of 83, he had more than 1000 grandchildren.

Our guide indicated that a traditional wedding lasted three days.

On the first day the "shouting" took place, on the second day time was spent negotiating, while the third day was spent feasting.

We visited the sacred mountain where kings were buried in caves and criminals executed.

There is a rock of execution at the top of a steep mountain where murderers, and those found guilty of witchcraft by three medicine men, were taken by soldiers and told to jump off.

There is no capital punishment in Swaziland today.

Rural land belongs to the Crown while in the urban areas it is municipal land.

People can negotiate with the Crown to buy this land.

Swaziland is also noted for its national parks and wild animals.

At the Simunye Nature Reserve, we boarded a viewing Land Rover, which had a windowed tarpaulin pulled over the sides for our protection as we travelled along the clay tracks.

Our guide, Bashi, had a detailed knowledge of the plants, showing us the white bush berry tree that secretes a poisonous latex that is dangerous to humans.

But not every plant is bad.

The knobs of the acacia tree are used by traditional healers as an antidote for bites from poisonous snakes.

Bashi told us trees communicated with each other when being attacked by animals by sending messages downwind.

The trees then pushed their poison into their leaves.

"When animals want to continue eating they must attack into the wind so that trees further down the chain can't be warned," Bashi said.

There are snakes in Swaziland with the most dangerous being the small vine snake and the boomslang, that can kill a human within two hours if the venom gets into the bloodstream.

Bashi told us what to do if we ever encountered a snake.

"Never make eye contact with it and do not move; otherwise it will attack," he said.

Other animals we saw included the impala, a nyala, waterbucks, warthogs, mongooses, white rhinos, elephants, a majestic lion walking just 50m from us, two giraffes and an ostrich.

Bashi told us an elephant's diet was 80% grass and 20% trees.

Its day consists of 18 hours grazing, two hours resting and the rest bathing.

After 22 months a baby elephant weighs 240kg.

Bashi told us that the white rhino stayed in a community while the black rhino was a loner and often became angry.

"The white rhino is territorial and sets out its land by urinating and dropping dung," Bashi said.

"When a female is on heat she will drop dung to signify that she is ready and the two will seek each other out."

A young rhino weighs 2.5 tonnes and a fully grown rhino can move at 40-45kmh.

The kingdom of Swaziland was unified in 1868, but the arrival of Europeans from the mid-19th Century brought new problems.

The land became rife with European carpetbaggers, hunters, traders, missionaries, and farmers, many of whom leased large expanses of land.

The British allowed the Boers to control the area in 1872, but they treated the inhabitants badly.

Following the second Boer War, which ended in 1902, the British took control and Swaziland became a protectorate.

The young Mswati III, who ascended the throne in 1986 , continues to represent and maintain the traditional way of life, and to assert his pre-eminence as absolute monarch.

Swaziland is governed by a Parliament but final authority is vested in the king, who can dissolve parliament at any time.

He appoints half the senate and 12 of the 67 MPs in the assembly.

He chooses the prime minister.

"If the king doesn't agree on a Bill passed by Parliament he calls a joint sitting of the house," our driver, Sifiso, tells us.

"Not everyone agrees with the king being an absolute monarch."

Swaziland has a population of 1.2 million, with 71,000 living in the capital, Mbabane, and 168,000 in the commercial capital at Manzine.

There are three main areas in the country - the low veld (400m above sea level ), that is lightly inhabited because of malaria, the mid-veld (1200m) and the high veld (1850m).

Christianity is the main religion, but 40% of the population practise Zionism, a blend of Christianity and ancestral worship.

Sifiso told us that there are good medical services in the country but people still went to traditional healers, who worked with herbs.

We visited the cultural museum and learned that the San (bushmen) were hunter-gatherers who lived there 20,000 years ago.

Sifiso then took us to the cultural village where we learned about the significance of each hut and saw the Ligugu Le entertainment group dancing.

 

Fact File
Swaziland
Population: 1.2 million
Capital: Mbabane (71,000)
Largest city: Manzine (168,000)
Government: Absolute monarchy King: Mswati III
Prime Minister: Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamin
iIndependence: September 8, 1968, from United Kingdom
Area: 17,364sq km
Currency: Lilangeni
Religion: Christianity (82%)
Official languages: English, Siswati