SANParks.org Forums

The mighty Rhinoceros

In the olden days, Africans honoured the rhinoceros. They so respected it the rhinoceros and were so much in awe of it that very few tribes named themselves after it. Throughout Southern Africa, only one small tribe used this sacred beast as it's totem: the Bedla people of the land of the Xhosa (bhele being the Xhosa name for a rhinoceros). The Batswana people call a rhinoceros tsukudu, a name which means "the struggling animal" or "the animal of mighty effort".

African people regarded the rhinoceros with great reverence and they regarded it's horn not as an aphrodisiac, but as a weapon possessing great magical powers for annihilating and scattering enemies. If you wanted to cause confusion among your enemies and force them to scatter, and not unite against you, you took a small piece of rhinoceros horn from a rhinoceros who died from natural causes in the bush and burnt it next to the enemy village.

In olden days, it was believed that killing a rhinoceros would result in a curse on the killer or killers of this sacred animal. The curse would extend to their wives and children, grandchildren and great-grand children.

To this day, when people who are friends suddenly quarrel and separate, Swazi people especially, believe that an unknown enemy has burnt a piece of rhino horn to bring about the dispute.