MyAngola

Introduction

When I published Mundjamba – The Life of an African Hunter, it was the first book in which I described the past experiences of an amateur hunter. The experiences were so close but his time separated me inevitably. I presently wrote of the professional hunter’s memories and I was far from thinking that I would ever write again. It happens, however, that I decided to do it and perhaps being once affirmed, “forty years to live in direct contact with nature and the majority dedicated to African hunting; providing many forced memories to who experienced them.”

There were many memories like those that I dedicated to related circumstances of hunting for forty years, and more, many of which separate me at this moment in time when I published my first book; the reason I returned to writing without being a writer. Forgive me for the follies that you find in my prose of backwoodsman, but the objective of this piece is not the same as a learned individual would hope to achieve. Mundjamba II – The Hunt and the African Hunter is barely a form of transmitting what the African lifestyle has taught me. (…)
Talking about coarse hunting necessarily obliges me to manifest my personal opinion about the present situation of hunting practice in the countries however it is hunted in the African continent. It is also about the measures that I originally judge that the future can guarantee the continuation of this same practice for generations to come. It seems to me that hunters have as much as the men that are opposed to reducing the number of wild animals and are against any practice. It is the largest interest in guaranteeing the present and future of African hunting and the right to fight through the conservation of the fawn and the environment.

~Introduction excerpts written by
Hugo Seia in1999

Commentary

“Mundjamba” is a union of two words that in Angolan language means “Mountain of the Elephant”, a name attributed to Hugo Seia by the African people when he began his career as a hunter.

Hugo Seia already published a book about his African lifestyle, entitled Mundjamba – The Life of an African Hunter, that was edited in Portuguese and English. The English version was published by Trophy Room Books of the United States, worthy of Billy Quimby’s praise (one of the most evident American critics in African Literature, to the following reference): (Safari Publications, The Journal of Big Game Hunting – Safari Club International, of January/February of 1996).
« Editor Ellen Enzler- Herring compares Mundjamba – The Life of an African Hunter to Jay Mellon’s book entitled African Hunter. I would say that «Mundjamba» is best in certain aspects. Mellon’s classic piece produces vast information about African hunting, but the information is very personal. On the other hand, Seia transmits profound knowledge of his own philosophy and of his own sentiments when he describes his career as an African hunter.
Mundjamba is a book more extensively dedicated to the golden epic of hunting in Angola of which he has knowledge of.

Chapter I

The Hunt and the African Hunter

Hunting has been a practiced activity by man since the primordial times, initially for the absolute necessity to guarantee man’s survival and resembles what happened and what happens with all other animals that are fed with meat as a part of their inescapable diet. Man discovered among hunted animals the raw material which allowed him to obtain objects that made a feasible existence as well as the weapons to defend him and to attack his enemies. These weapons were fabricated from bones and horns, pieces of hide to protect himself from the cold and other artifacts that were indispensable to his life.

With the evolution of time, contrary to other omnivores and carnivores which irrationally continue to find it in their prey to guarantee their survival, in certain remote areas of the world, they continue to live in a very primary lifestyle. Man was gradually conformed into the practice of hunting, out of the pure and simple necessity to guarantee his existence, leaving behind obtained products derived from hunted animals and passing the trophy as his principal motivation.

As I previously stated, what happens today with the modern man, above all, is not applicable to the African people that lived in the Negro Continent, who continued to depend on nature’s resources and were forced to utilize the meat from the animals they hunted.

Just like any other sport, African hunting has been the only sport I have abided throughout my career and it represents a competitive feeling between Man and Wild Animal, which translates into the danger that the hunter encounters and in the quality of his obtained trophies. When the hunted animal becomes part of those that were conventionally considered “wild animals”, the human hunter searches and finds the dangerous sensation that permeates his body. Adrenaline excites him and pumps through his veins and physical being. On the other hand, the hunted animal is not wild, but is seen as simple competition in the eyes of the human hunter. The enthusiasm of the attempt to conquer these developed feelings differs from the capable intelligence and the useful power of the weapons.

The evolution of hunting and human intelligence allows the hunter to develop sophisticated weapons and natural hunting techniques. I hope I am not wrong in saying that the first men of the world resided in an environment that was much more natural and wild through the utilization of elementary weapons such as stones, bones, and heavy “mocas”. This began a titanic battle of body to body between the most powerful animals in weight and size. Even those that got to hunt with bow and arrow were forced to approach these beastly creatures in order to produce satisfactory results. Contrary to what happened in the past, today’s creatures do not allow nor accept human presence without experiencing fear. Presently, wild animals move away from regions occupied by humans, resent their presence, and attack each other more frequently.

These transformations of creature temperament is notorious and allows me to come to the conclusion that I have found many differences between hunting that was practiced thirty years ago and is practiced today. It leaves me to seriously imagine the nature of prehistoric animals.

It does not occur to me, however, regarding this deep matter, of the exclusive forum of who studied all the metamorphoses of living beings; especially regarding the hunter that I will obviously cover from my generation. I will forget the hunters’ battles of body-to-body, the weapons, those that have used weapons carried in their mouths, or the ones that hunted with the first rifles. Because this practice is practically confined in the Safari of Hunting today, it is for him that I prominently dedicate my work to.

(…)
 
Many years dedicated to Africa permits me to situate myself in a group of hunters whom their own experiences authorize advice which can help hunters of sport; mainly the ones with little experience with African hunting. I expect that the personal opinions that I have formed along the years and the conclusions that I have arrived at are not misinterpreted or accused of vanity. Whoever knows me knows that between the defects that are a part of my character do not exist in the superiority or lacking modesty. It’s obvious that I am not the only experienced hunter, the only defender of the practice of hunting with ethic and respect, and above all else I am not the only one familiar with the African situation. I am one of the most interested hunters.

Despite the interest that rouses me to this topic, I have had the privilege of having been born in the land of the African Continent, whereas other hunters have been born in lands of other continents where the fauna is poor and less exuberant. Hunting, in the true sense of the word, is an activity that deserves respect when a hunter and an elephant are involved in the depths of the hot African jungle; or when a hunter and a partridge are involved in the cold and naked marshlands of Europe. I think what is important is to give yourself to the actual hunting itself, authenticity and sporting, practicing with emotion, and with ethics and respect. The only factor that differentiates between African and European hunting resides in the dangerous factor that we first reviewed: when dangerous animals are involved to that we conventionally label them as “wild”.

On the contrary, I feel as though I am more of a hunter, of this I am sure and without doubt; compared to hunters that believe hunting and killing have the same meaning. I feel as though I am more of a hunter compared to hunters that believe wild animals are “things” that do not feel and “things” that do not need life. Contrary to the human law and ethical values, with lack of art or courage, the other hunter uses condemnable means to reach his ends. Hunting is then practiced by me and other hunters and nothing else can be compared to the low and pernicious action that devastated African in the past few decades and unfortunately continues to devastate the fauna; whose responsibility falls to the horde of furtive that indiscriminately counts on animals without the respect for creatures in using cruel traps and incapable of viewing a wild animals as anything more than an object.

To be a hunter does not mean to be a destroyer of Nature. On the contrary, to be a hunter means to be an unconditional defender of the animal and vegetable world. The world wants to be less informed and does not want the hunter to be implicitly related with Nature and as a protagonist of life and the death that occurs in Africa.

(…)

Destroying the richness that the wildlife represents is a perpetrated crime against the world and barely against the political division of the African Continent. Wildlife, in its own diverse forms, is without doubt patrimonial of all humanity.

(…)

The slaughters that represent irrational actions are aggravated by the barbaric way in which animals are like dead people. For beyond the deaths caused by poison, used in “charcas” where hunters drink, the majority of creatures are captured in traps being more commonly used and vulgarly known as “tying”. Tying consists of a steel cable or simply resistant wire, is placed strategically in paths used by creatures or near the drunks that capture whatever animal passes through by the neck or by the paws. After being tied, the poor creature drags his weight until the cable kills or destroys its paw, leaving its bone exposed. (…)

It is evident that I did not include in this class of criminals the furtive African hunter who hunts to survive. The African people have absolute rights to surpass hunger and the number of eliminated animals in no way puts this type of hunting into some kind of significance.

The demographic explosion is another cause that contributes to today’s African problem and also contributes to the African tragedy of tomorrow. Where forests provided refuge to wild animals in the past, exist in cleared zones where there were savannas inhabited by creatures are now small villages. Where there were trees with leafy cups now exist dead trunks with skeletal branches; victims of the atrocities against the practices, wanted by farmers to clear of living roots, wanted by farmers for the construction of slums, killing trees for secular times, wanted by lumberjacks that devastate forests uncontrollably. Without a doubt, the demographic explosion robs space and security of wildlife, allowing more and more people to scatter through regions that are difficult to access. I am aware that it is not easy to control population but I don’t see the impossibility in limited creation in the excessive advancement through the wild territories that belong to creatures.

With less relevance than the previous questions, which are more harmful and responsible for the state in which Africa finds itself and for the catastrophe in which it can convert itself, other measures of protection should be addressed. The control of animals is known as culling or cropping, is one of the measures. It seems to me that in our era, the performed control of that form is slightly acceptable. (…)

The elephant should be absolutely excluded from the list of wild animals that are counted for; at least for the period of time necessary to guarantee that the reproductive survivors can reach maturity, despite reading somewhere that females transmit the genetic lineage.

In respect to organized and legalized hunting, a measure that can be taken in consideration to which African countries are responsible for the attribution of animal shares, should be the control of those shares in accordance with the majority or minority of the dense population of species. If it is true that some abound and are not at the moment threatened with extinction, it also happens that others should be rationed with the utmost care. Only those that do not live with the African problem are not aware of the reduction of the quantity of some species and the difficulty of the hunter to actually live in the search for qualifying trophies. The number of abundant species can frighten the hunter that confirms a reduction accentuated in the quality of the trophy that is obtained today. It surprises me that some of the species continue to be factored into the list of animals that can be legally lowered. If I was able to make a decision, the African red roan antelop-palanka was so abundant yesterday and is now scarce wherever it exists, would be for example whose killing would be prohibited. At the conclusion of my reasoning, if measures are not urgently taken, I do not predict a cheerful future for the coarse hunting in Africa. Unfortunately this is the African reality of the future hunter, for those that live for the passion of hunting, can consume the rest of the Animal and Vegetable Worlds in the African Continent.

  ~ Hugo Seia, Mundjamba II Hunting and the African Hunter

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