A matriarch leads her family in the Kalahari Desert
The matriarch loved their semi annual trek to the sea. Frolicking in the waves and savoring the succulent vines that grew above the dunes of the beach. Digging down into the sand to find cool wet sand to roll in as protection from the brutal sun. But the herd could only stay as long as food held out for their voracious appetites. This was the dry season, and only the cool mist of the evening supplied the shore plants with enough water to grow. The same mist cooled and invigorated the matriarch and her family every evening when it rolled in with the fog. They called it the Skeleton Coast, not because it was a famed elephant graveyard, but because of all the ship wrecks along the beach.
They couldn't stray far from the river's mouth, for that was the primary source of their daily water. The dry season and drought had reduced the mighty river's flow to a mere trickle, but in her 73 years of existence, the matriarch knew how to find water, far better than many of the upstart males who often came into must and tried to mate with her. For the last 20 years or so, she had put them off such nonsense, but they still came, preferring her over her daughters and granddaughters who often accompanied her and her small group. But the way of the wild monitors these things. Life comes hard and death comes easily for the desert elephant.
While there for their entertainment and luxury, the sea provided no freshwater. But freshwater was not the major concern even in dry times like this. Their forays up and down the beach of as much as 30 miles each way in the night when it was cooler, provided the food they needed, but required that they come back to the waterhole they had dug by the river's mouth almost daily to quench their thirst. After a few days, as was always the case, the food ran out and the matriarch decided where they would move on to next.
In the dark cool night they left under a full moon. By morning they had covered 70 miles in the direction of the mountain's dry rocky slopes where they found food in the form of camelthorn, myrrh, turpentine tree and the leaves and seedpods of the ana tree. At times like this it was a delicate balance between finding water and enough food to keep the family of nine going. Two of the youngest were still suckling two of the matriarch's granddaughters. These mothers needed to eat and drink more to keep their youngsters healthy. It was a struggle. The weak would not survive.
Even in times like this, survival normally wasn't a problem. But this time, there were telltale signs. Along the way there were bodies. Animals of the desert: Zebra, Thompson's gazelle, dik dik and other grazers like giraffe and wildebeest that had fled further inland seeking the forests halfway across the continent where mighty rivers might still flow and grasses still grow. Except for the bodies and the predators seen lurking by or at the carcass of an animal, the roaming grass eaters were all gone where only rock, gravel and sand remained with the dead.
A dead animal provided food for a pride of lions, a pack of dogs, hyenas, and the ever present vultures, the cleanup crew of wild places like this. While the blood of a fresh kill provided some liquid for predators. Even they were subject to dying of thirst with food plentiful. In the end, after the lizards, worms and insects had their fill, all that was left would be the gleaming white bones to gradually turn into dust in the sun, wind and occasional rain.
The matriarch had two things helping lead her family to find water. While waning because of her age, she could still sense water kilometers away. But her daughters were much better at that and would pick up the pace, even run, when they caught scent of moisture in the air. Her strength was her long life and memory of many migrations, many places where there was food and water in times past. This time was tough; they had little food, and no water.
The matriarch knew of the waterhole nearby that they could make in one night and she pushed the group onward to that water on the same great river at a low point where water collected into a deep pool during the rainy season. They arrived at dawn to a terrible sight. Hundreds of vultures attacking the carcasses of four male elephants that had died trying to find water from the deep holes that they dug.
Angry, along with her group, she charged, trumpeting weakly, at the vile birds, chasing off some dogs that had gathered as well on the recently fallen giants. She mourned them. Her daughters mourned them.
They tried, but failed to find water. Couldn't because the males had dug deeper holes than they could get their trunks into and the scent of water was weak. Much further down. They would have to move on.
The young mothers had dried up and the two little ones were hungry and thirsty. They had been having trouble keeping up. The matriarch knew of a place two long nights journey further inland where there was a place where the seasonal rains did not flow to the sea, but created a great lake that dried up every year during the dry season leaving waterholes here and there. It was beyond the desert but the only choice she had. They covered themselves with dust to stave off the hot sun and waited until dark.
The first night was hard and their progress was slowed by the little ones that kept falling behind. Their mothers would have to go back and encourage them to move forward. But, eventually, first one, and then the other about an hour later, fell over and couldn't get back up, even with encouragement from its mother. After waiting an hour or so, the mother knew that her life was in danger too, said goodbye in an elephant way with a gentle touch of her trunk and then moved as swiftly as she could in her tired and emaciated state, to catch up.
For the matriarch, there was no turning back. She had to push onward and keep the others moving with her if they stood any chance of reaching a waterhole that remained of the great lake. There were several scattered over long distances. She headed for the one closest in her memory. It was their only chance for survival. But there was no food now on their journey, and that took its toll as well. She was afraid of falling behind. Every joint in her body ached. Her muscles lacked strength to push forward. Periods of delirium came and went. At dawn, they covered with dust again and rested.
Long ago, in her youth, that waterhole lay still ahead another night. The matriarch was sure that most of them could make it. But she was worried about herself. They were now only seven. And some were struggling worse than her. Only rest would help. They rested.
In the coolness of dark they set off again, three days without food and four without water. All of them were struggling, but the matriarch tried to keep them calm and moving steadily towards the goal. It had to be there. There had to be water. Many times during the night she felt like stopping and resting, but didn't. She knew it would be a death sentence for both her and her family. All they needed was water. All they needed was to make it there that night.
But the sun came up and they were still a few kilometers to go. But the smell of water came to her nostrils and drove her almost useless muscles to the breaking point while two of the weaker elephants, one juvenile male, and one of the mothers, had fallen far behind and were feared lost. She pushed on. On, and on. Finally, the waterhole was in slight. But through her dim vision there was no water on the surface, just a lot of bones surrounding where the large waterhole had been. Only the scent of water told her it was there.
The matriarch and two of her granddaughters began digging with their trunks. The water was there, but only at trunk's length and she had to stop digging several times to regain her strength before she finally tasted the sweet liquid with the sensitive tip of her trunk. Digging further, there was only enough water to give her relief for a day before it dried up. For the others, it was the same. They still needed water badly. And, unless the water flowed back in or they could dig deeper, this was all the water they would get.
For the juvenile elephants, their trunks were too short to reach the water and they got none. Everyone dusted and rested, but the sounds and smells of dying were all around. The matriarch felt the feeling too, but rested quietly, hoping for a miracle that would save them from their plight. During that hot day, two other elephants died, including a daughter, while younger, less strong. Vultures sat in the distance, waiting. And hyenas could be heard as well. There was no strength in anyone to fight them. They would feed on the dead without them being properly mourned and protected.
They entered another night, this time without struggling to walk, but with a different kind of struggle, without food and water, a struggle to live. The matriarch had strange dreams of her many journeys from suckling her mother's teats to the many playful times with other young elephants, learning from the elders, and monumental journeys like this in times of great drought. It was a time like this when the previous matriarch died and she had to take over so the family could go on. She let out a heavy sigh and dreamed no more.
Dawn broke with vultures already on the dead from the day before and the hyenas circling in without any fight from the three females left who could barely get up on their feet, unable to challenge the violators of their mourning. It seemed as though they would soon fall to the attack of the hyenas when they all smelled water. A great storm, part of the seasonal rains that came every year, but this year, over a month later, had supplied a river that would flow into this valley and create the great lake again. Within an hour, rivlets of water were overcoming the dry parched soil and sand, soon to become a flow, and then, a torrent, refilling the waterhole, and eventually, the entire lake.
The daughter, 30 years younger than her mother of the night before, assumed the lead in the natural order of things. The two granddaughters still alive, dutifully following her. All with the same desert elephant genes that made them so hardy, and set off upstream drinking as they went with renewed strength searching for food to replenish their emaciated bodies. A new matriarch was born.
Copyright 2019 © Ronald W. Hull
5/5/19
