In the 1950s farmer Grampa Albert in Zululand bought a Bull to be with his cows.

That Bull terrorized us children when we walked miles everyday across parts of five farms, on our way to school. All of us walked barefoot. All five farms were in our family. When we complained to family adults we were told to not take the shortcuts across the farms.

The farms covered approximately three-hundred acres. Eventually, we children were emboldened to take on that Bull because of two happenings that had nothing to do with us.

First, sometimes we would witness adults deliberately teasing the Bull, and running away for their lives, with that Bull in full chase.

Second, Grampa Albert, who owned that Bull, declared that if ever that Bull attacked him, he would shoot it dead. And all of us were invited to the barbecue.

Everybody took Grampa Albert at his word, if only because on most days he would be seen walking about on the farm armed with a shotgun. He patrolled for poisonous snakes, and other dangerous animals that preyed on our farm animals.

Grampa Albert never missed. Whenever we heard a gunshot, we knew it meant a wild predator was no more. Grampa Albert always gave the dead animal a dignified burial in an area on his farm that was reserved as a graveyard. It was a general joke on the farm that if it had not been for Granny’s objections, Grampa would have erected grave stones for the wild animals he was obliged to murder.

That Bull seemed to have sensed just where it stood with Grampa. On occasions when their paths crossed on the farm, that Bull would stand its ground and glare at Grampa, but never attack. Grampa would wave at that Bull, and keep walking.

Grampa took extra care to never behave in a challenging manner in front of that Bull because, according to Granny, Grampa said that Bull was entitled to some territorial dignity; as every farm animal was entitled.

In later years when I was an adult in another country, I recalled occasions which indicated to me that Bull was not being just territorial; it was mentally unbalanced.

All grazing animals on the farms allowed the white-bird Egrets to alight on them to eat insects off the grazing animals. Except that Bull.

That Bull would not let the Egrets alight on it. I am not surprised that I did not take note of that unnatural behaviour of that Bull; after all, I was a child. What surprises me is no adult commented on the disruption of such a world-wide well-known natural symbiotic relationship between two different species of animals.

Would Grampa Alberta have bought that Bull if he had known it was mentally unbalanced?

In the far distance on opposite sides of the farms were mountains covered by forests. In those forests were monkeys.

Every few months tribes of those mountain monkeys would cross the farms on their way to the opposite mountains. Those monkeys would jabber loudly along their way, and roughhouse wildly and chaotically and noisily among themselves.

People on the farms stayed indoors during those monkey migrations. The Bull was in his glory charging at those monkeys; they fled in terror before him.

Perhaps those monkeys were faking terror; that Bull never caught up to any of them. In earlier times before the Bull, those monkeys took twice as long to cross the farms.

The school and our homes were an hour apart, more or less, if we walked on the road all the way. If we cut across the farms, the time was lessened by as much as half; by more if we were chased by that Bull. It was only when we took the shortcuts that we encountered that selfish intolerant Bull.

The time came when we had had enough. There were seven of us, from age seven to twelve. We plotted to teach the beast that we had been on our farm long before it arrived, and that we were in charge; not it.

I was the lone one seven years old. Nondi and Ragwa were eleven and twelve; they came up with the plan of attack. The rest of us were allowed a choice. We could take cover and watch and cheer them on, or we could run home before the main event exploded into action. Nondi and Ragwa were girl cousins.

Many years later in my adult years far away from the farm, it puzzled me why Nondi and Ragwa embarked on a plan to stop that Bull’s attack. After all, they loved to provoke that Bull deliberately on non-schooldays when there were no adults to see their provocations.

It’s possible that Nondi and Ragwa decided to stop the Bull before Nature’s law of randomicity kicked in. We often heard the adults talking about that law: sooner or later that Bull was bound to win, even if it was just once before it was barbecued.

The only weapons we used against that he-cow were branches of the Jibwock plant.

The last time I saw a Jibwock plant was when I left the family farm, forever, in Zululand, approximately seventy years ago. To this day I have no idea how the plant got its name. I have researched and asked around; I have had no success. If only I had asked an adult family member seventy years ago.

Unfortunately, all the adult family members of seventy years ago were all dead by the time I thought to ask. My guess is that, either, the name was an English distortion of a Zulu word. Or, since the plant was wild, the name was just family slang. As a child, I never cared enough to look for the plant beyond our family farms.

The Jibwock plant grew wild. It was herbaceous. It grew up to six feet. From a distance, before it flowered, it looked like a corn plant. All the animals on our farms: donkeys, goats, horses, oxen, sheep, ate every part of the Jibwock. We vied with the animals for the Jibwock flowers.

In every respect the Jibwock flower was identical with a gardenia flower. I saw gardenias after I had left Zululand. I have never eaten a gardenia flower. The Jibwock flower was delicious; I have not eaten one in seventy years. Sad.

Nondi and Ragwa chose a Friday on our way home in the afternoon after school. A Friday, because there was no school the next day; just in case something went amiss.

That Bull, too, it seems, had plans. Every other time, our encounters had been by chance. That Friday afternoon, that Bull was waiting for us on our shortcut. By the time that beast showed itself, Nondi and Ragwa had already armed themselves with Jibwock stalks.

Armed with a stalk in one hand, Nondi, shouting obscene challenges at that Bull, ran across its path. The Bull gave chase.

Ragwa and the rest of us knew that Bull would easily catch up to Nondi. That’s why Ragwa’s part kicked in a few steps following Nondi’s.

Ragwa ran along after that Bull, to its side and a little behind it, near enough to slap its side repeatedly with her Jibwock stalk.

The rest of us who had not run off home ran behind Ragwa; far behind.

The plan worked. That Bull slowed down. Was it being confused by Ragwa’s slapping, and, or, by the scent of the Jibwock stalks?

That Bull stopped chasing Nondi. Nondi and Ragwa stopped. They looked at that Bull; that Bull slowly looked at one and then at the other. Inwardly, it must have been scoffing, having seen through their plan.

Nondi and Ragwa gently tossed their Jibwock branches to the ground in front of the Bull. And backed away. That Bull paused a few seconds before slowly taking to chewing the stalks. All of us cheered.

After that adventure, that Bull met us most afternoons at that spot. We made sure some of us had Jibwock stalks to feed it.

That he-cow never brought any she-cows with it at those meets with us, with whom to share the Jibwock stalks we gave it.

To this day I feel a twinge of conscience whenever I remember that Bull must have been barbecued, sooner or later, like all grazer animals on our farms. Forever. Sad.

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