1950/60s Damaraland, Namibia

In response to “The Hapless Hangman” article by Gregor Woods in the Nov/dec 2020 issue. I was born and raised in the Damaraland region of Namibia in the 1950/60s. Then, this was still a harsh, wild area in which farmers formed their own ethical rules to distinguish between vermin, food and what to protect.

Vermin was anything that posed a threat to infrastructure, gardens, fruit or livestock (primarily sheep and goats). Infrastructure was extremely hard to create in this mountainous area and mainly encompassed roads, fencing and water installations. The main destroyer of infrastructure were elephants and mountain zebra. Both species could demolish fencing within a few hours that had taken days of extreme labour to erect. Elephants just because they can, and zebra most often while fighting each other. Elephant were protected by law but zebra were shot on sight.

Vegetable gardens and fruit (fig trees, guava trees, grape vines, etc) were destroyed by porcupines and birds. Shooting fruit-eating birds was common practice for all farm boys who often became crack shots.

The main threat to livestock came from, in order of severity, the African wild dog, leopard which we called ‘tiger’, lynx, jackal, bearded vulture or lammergeier, baboon and cheetah. These were shot on sight.

In this area, venison was confined to kudu. According to our own rules, and in general that of the local farming community, the following were protected: klipspringer, steen

buck, duiker, swallow and the Janfiskaal or hangman.

The Fiskaal or Janfiskaal were of no threat to anything which we held dear and were quite rare in that area. I have personally seen evidence of his custom of pegging his prey to any suitable object, be it thorns or barb wire, so as to enable him to feed. His prey consisted mostly of grasshoppers, small lizards, small birds and mice. – Sarel Esterhuizen, Free State