Saving the White Lions

by Linda Tucker

  All my focus has returned to extracting Marah from the zoo. Not yet three years old, she’s just produced a litter of tiny cubs. Cloete went ahead and force-bred my young lioness prematurely so as to reproduce her rare genes for the zoo’s benefit.

  The situation is fraught with all that I hold dear at stake. It’s not only Marah I’m fighting for, but also for the lives of her three little ones, whose genetics the zoo so rapaciously covets. A legal skirmish is raging, with lawyers’ letters flying back and forth, like cross fire. However, frustratingly, I know that tactically I cannot risk taking this feud all the way to court, since court battles often last years, and for a lioness locked in solitary confinement, that’s a life sentence.

  Meanwhile, Greg Mitchell has been in litigation mode too, appealing against the seizure of his lions, through all possible legislative structures in South Africa, from High Court to Supreme Court—at huge emotional and financial cost. Tragically, his best efforts have failed. This travesty of justice sets the grim scene for my own relentless challenges. The law is not on our side, nor the lions’. But on the path of White Lion protector prophesized by Maria, there’s no going back.

  CHAPTER 10

  Royalty in the Dungeon

  DOWN A LONG, CONCRETE CORRIDOR illuminated by a dull, blue light, I pass rows of high-security cells housing prisoners behind bars. The strong smell of disinfectant rises from the floor. The man just ahead of me has his bunch of keys attached to his belt, jingling like a jailor as he walks. My heart’s thumping and I feel a churning sickness in the pit of my stomach. In the inside pocket of my jacket, I have the secret parcel for the imprisoned hostage. One of the inmates I’ve just passed is pacing to and fro, to and fro, to and fro. Like fire behind a grate, there’s huge energy transmitted through him, an energy that cannot be contained behind prison walls. I try to recall how the legend goes: fire—was it a gift from the Gods, or did humanity steal it? But I know for sure that these incarcerated lions, like flames burning in the hearth, cannot be owned or bought. They belong to a higher order. They might be held captive for a period of time, confined behind bars, burning and flickering, until they die. But they do not belong to us humans. The concrete has recently been washed down, and my boots leave imprints on the sodden floor. I pass cell after cell housing lion prisoners, some lying listless in the far corner of their bare rooms like coals barely glowing, and others, in dire frustration, pressing their noses up against the bars. I’m not sure I can go through with this. The disinfectant in my nostrils is sickening.

  Then I see her. Marah! The still point at the center of the turning world. She’s a vision, a goddess, watching me, wide eyed, serene, and noble behind the bars. Ma-rah. Mother of Ra, the sun goddess!

  There’s a buzzing tone, which prompts the lion keeper walking just ahead of me to answer his cell phone. He cannot get reception down here in the dungeon, so he excuses himself for a moment. It’s the moment I’ve been waiting for! I count his departing footsteps as they ascend the staircase toward the viewing tower, from where the public views the lions in an open camp, unaware that the big cats spend most of their time in darkened concrete dungeons down below.

  As soon as the sound of his footsteps fades, I settle down, cross-legged on the wet concrete floor, directly in front of Marah. Behind her, on a pile of straw in the corner, are her three small cubs, huddled together for warmth, peeping out with tiny polar bear–like faces. Marah is lying in a sphinx position in front of them, looking directly at me, an open expression of quiet endurance on her majestic face. I remove the crystal from its leather pouch and hold the stone up to her, as instructed. She stares at it with wide, innocent eyes as it gleams even in the dull light. Unbelievably, she slips her paw under the low grate as far as it can reach—the left paw! Trembling, I place the sand, mixed with my saliva, under this velvety paw she offers me. She takes the sand without extending her claws, drawing her paw back into the cell.

  December 21, 2003. Mission accomplished!

  Maria Khosa’s imperative—the mission of freedom for the Lion Queen—had felt no less than Herculean. Before she passed on, Maria had called upon me to enact a powerful shamanic ceremony, requiring that I relocate soil from the White Lions’ sacred homelands to the queen-in-hostage, so that the true monarch might place her paw on the sands of her kingdom once more, thereby reclaiming her birthright. Furthermore, I was required to place my own signature—saliva—as proof of my undying commitment to Marah’s freedom.

  And now the task is complete. Effortlessly. As if Marah knew what was required and has been waiting patiently to receive it. Marah will spend her birthday, Christmas Day, in the dungeon. But at least her prospects look brighter.

  Footsteps sound down the concrete steps again. Urgently, I whisper parting words to this beloved lioness: “Not long now, Queen, not long.”

  The lion keeper appears at the far end of the concrete corridor and beckons to me, indicating he’s needed elsewhere in the zoo.

  Still shaking, I retrace my steps past the other lions, burning behind the grates. I reach out to shake the lion keeper’s hand, thanking him warmly for his time and for bringing me to see Marah. He has agreed to do so without permission from his superiors, as I am now officially persona non grata. In the best of all worlds, this courageous man would himself have been the director of the zoo; instead he had to go under the radar in defiance of his superiors to let me catch a glimpse of my lioness.

  As I head down the central pathway to the main entrance, I force myself not to look into the polar bear’s white-painted concrete compound simulating snow in Africa’s searing summer, and although I heard their whoops, I avoid making eye contact with the chimpanzees dangling in their cramped enclosure. I want to ensure that nothing dampens the unfamiliar sense of achievement rising through my body. I keep walking, picking up speed, and by the time I reach the double metal grill gates to the outside world, I’m shaking uncontrollably but totally elated. I burst through the gateway into the streets and pause to catch my breath. At long last, Marah’s freedom is in sight! Not only hers, but—against all odds—that of her sacred lineage, her cubs! This counts as an achievement beyond everyone’s prayers and dreams. I pause on the curb outside as cars in the four-laned traffic race by. I don’t care what the drivers think; I can’t stop myself from doing a tap dance along the pavement, waiting for the lights to turn green.

  SITTING AT THE NEARBY COFFEE SHOP in a small park overlooking a lake, with waiters bustling around in blue turbans and leather sandals, I try to integrate what I’ve learned from this morning’s experience at the zoo. I’ve washed my hands, but the smell of disinfectant clings to my clothes.

  I order a salad from the elegant waiter in his African ethnic print pantsuit, standing over me with his tray. It’s late afternoon, and as he disappears to the kitchen, there’s no one else around in the restaurant’s courtyard section, populated with empty plastic garden furniture. I’m alone.

  It’s probably the quietest spot in the city, but all around I hear the human sounds and sirens and horns. If this noise pollution bothers me, what must all the exotic and rare creatures at the zoo experience? Recently, a gold mining company donated over a million dollars toward the lion enclosure, hence the newly constructed parapets and viewing walkways and even the conference center overlooking the big cats. But minimal consideration was given to the animals themselves, on show from all angles in a small camp, or worse, locked up in that dungeon below the human walkway, for days or even months at a time, without the city dwellers caring, or even knowing. From birth a month ago, Marah’s cubs have experienced nothing else—darkness punctured by electric lights, concrete floor softened only by a heap of dry straw.

  Soaking in the last sun of the day, I tilt my face up to the source of light, trying to savor this fragile moment. Sunlight! The source of all life on Earth. I remember my great teacher, Credo Mutwa, describing the White Lions as the children of the sun god and Marah as the chosen one. Her cubs too have been given names by
ancestral spirit sources: Regeus, Letaba, and Zihra. Their names mean “first ray of sunlight” in three root languages: Latin, African, and Hebraic. Mother of the Sun and her blessed children, the first rays of sunlight on Earth—still under lock and key in the darkened dungeons below the city.

  With the shamanic ceremony complete, I believe my battles with Dr. Cloete will soon be a thing of the past. After two years of holding my breath at the very thought of this automaton claiming the world’s most sacred lioness as a breeding machine, I finally allow myself a deep sigh of relief. After this morning’s coup, victory is in sight! It’s the conclusion of a carefully implemented strategy that has the ancestors on its side.

  Perhaps I can at last erase the invasive presence of the taxidermist, with his spiky pineapple-colored hairdo and lecherous grin, from my sleepless nights and my worst nightmares.

  Though I cannot help wondering how many surplus specimens have been dumped by the zoo’s disposal unit into the canned-hunting industry, I dare not let my thoughts wander too far, in case I lose this hard-fought sense of fragile achievement.

  Seeing Marah was such an overwhelmingly powerful experience. And what I’d first thought impossible now looks attainable: the Queen’s return to her sacred homelands—together with her all-important genetic lineage, those adorably precious cubs. Inevitably, I know in my bones there will be more clashes to come.

  My personal battle is directly linked with a greater battle for the Earth. Since I committed to this conservation work, I’ve become acutely aware of the urgency with which we need to take up arms to fight for what it right, and so protect what is necessary for our survival.

  When my salad arrives, I decide to order a coffee to follow—but what kind? Café latte, café crème, café au lait, espresso, filter coffee, cappuccino, café mocha. I’ve always loved variety, but today this man-made paradox hits me hard. Our consumer society keeps giving us more and more and yet more choices, so that we live with the delusion of abundance—at the very time when our options are dying out, as we incrementally destroy the infinite wealth of our last natural resources. It’s all part of this dangerous illusion, or virtual world, we humans have created for ourselves. A bubble that we all know, in our darkest moments, is about to burst.

  “A rooibos tea, thanks,” I say.

  I savor my fresh salad as a gift from Nature, but I’m battling confused feelings. We, as consumers, have been so effective in creating choices for ourselves. Yet what option have we allowed the other inhabitants of our planet? I bleakly wonder what choice my friends at the zoo really have. To accept food, or not to accept food. To live, or to die. Come to think of it, they do have another choice: to remain compliant, or to bite the hand that feeds them. But would Marah ever turn against her human jailors or brutal canned hunters? I don’t believe so. She would rather turn the other cheek. And thinking about that now, it occurred to me how few zookeepers and circus handlers are actually harmed by the animals they keep captive. With all the damage and cruelty that humans continually perpetrate on Mother Earth and her creatures, how much retaliation have we humans witnessed? The answer, of course, is virtually none. So why, I wonder, is Nature so patient with us?

  More than ever, I’m struggling with these issues and the role that the African elders foresaw for the White Lions as guardians of the Earth at a time of crisis. Try as I might to hold onto the exhilaration I felt earlier, inevitably I start focusing on urgent issues involved in the battle to save Marah. My entire objective has been to open the way to relocate Timbavati’s fair Lion Queen back to her land of origins. Now that it’s becoming a reality, the real threats and challenges that await her are also becoming clear.

  Setting my plate aside, I know these anxious thoughts will keep me awake again. Having defied all obstacles in order to secure Marah’s release papers from the zoo, am I really prepared for the dangers confronting her in her homelands? Am I being realistic? I pull back to the present and scan the faces of the people dining around me. The restaurant has suddenly filled up. How many of these fellow South Africans have heard of the White Lions, unique to our country? How many of them know that these animals once roamed freely in the wilderness lands of their origins but are now extinct in the wild?

  MORE THAN A DECADE HAS PASSED since the last White Lion was born in Timbavati, the same day I was rescued by Maria: November 10, 1991. The unexplained disappearance of that last White Lion cub follows four decades of merciless artificial removals: hunting and stealing of White Lions, as well as large-scale lion culling programs in neighboring Kruger Park between 1975 and 1980, at a time when twelve White Lions were recorded in nine different prides in the region. Once, these magnificent creatures were multiplying. Now none are left. It’s desperate. Whenever I visit Timbavati Private Nature Reserve, I feel a ghostly presence of sadness shrouding the place. Yet even in the place of their origins, people don’t seem to notice. Trophy hunting of lions in this wilderness reserve continues even today—long after the White Lions tragically departed these ancestral homelands, effectively eradicating potential gene carriers of the unique White Lion genetic marker from the region’s population of golden lions. If Maria’s guidance is correct, Ingwavuma was the last gene bearer and progenitor of the future White Lions in the region. As the reserve’s most recent casuality, he took with him the last surviving White Lion genes into obscurity.

  What’s the solution? Since Timbavati’s wilderness area is the only place on Earth where White Lions were born by natural occurrence, my commitment has always been to ensure Marah’s return to the land of her birthright. But in reintroducing Marah to her ancestral homelands, I need to find out exactly what I’m getting myself into, and more importantly, what I’m getting Marah into. Because of my necessary step-by-step process, I haven’t been able to give the threats and challenges of Timbavati my full attention. Now they are staring me in the face: Timbavati Private Nature Reserve hunts lions commercially. What was I thinking? From a captive killing camp into the dungeons of a zoological institution, then from the zoo to a commercial trophy hunting reserve—am I totally insane trying to return Marah and her family home?

  My tea’s cold, but I sip it nonetheless. In the crammed coffee shop in the park in the middle of the Johannesburg traffic, I visualize the vast expanses of Timbavati bushveld where this rare creature should be protected by law. I’ve committed my life to ensuring the survival of Marah and her kind. But what is the point of returning this most sacred animal to her natural and spiritual homelands where, once again, she’ll be at risk of being hunted?

  Ever since Christmas Day 2000, I’ve been driven by one single overriding imperative: to get the newborn lioness of Bethlehem back to her land of origin. But for the first time I realize this pledge is simply not good enough: Marah’s freedom is paramount. Not only do I have to ensure she returns safely home; once there, I have to find a way of guaranteeing her survival.

  I pay and leave abruptly, driven by clear intent: First secure the great escape from the zoological dungeons; then cross the hurdles waiting for us at Timbavati once we get there.

  I’M ENGRAVING THE DATE: FEBRUARY 4, 2004. Against all odds, I’ve achieved the impossible. I’ve managed to extract a mandate, not only for the freedom of Marah, but also for her three adorable cubs! At last I can lay down my weary weaponry, the sword of truth, bow and arrow of love, and shield of lightforce.

  The breakthrough with the zoo finally came when I threatened to take Marah’s story to the press, my only means of exposing the truth. Shrinking from the public exposure, the institution reluctantly conceded to releasing Marah, but only on condition their name was never mentioned in public.

  This is nothing short of a military coup! Having so readily signed the contract, I was about to rest my battle-weary bones, until I had a closer look at the fine print. First they’ve conceded to my price for adopting Marah and cubs: itself an astronomical figure, more than double the previously agreed-upon price prior to my book launch. In a further sleight of hand
, knowing I do not possess sufficient funds at the present time, the institution has conveniently stipulated that the deal will be annulled within two weeks if the money is not transferred into their account within the stipulated deadline. They must know, as I do, only a miracle can raise the ransom money at such short notice. My life’s savings are tied up in a divorce settlement still being resolved, so my hands are tied. Just when I was about to lay my armaments to rest, I have to gear up for battle all over again. But deep-down inner guidance tells me not to fret. Help is at hand.

  THE ELEVENTH HOUR. FEBRUARY 14, 2004. Without the required sum to free Marah, all my efforts would have been in vain. However, one phone call changed everything. An unknown British woman tracked me down yesterday morning after seeing Marah’s picture in Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper.

  “Is that Linda Tucker?” she inquired assertively.

  I said it was.

  “Good morning, young lady. My name is Mrs. Mireille Vince. I’m phoning to let you know that I have the funds to save Marah. And I’m serious.”

  Naturally, I responded: “How serious are you, Mrs. Vince? Because Marah also has three cubs.”

  “See you tomorrow,” she replied. “I’m catching a plane from Leeds tonight.”

  What a miracle! Indeed, Mireille is my initiation into the law of miracles. Her unconditional offer of provision of funds to liberate Marah and her cubs at the moment critique has changed my life. Of course, that inner knowing, which Maria Khosa taught me to trust, always signaled that help would arrive. So when this amazing silver-haired lady swooped out of the blue at Johannesburg airport this morning and informed me that her name means “sunshine” or “miracle” in French, there was a strange familiarity about it.