2505 Uganda Blog
Hunting Chimpanzee
To start with we would have to go down a very steep hill or a cliff wall to get to the bottom of a valley. The cliff wall though short was very steep and slippery after raining. We must crawling against it or perhaps “rubbing” against the cliff wall is more appropriate. There was an approximately 60 – 70 feet drop to the bottom of the short cliff. With heavy photo equipments on our shoulders or back, It’s definitely not an easy way to start with.
After reaching the very bottom of the short cliff wall the hunting and tracking starts. Only by then we realize that there was an advance team composed with local trackers searching for the chimpanzees long before we started our journey. They had already found where the chimpanzees were and all we need to do was to follow them. According to our French professional guide, Jess Reporter, it was not as smooth as the last few times she was here for the following reasons:
First, when the chimpanzees starting to appear in our sight, they were mostly hiding in the dense tree branches and leaves high up in the air. All we could see were dark fur balls moving swiftly among tree branches, fuzzy and blurry.
This is true because the local trackers or hunters were trying very hard to lead us to try to find an advantage point to at least see the faces of them. Then I realized that we were led from point A to point B and then point B back to point A and back and forth quite a few times, may be 4 or 5 times. I knew that because we passed by a same dead tree branch and there were very unique fungus on the same piece of dead wood. I even took a few shots of the fungus.
Second, when we finally got an advantage point to see their faces, they were high above our head and in far distance may be 4 or 5 stories high. Even with my 600mm telephoto lens, the results were not optimal and ideal.
This is also true. Before we start this journey, we were all told that we must bring masks with us. Yes, the kind of mask we used during the pandemic times. Chimpanzees share 99% genetically with us the homo sapiens and any virus effect us would also most likely cross infect them. We have masks and vaccine to defend us. If this happens in wild chimpanzee, they were defenseless and the results would be unfathomable and devastating. However, we were so far away that didn’t even need to wear the mask this time.
Third, for unknown reasons there were only one mother and child chimpanzees showed up this time. In the past there were always many more of them.
Even though we were far away from them from our standing point of view but in order not to over stress the wildlife, we stayed there for only about a little more than an hour and left them be. Before the local guide and ranger took us to see other local wildlife, she gave us a lesson of wild chimpanzees in the field. She first took a few leaves from a random tree to our eyes and moments later some leaves from another tree. The first one shapes oval and thick and soft. This is a kind of planet precious to the chimps. Right before a pregnant chimp to give birth, she would starting to collect this kind of oval and thick and soft leaves. There were two purposes first is to use them to pave the ground so it would make herself more comfortable during the process of giving birth. Second is to use them to make the baby chimp more comfortable to lie onto it after birth. It’s just like us human that we would prepare soft and comfortable blankets for our new born babies. The same principle.
The process of giving birth is also very similar to our human. After the baby was born, the placenta would drop within 15-20 minutes onto those oval shaped and soft leaves. After the mother chimp recovers from the birth and when the baby was ready, the mother chimp would take the baby leave the site. One of the companions of the mother chimpanzees, or BFF as we human called it, would come over and started to clean it up. There was a detailed process which surprised me. Originally I would think the chimp would just knead the leaves into a ball, no, not at all. During the cleaning up, the chimp would fold those leaves into a rectangle shape and neat, it’s like what we do with our gift boxes. It’s surreal. The main purpose of doing this is to wipe out any possibility for predators such as snakes to trace the vulnerable mother and baby chimpanzees. How smart for them to do so!?
The purpose of the second kind of leaves were totally different. There were many thin and long blade shape leaves on one stem as showing in the picture. Chimpanzees were omnivores like us. They need meat in their dietary in order to supplement protein. Generally they are bigger than monkeys in shape and stronger in strength so they hunt and eat monkeys as the source of their protein. They are smart enough to know that eating meat wasn’t enough and it would cause indigestion. They would need vegetable to help the digestion and this kind of leaves would do just that for them. It’s their vegetables on the food menu.
In addition to be a vegetable for chimps, as we all know when you eat meat it would stuck in-between our teeth so as chimpanzees, chimps use this kind of thin and long leaves as a tool to clean their teeth just like our tooth brushes. Another purpose of this kind of leaves is that it has a very distinctive aroma. The ranger took a few of them and knead in her palm and let us to experience its smell. Yes, it has a very different and distinctive sent smell like parsley or cilantro but different. So when the chimps use them as tooth brushes to clean their teeth it would leave the special and distinctive aroma onto their teeth and mouth, just like our tooth paste.
For those parents this would be a good example to convince your young kids to eat vegetables and brush their teeth because even wild chimpanzees know this shall be done.
All these were very interesting, refreshing and precious knowledge for me to learn in the field. Without coming onto this trip, I would mostly like be still ignorant to them. Chimps, one of the closest relatives in the long process of evolution history, they are really not that different than us. How marvelous the natural evolution is!
Hunting Gorilla
After the experience of hunting for chimpanzees, we were no longer totally no experience when it came to hunting for gorillas. We were first brought to the conservative center and the local villagers performed their custom songs and dances. In the very beginning I didn’t pay much attention to their performance because I was here to see gorillas not singing and dancing. However, momentarily later I was fixed to the stage. Their performance were so beautiful, touching and moving. Luckily I still remember to take out my camera and record part of their performance and hope that I could catch the essence of them and share them to the world later on.
***** Please click on the subtitle at the bottom of the following image to start the video clip.
After the performance, the rangers started to introduce the safety and conservation guidelines to us. Even though all the gorillas we were going to see were habituated but ultimately they are wildlife and there is always potential dangers. I really enjoyed the educational section because it was very knowledgeable and detailed. Through the educational period I learned that there were only about two hundred gorillas left in this area, Bwindi, in early 1990s because of indiscriminate killing and poaching. After 1,993 the conservation plans started and now the number of gorillas grew to more than 1,300 and this is a very delightful and healthy number. We could see human intervention is essential in the conservation activities to conserve wild gorillas. Nevertheless, we the humans were also the main factor that the number of gorillas were dramatically reduced.
After all the ceremony, process and performance, we finally were on our way with the conservation rangers and armed guards coming along with us and departing toward the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park forest where gorillas lived. Bwindi is a local name where the gorillas were and it means “place of darkness”. It’s not that the place is spooky or terrifying but because the sunlights were blocked by the forest and that’s how dense the forest is which was also the reason for its name “impenetrable forest”. There were armed guards came along with us and it’s not entirely because of the gorillas but because of the elephants. Elephants came in groups and because of the gigantic sizes they have no fears and they were the true kings in the jungle. Other than the firearms in the hands of human, they really don’t have real enemies. We may potentially in harms way when they suddenly appear from the dense forest which was the main reason why the armed guards were necessary. Though any wild animals including gorillas were also need to be drive away from us if firearms are necessary.
In the beginning of the hiking everyone of us was given a walking stick and an optional porter, $20 per person, and we departed for our hunting. Within 15 minutes, we heard loud, violent and rapid screaming and shouting coming from the dense forest and I could even see the tree leaves shaking violently approximately 200 – 300 feet from us on the other side of a valley. I didn’t know about other people in our group but I was deeply worried because what we were going to see were mountain gorillas. Gorillas were two to three times heavier than us and full of muscle. The prototype of King Kong is the silverback gorillas.
When we were approximately 50 to 70 feet away from them, rangers gave us the following orders: Take off all the hats from our heads because gorillas were very much likely took away our hats. If that happens, you may as well kiss your hats good-bye and there is no way to get it back. Second, hand over the walking stick to the rangers or your dedicated porter because if you walk into the forest with your walking stick, gorilla may treat you as hostile and believe me you definitely don’t want that to happen. Third, put on your mask. Same as the chimpanzees, all primates are susceptible to the same respiratory viruses like us so we must be very cautious especially right after the long pandemic period.
Right after that the conservation ranger gave us a swift, short yet surprise lesson. Habituated gorillas don’t have the territorial awareness and we could actually getting close to them as long as we keep the final 10 feet away from them. Don’t speak out loudly or shout which would surprise them and you don’t want to do that. Basically we are safe and in good hands. This really surprised me. Generally we must keep a safe distance away from wildlife and a very typical distance was 100 feet depending on which animal we are talking about. But 10 feet, 10 feet away from the much larger in size, weight and brutal strength mountain gorillas, I could only hardly image that.
There were about 8 or 9 of us walking slowly down the hilly side of the valley and approaching the mountain gorillas. We started using our cameras to catch their images. Conservation rangers and armed guards were about 50 feet away from us on the top of the hill to overlook at us. A couple of rangers walked down the hill and mixed into us to give us instructions or warning from time to time. I really appreciated under their care taking and it made me feel much better to be this close to a wild animal, big wild animal.
I saw two female gorillas because obviously their body sizes were much smaller than the male silver back and two to three young gorillas which were about 15 to 25 feet away from us. Since the juvenile gorillas were young they stayed on top of tress most of the time. I guess they were still not that familiar with people being around or just because they were being playful and more comfortable hiding in trees. Then I saw it the silver back male gorilla. He was about 30 feet away staying in the shade of trees and looking at us. After about 10 to 15 minutes photo taking, I found an interesting phenomenon and that is these gorillas not only not afraid of us but posing for us consciously in all different postures. They would be sitting up, lying down all sorts of different postures and it’s like they know they are modeling and they know what we tourists here for. I was very surprised. Do they know or recognize that we are tourists and coming here only to see or take photos of them? Are they consciously posing for us because they know what they were facing with and doing? How are they smart enough know how to cooperate with us and posing with all sorts of postures to entertain us? This is unbelievable to me and it’s surprising me more than seeing wild gorillas for the first time in person. Though all sorts of ideas in my brain flying fast and all over, I never let my eye leave the viewfinder and my trigger finger was always busy. I could also hear all different shutter release sounds from different cameras surrounding me. Other than the noise of the shutter release, we were surprisingly quiet. Though we were from all over the world and didn’t know each other well but we were all very courtesy and polite to each other and would swapping positions with each other and left enough space in-between us. This is a exceptionally beautiful moment among human and human, human and wild animals and I truly enjoy the moment.
After an unknown period of time, the silver back started to move towards us slowly and so slow I could even call it gentle. This was another surprise because if he ran down the slope and no doubt we were all be scared and frightened with his sheer size and weight. But, no, he was so slow and gentle and it’s like he knew that he would frighten us if he rush down the hill. On top of that, after he came close to us, he sat down and merely looked at us quietly in a fixed position. Then after a short period of time after seeing us had no reaction, he moved towards a few more feet again then again until he was only 6 approximately feet away from us. Acting like all the other female gorillas, he was sitting there on the ground and started to posing for us. It’s really hard for me to believe a wild silver back mountain gorilla would do this and being so gentle and not a single scent of hostility at all.
Before we walked down the final slope down to the valley, our ranger told us that we have only an hour to get close enough to photograph them because ultimately they were wild animals and we were invading their living spaces. We should not bothering them for too long and let wild animals be wild animals which I completely agree. Nevertheless I had never thought an hour could be coming so fast and short. When ranger told us it’s time to leave none of us wanted to move our muscles. We dragged another 5 or 6 minutes and then started to leave reluctantly like rangers were taking away our toy from us kids hands. Oh! Right before we left the gorillas there was an incident. After the silver back stayed in front of us within 6 feet for a while, he started to retreat backwards and sat at a place about 15 feet away looking at us quietly. At this moment, a female gorilla suddenly moving forward to us and getting very close like 3 feet away. Right at this moment, the silver back charged towards the female in a lightening speed and loud and violent shouting coming out from his mouth. Luckily enough for us, the swift yet short education right before we came down the hill took effect because we were told in case this happened standing still and don’t do any sudden move and we obeyed. As soon as the female gorilla retreated from us, the silver back stopped shouting and moved backward again and back to where he was, 15 feet away. It happened within like 3 to 5 seconds and if you don’t pay attention, it’s over. I was very much puzzled because had no idea what happened or why was it happened? I had no idea, none of us had.
After we were back on top of the hill, the ranger told us it was because the female gorilla was very curious of us but getting too close and that set off the silver back. When the female gorilla was too close to us it may make us uncomfortable or frighten us and the silver back acting up to prevent this to happen. It’s like the silver back was protecting us. So, the loud and violent shouting was only a way to communicate in the world of gorillas and it doesn’t necessarily means harmful which was why we heard similar loud and violent shouting in the forest in the very beginning and didn’t stop us from coming down the hill to meet them. This seemed unfriendly or barbaric behavior merely is because it’s the only way they could communicate with each other and not necessarily violent in any means. It’s only in our eyes it was violent and barbaric. It’s entirely a culture misunderstanding. How marvelous and interesting!
Now let me explain why the armed guards were keeping a distance and staying on top of the hill away from us. The main reason was because gorillas are racists. “When gorillas see black or darker skin people, they show tense, uneasy even hostile. However, when they see white people or light color skinned people, they would show relaxed, calm and even friendly attitude.” The above description was from our local guide and I didn’t make them up. Though I was the one who said “gorillas were racists!” but that was all induced from what we were told by our local guide. I was only joking but of course. However, why would gorillas would show different conditions when seeing different skin color people? It’s all because habitual cognition. Or it’s like what we say “stereotype” in human language. The reason was because the park rangers and armed guards came into the forest frequently to participate in gorillas’ daily life and activities. It serves two purposes: one, to study their habitat and two, the interaction between the environment and gorillas themselves. This activity unavoidably increases the interaction between gorillas and the rangers and armed guards. Nevertheless, rangers and armed guards also needed to keep a certain or safe distance away from the gorillas to avoid friction or conflicts. When there were frictions, the armed guards and rangers would need to loudly give verbal commands or bang the ground with the sticks in their hands to denounce the gorillas behavior. It’s during these interactions, gorillas learned these black or dark skinned people aren’t always friendly to them which was the main reason why they would show tense and unfriendliness reactions towards them. On the other hand, most tourists are white or lighter skinned people and they came just to take pictures and never being mean to them which was why gorillas generally show relaxed and friendliness towards them. In reality I think it’s us who are afraid of them just by their sheer size and wildness. There was nothing to do with racism. It’s just when our guide telling us about this phenomenon he didn’t tell us why was this happened first so my first reaction was “Hum?! Gorillas are evolved so advanced and know racism?”
There is still one thing puzzled me though. Right before we get to where the gorillas were, we heard the loud and violent noise from the dense forest and saw the tree leaves shaking violently. There must be some sort of conflict going on. It’s only about one or two minutes then we arrived and the entire tribe was quiet and peaceful like nothing had ever happened. A few juvenile gorillas were on top of trees, a couple of female gorillas quietly sitting close to us and the silver back was also quietly sitting 30-50 feet away. After a certain period of time after we took quite some photos with those female gorillas, only by then the silver back started moving towards us slowly and gently. The silver back even stop in between us for a few moments to observe us then advance his position again. Silver back repeating this action till he was as close as the remaining female gorillas and within 10 feet of us. When it’s closing to the one hour time, the silver back retreated quietly and let those female gorillas back to where they were closing to us. When one of the female gorillas was getting too close to us, he jumped out swiftly and shouting at her to stop her behavior. He then retreated back to where he was after the female gorillas backoff from us.
Wasn’t the silver back behaved just like a human being when I describe like this? Or, let me try to explain it this way. The silver back may know his gigantic size and muscles would frighten us tourists so he stayed put at the farther end of the forest and let the smaller and more friendly looking female gorillas to get close to us. After observing us show relaxed and easy going, only by then he started advancing towards us but also took cautious by doing so stage by stage till finally within 10 feet so he wouldn’t frighten us. Moreover, I don’t know if gorilla has the concept of “TIME”. I know scientists had done experiments on dogs to see how do they know that their masters were about coming home by showing restlessness behavior. It turns out that through day of time, the sent of their masters were getting thinner and thinner up to a point when their masters would show up back from work and that’s how dogs know when was the “TIME” their master were about home and show restlessness. But then it doesn’t explain how would the silver back know that it’s about time for us tourists to leave and retreat back into the deeper forest first. Only when one of the female gorillas was getting too close to us, he came out swiftly to stop her. This is completely like how a human master to treat their guests at his house. If your children were too naughty and annoying your guests at home, wouldn’t you come out and stop your kids behavior?
What puzzled me the most was what I just described a regular phenomenon or just one-time coincidence? If it’s only a one-time coincidence then I was very lucky to observed it and had this wonderful experience. If it’s a regular phenomenon, then it’s an incredible behavior because in a certain ways gorillas behaviors aren’t actually much too far away from us the homo sapiens, right? As far as I could see, the only difference between us and the gorillas in this meeting is that they way they express their forbidden behavior or anger was a lot more severe or violent which includes loudly shouting and actions. Nevertheless, this has nothing to do with good or bad, it’s just that’s the only way they know to express their unsatisfactory sense. I don’t know if they have any other choice but this behavior.
If there is any animal behavior expert read this, I would be more appreciated to be enlightened. It doesn’t matter what’s the conclusion of this, the most important thing is if we don’t spend time and empathy to try to understand gorillas, the gap and misunderstandings were just remain or grow and further dividing us. If it’s not because of this experience, silver back in my eyes was a only a threat and nothing else which was not necessarily true. On the other hand, I could understand my feeling towards gorillas through this experience but how about gorillas? What were they thinking or feeling when they were getting so close to us and interacting with us, a group of foreigner invading their home, their spaces? What’s their attitude towards all of these through their experiences with us?
At the end, I am hoping my description and experience here could entice or provide some incentive for those of you who read this article to go out and meet the gorillas yourself like me. To have your own experience, feelings and emotions towards gorillas when you are getting within 10 feet of a gigantic silver back. It’s not only a hard to come by and precious experience and feelings, you could also help out in preserve wild mountain gorillas, a magnificent and glorious creature on this planet earth.
Porter
Let me talk about the porter who took care of me along the entire way to do the gorillas trekking.
Right before we entered the gorilla trekking entrance, park ranger introduced a group of porters to us. The were composed with local villagers and it’s absolutely not mandatory to hire one but a good idea. It’s a good idea to hire one because we didn’t know how far or how long the trekking was going to be. If we could conserve a drop of our energy, we could have an extra drop of energy to looking for gorillas and taking photos of them. Moreover, we more or less carried some extra belongings especially water because it’s hot in Uganda and rain coat and paints. It’s better to let someone else to carry the extra weight other than carrying by ourselves. On top of these, porters are local villagers and by hiring them is likely helping them out financially. It doesn’t matter how far or how long for the trekking, it’s US $20 per porter. I really think it’s a good deal so I hired one and gladly that I did.
I brought some extra photo equipment so my backpack was a bit heavier than the rest. When it came to pick a porter, I told myself that I should pick a younger and stronger one because naturally I thought a younger and stronger one could better carry my heavier load. However, as soon as we started to pick our porters, an older porter walked through the crowd and came to me straight and claimed that he wanted to be my porter. I was a bit hesitant because among the entire group of porters he wasn’t young, plus he wasn’t particularly looked strong. I turned and asked the ranger if he was sure because I thought he wouldn’t understand my English but my porter assured me that he could take care of me. So be it. I didn’t feel comfortable to reject him and hired him as my porter.
As soon as we started the trekking, he insisted to walk right in front of me closely. I told him it’s not necessary to walk so close to me because I was fine but he insisted. I soon understood why because the forest was very dense and the tree branches were protruding everywhere and by walking in front of me he would brush away all the branches in my way. Moreover, if there was a big rock or a small hole on the ground, he would pointed out for me right before I approached them. Actually, it’s really not necessary because I have been trekking half the world all by myself and never had anyone took care of me like this. I actually didn’t feel comfortable to have this kind royal treatment. No matter, he insisted. When there was a steep downhill or uphill, he would even extend his hand and trying to hold my hand. That was just too much for me and I thanked him but refused to be holding hand with him. After a few times refused to do so, he kept insisting of doing so and would just extended his arm to grab my wrest. Well, I gave up and let him to do so. Honestly, I had never had this kind of luxurious and royal treatment through my entire life out there taking photos and wasn’t that comfortable with it. However, I indeed appreciate his enthusiasm in helping me.
When the time came to taking photos of gorillas, I dump all the unnecessary belongings to him and didn’t have to worry about anything but pay total attention to my photo taking which is another level of luxurious enjoyment that I didn’t usually have when I was out there to do photo shooting. I designed a way to have everything on my body so when I am concentrating in taking photos I don’t need to worry about my equipment but that comes with a burden which is always, always carrying extra load of my equipment on my body. Sometimes, the inconvenience outweighs the heavy load because it’s harder for me to maneuver my body with all the extra equipment and weight on me. Not this time, I took only necessary equipment and dropped everything else to my porter. What a relief and I sure enjoying it. $20 is really not much for me or anyone came from a western world join a safari to Africa but it’s a well worth experience and could also help out my porter and his family which made me really satisfied.
Pygmy
Portraits was never my strong suit and I rarely pay attention in taking photos of people. Whenever I had chances to take people’s photo along the way while traveling, 9 out of 10 times I would avoid to show their faces in my photos. It’s a long story and I am not going to discuss about it here. Long story short, the main reason was to respect local people’s portraiture right. Unless I have that person’s permission, otherwise, I would avoid to show their faces in my photos. However, if I approached them and got their permission, that would totally spoil the nature element and become a staged photo. I would rather not take the shot instead of getting a “staged” photo.
However, this series of photos are different and the reason was a bit sad. The person in these series of photos are a very special human race namely “Pygmy”. I still remember that I learned the word “Pygmy” in my high school textbook and it was clearly said “Pygmy” had been extinct. When I heard from my local guide saying that we were going to visit a Pygmy tribe I was very much surprised because I had longed been thought they were totally gone from the surface of planet Earth.
Pygmy chief. The very outer layer was their traditional cloth made with bark.
Why visiting Pygmy a part of our tour? This is the sad part of the story and through our local guide here is the story. Pygmy had long been living in deep forest and on their own for centuries as long as they were known. However, in recent years the government decided to drive them out from their home and made them coming into the modern world because the government doesn’t think they should keep living in the jungles. I believe the government had good intentions to drive them out from the deep jungle and made them coming into this modern world. However, the bad and sad parts were the government didn’t provide them any means to survive in this modern world. Pygmy is a very ancient human race and the way they survive in the world was to hunt, fishing, and foraging to live by in the deep jungles. Once they were driven out from their home into this modern world, they don’t posses any skill, knowledge nor means to survive in it. They were left alone and helpless.
Currently the way they could make a living was by way through showing themselves to the public and demonstrating in how they live and survive in the total wilderness and deep jungle. In another words, selling themselves out. They would collecting some ticket money from tourists and selling some primitive hand crafts such as hand-made baskets or wooden bowls to get by. Of course, they also accepted monetary donations.
The elderly in my photos is the chief of the tribe we visited. He is the oldest and most powerful person among the tribe there. When my local guide told us that the local government drove Pygmy out from their home where they lived for centuries, I was against the idea because my thought was why forcefully and against their well to alter the way they live. As long as they are happy and satisfied the way they are, we shouldn’t be interfering with it. However, after half way through observing the chief, the person in my photos, demonstrating how they made a living in the deep jungle, I immediately and 180 degrees turned around changed my mind. It’s just beyond primitive and I may call it cruel.
What I saw there in real life wasn’t being shown in any National Geographic or Discovery channels are a human being living in the jungle not too much different than a wild animal. What I saw how the gorillas moving in the forest is not much different than the Pygmy living in the same forest. They would crawling on the forest ground full of falling leaves, branches, pot hole full of mud waters or anything on the forest ground to entrap and hunt for food to barely survive. When it’s raining, they would gather a few large and thick leaves to lay them on the ground where they laid on top of it and another few of them to cover themselves under it to wait till the storm passing by. That’s all the defense they have when it’s raining. When they were injured, they would find some herb medicine, chew them in their mouths and apply to the wound. They posses the knowledge of poisonous plants or animals and refining the poison to apply it onto the arrow head to hunt for animals. They even know which kind of tree leaves have aphrodisiac effect. The chief would pick a few of those leaves and gesture of eating them and then holding a tree trunk and performing the sexual act. It was a tremendous visual impact to me for him to demonstrating this in front of a bunch of strangers and tourists to make a living.
Sure enough they do not possess the concept or idea of moral and know no shame. However, I am not trying to make moral judgements out of this acting. As the matter of fact, I believe conducting a moral judgement on his acting itself was immoral. What I felt bad was why would a human being have to do this in front of a bunch of strangers in order to make a living to survive this world? It’s cruel and sad. I was so much very sad when I witness this. This was why half way through his demo I turned 180 degrees to agree with the government to drive them out from the deep jungle where they lived for centuries. For this chief’s generation, we could not make any changes for him because he had been grown up and lived by with the tradition and there wasn’t much that we could do for him. I would even call his generation a lost generation. However, by driving them out from the deep forest at least we could prevent their offsprings to live this kind of life afterwards and their offspring’s offspring and generations to come. That’s what important.
I had watched many documentary films on TV from National Geographic or Discover channels and saw primitive human races in the film. However, what I saw in their films were all filtered or beautified. I saw primitive human race appeared in the film but I never saw them crawling on the ground moving like animals. I saw how primitive human race recognized and applied herb medicine but I never saw them demo aphrodisiac leaves, holding a tree trunk and performing sexual movement. The visual impact from what I saw here were like iron fist punched in my chest, in my face. What I saw here is an ancient human race from the stone age where we were there before and we evolved from. We have gone a long, long, very long way to where we are today and that’s evolutions. I was witnessing our past right in front of my eyes. Even though we are what we are now and not like Pygmy staying in the stone age but that doesn’t cover the fact that we have our own share of animal instincts in our body, mind and heritage. That’s humanity. We were nothing but a product of evolution.
In a sense I felt lucky because I had the opportunity to witness the past of us acting right in front of me and to experience it, to feel it and to ruminant on it. However, in a different sense, I felt sad because it’s obvious that the days lay in front of this elderly chief are very limited and the opportunities for him to do this kind of demonstration would be very limited also. After him, I don’t know any where else we could experience this again so it’s like a living fossil who could teach us more than we could digest in a way. What a lost for the man kind? What’s vanishing right in front of our eyes that we couldn’t make it up any more?
In the past when I took my photo equipment to go out and intended to conduct my artistic creation in photography, all I thought was how to get more shots, more beautiful images, and more perfect photographs to demonstrate, to display the beauty in my mind. As I am aging, I grew more and more interested in local culture, geography, wild animals or even plants. This deepened my understanding, comprehension and recognition of this world, the nature or even the humanity so I could have the opportunity to conduct self-reflection, introspection and recognition. I really appreciate this Uganda trip and opportunity for all I have experienced along the way.
Ancient and traditional customs in Uganda
There is no “death” concept in the traditional custom of Uganda but “leave”.
Uganda’s aboriginal people has a general concept and that is they do not have the concept of “death” but “leaving”. When a body lost all its vital signs, in aboriginal people’s point of view is this person left, not dead. Isn’t this surprising?
When I first heard this idea, I was more than stunned. I asked is there a concept of “birth”? Yes, aboriginal people has the concept of birth but no death. I asked again “Then where did they go? I mean those people who left.” The answer was “Nowhere. They just left.” In their thoughts, when a person’s body doesn’t have any reaction or vital signs, they simply left and that’s all. The big, huge question mark circling in my head and I couldn’t let it go. They don’t have death, people left instead of dead and they didn’t go anywhere but left. What is this? My brain was burning close to exploding. This doesn’t make any sense. What does it mean by left but not going anywhere. When someone left, he must be going somewhere but here, right? What does it mean left but going nowhere? This is beyond my understanding! So they have the concept of “birth” and “leaving” but no “birth” and “death”. I felt I fell into a deadlock. In our traditional, Chinese, concept “birth, aging, sickness, death” is a process everyone would experience till they breathing the last air and no exceptions. I know this ever since I was in elementary school. I might not know exactly what do they mean but I know they exist and I know that’s how process in life for everyone. I stumbled into a black hole!
It doesn’t matter how I try to ask and find a reasonable explanation, the answer was always “they left”. What happened after they left, “nothing, they just left”.
Honestly, at first I thought my local guide was joking with me or messing around with me. However, when I had a chance to hike along the trail to see the local waterfalls, the local tribal guide told me it’s true and he confirmed the idea and concept. It’s real and I was just more lost.
I didn’t give up and I kept asking and asking and asking. All I was trying to do was to try to make sense out of it because we are all human beings and we are no longer irrational wild animals. There must be a reason for this idea to surface from the hundreds or thousands of years evolution. They wouldn’t come out for no reason, I don’t believe it. I asked my local guide during lunch time, break time, any time when I had a chance to meet him. I think I came close to driving him crazy which I really felt sorry for him. I think he must be thinking “Why can’t you just accept that this is the idea or concept which transfer from generation to generation in our tradition? Why are you keeping to annoy me?” I don’t blame him, really, when it comes to dig to the bottom of the facts, I could be really annoying. The bottom line was yes I think I finally dug deep and broad enough to get some sense out of it. The concept of “leaving” can’t be treated as an isolated or single idea and it’s a systematic or part of a bigger picture. Let me try to do my best to explain it here:
The aboriginal people believes that through out of our long and existing life, it’s unavoidable that we would commit something bad which doesn’t matter big or small but something bad. These bad things are general idea in our moral concept. Through the time, the spirits of their ancestors which was camouflaged in the darkness would observe living people’s behavior and the bad things they committed through their lives. Once the spirit of their ancestors think that a person had committed enough bad things, the spirit of their ancestors would come and take the person away hence leaving but no death. After this person left, he then became a spirit and existing in the darkness. By existing in the darkness, he then observing his offsprings and his offspring’s offspring and generations to come. When it’s time, this person’s spirit would step out from the darkness and take his offspring away with him hence leaving but no death. It’s like an infinite loop and going on in generations and generations.
When I asked “is there a concept of ghost in your traditional thoughts?” My local guide’s answer was “What is a ghost? What is a spirit? How do you separate them?” I stunned. These words coming out from our mouth all the time but when people ask how do you separate or set them apart, these words suddenly became strangers. I gave it a good thought and answered him: “Ghosts would harm people but spirit wouldn’t.” He then checkmated me and asked “Well, our own ancestors spirit came to take us away. He took us away because we committed too many bad things in this world then is it a ghost or a spirit?” I was completely and totally flabbergast and speechless. The truth was I do not know. I had no clue. When I gave it a good thought, this is another impasse. It’s another black hole.
However, after I drove our local guide nearly crazy with countless questioning, I learned at least two things: First and foremost, I believe this is a general and popular phenomenon and that is in our traditional Chinese concept we also believe the spirit of our ancestors were observing us and watching our behaviors. In traditional Chinese believes, the spirit of our ancestors would bless us with good fortune and prosperity with our good behaviors and paying them good respect. The difference is that the spirit of their ancestors would step out and take them away if they committed too many bad things through their lives. The second thing I learned was the concept of the spirit of ancestors induced the idea or concept of “moral concept and conducts”. If they committed too many bad things, the spirit of their ancestors would come and take them away. In Chinese popular saying is if we committed bad things it would shame our ancestors and we would be too shameful to face our ancestors when we get into after life. The paths may be different but the destination was the same: a lesson to teach us to behave while we were in this mundane world.
I believe this is a general connection among human races, especially in ancient cultures. It doesn’t matter if we share a same ancestry or came from different ancestors or how long ago we shared a same origin, we are all human beings and share the same humanities.
The trip to Uganda was like a magic tour. Combined with visiting the Pygmy tribe, it’s like I stepped onto a time travel back to the past. When I was falling into deep comprehension in these new to me yet ancient concepts and ideas in Uganda, it’s like I stumbled back into hundreds or thousands or even tens of thousands of years of human evolution. When I came back from the deep thinking, I am back to this present and mundane world. I truly appreciate the experiences and learning opportunities from this Uganda trip.
Funeral in traditional Uganda
Before I started to talk about the traditional Uganda funeral, I must starting with two different kind of trees, not just one tree but two different kind of trees.
In the forest of Uganda, there is a tree which grew tall and straight up and let me just call it “original specie”. However, many of them had a tragic ending in their lives. Why and How? Because they are tall and straight up into the sky, many birds would come and nest on them. When birds nesting on them, it’s unavoidable that birds would eat, sleep, rear their offsprings and excrete on where they were nesting. The problem occurs when they excrete. Seeds are a heavy part in birds dietary system and one special kind of seeds came from another plant and let me call it “parasitic specie”. As soon as birds excreted the parasitic tree’s seeds from their diet, it would immediately groaning fast, very fast. It wold first growing downward towards the ground. When its branches reach the ground, the fate of the original tree is pretty much fixed. Once the branches reached the ground, they became roots and the roots would absorb nutrients even faster. At this time, the parasitic tree would starting to grow upwards and sidewards. In no time, the parasitic tree would engulf or swallow the entire original tree and choke the original to death and, of course, the parasitic tree would also suck all the nutrients from the original tree to suffocate it. After all these were done, there was nothing left for the original tree but dead. On the other hand, the parasitic tree became strong and thriving.
Isn’t this a bit like murder stories in horror novels. Who knew? Even in the world of plants, there are kill and to be killed happening all the time while you and I were sleeping. Isn’t it frightening?
There is another feature of this parasitic tree and that is once it reached the ground its roots not only grow deep into the ground it also grow like a board above the ground. You may see the board roots from the attached pictures. Actually, this was not the first time I saw this kind of board roots. When I was in my elementary school, my parents took us on a trip to the very south point of Taiwan, Republic of China, a place named “Kenting Park”. There is a popular site seen spot named “Silver leaves board roots” because a special tree has sliver/white leaves and board roots just like these parasitic tree’s board roots. It’s just I don’t know if the Silver-leaves-board-roots trees are also parasitic trees or not and it may be a good action item for me to find it out. Other than absorbing nutrients from the ground, they are also a very useful tools. During emergencies chimpanzees would bang it hard and loud, very loud like a drum to communicate with its peers. It’s just like our alarm systems. Because the roots extended deep into the ground, it could transfer sound far and broad. Isn’t it amazing?
On top of acting like a drum for chimpanzees, when it’s raining, aboriginal people would squat in between two boards and holding a piece of wide leaf on top of their heads to shelter themselves from the rain. It’s a very useful tool among both human kind and wild animals.
So, what do all these to do with the funeral of the aboriginal people in Uganda after such a long and tedious narrative, you may ask. Other than being a communication tools for chimpanzees and sheltering rain for aboriginal people, these boards would also used for aboriginal people’s funerals. What doesn’t it mean? Don’t forget that there was no the concept of “death” in the aboriginal people’s traditional ideas. They believe a person would simply leave after his body lost all vital signs. Then how would the tribe take care of this no vital body? Since there was no death there would be no burial, they would put the body in between two boards just like when they were sheltering themselves from the rain. The only difference was that when they used the board to sheltering from the rain they would squat in between two boards but after a person left they would straighten up his legs, not squatting.
Then what? You may ask. Then what happened afterwards was going to be a big, and gigantic event. The entire tribe or village must move and move away, far away from where they were. It doesn’t matter how big or small the tribe or village is, they must move and move far away. This is big. Imagine even one person’s moving nowadays isn’t an easy task but the entire tribe or village. Reasonably I immediately asked “Why? Why does the entire tribe need to move away?” The answer was that the reason this person left was because he committed many, many bad things so the spirit of their ancestors came and took him away. When a person had committed too many bad things, it would bring or attract bad luck or things to the entire tribe or village which was why they must move and move far away to avoid the bad luck or any potential bad things coming down onto the tribe.
Sounds reasonable, right? I spent sometime to dig into behind it like I always do. I think the real reason was remember that there was no concept of “death” in aboriginal people. Since there was no “death” then there was no “funeral”. If there was no “funeral” then there was no “burial”. I think I could safely assume that most of ancient human race would dig holes in the ground and bury dead body underground, right? Since there was no death, there was no funeral. There was no funeral, there was no burial. That was why the ceremony of taking care of a no vital sign body was simply placed in between two board roots. But, don’t forget one thing very important and that is a body would naturally decompose. When it decomposing, it generates all sorts of viruses, germs and many harmful material to living human beings. And these harmful material would unavoidably infecting people living around the area. I believe that was the real reason why that the entire tribe or village must move and move far away. Back in ancient times, aboriginal people didn’t know what virus, germs or harmful materials were and no idea what infection was and all they could come up with were bad luck and bad fortune. Nevertheless after generations and generations of experiences and the slow yet steady evolution even ancient aboriginal people would learn and absorb from their long and evolving history. They might not know what caused their bad luck or bad fortune but they know they must move away, far away to avoid them.
Again, I have no a shred of evidence or proof on any of these and all these ideas came from my reasoning and I couldn’t even provide any evidence or proof these reasoning were right or true. However, like I mentioned before we are human beings and no longer irrational animals living in the wilderness. We know how to think, plan and reasoning through our long and evolving roads and history. All these seems irrational activities or ceremonies or actings there must be reasonable reasons hiding behind them. All we do is spending a little time to think, to search, to ask then we could induce a reasonable and positive result. In ancient times, our ancestors didn’t have the technology, knowledge or wisdom to explore all the possibilities but use the best of their wisdom or knowledge to make up reasonable reasons such as move far away because bad luck or fortune would come after them. Bad luck and fortune would come because a person was taken away from the spirit of their ancestors and that was because that person committed too many bad things through his time. That was the best reasonable reasoning that they could come up within their times, knowledge and reasoning which wasn’t a bad interpretation. Imagine if you could come up with such a fascinating story when the idea of viruses, germs and infectious diseases didn’t even exist. Don’t ever underestimate our ancient ancestors and roots and never look down the process of evolution because that’s exactly how we get where we are today. In other words, we are all standing on our ancestors shoulders to get where we are today and moving forward into the future.
Capital Punishment
One day after the gorilla trekking activity, I was directed to visit a series of waterfalls in Bwindi because rest of the group participated a two-day gorilla trekking but me. Honestly, after the first day’s trekking, I was very much regret that I didn’t do the second day also. I am now planning a re-visit sometime soon. But, that was not the point of this article. In this article, I want to talk about the capital punishment in ancient Uganda.
I started as a landscape or scenery photographer so even though I regret that I didn’t do the second day but I was still happy and excited when I learned I was going to visit a series of local waterfalls. The one-way distance was 10 kilometers and total was 20 back-and-forth. It’s not easy especially with my heavy photo equipment. Luckily like the trekking to the gorillas, I could hire a porter and he took care of my luggage. All I need to do was hiking there and taking my photos.
As the matter of fact, just to guide me to the waterfall I was provided a park ranger as my guide, a porter to help me with my equipment and two armed guards to take care of the security. The purpose of the armed guards was same as the gorillas trekking to protect us from any unexpected visit of elephant herd. I was highly embarrassed because I had never had so many people to come with me just for the sake of taking photos of a few waterfalls. I looked at our four-member team, I didn’t even know how to read the situation because I had never had this kind of experience. I felt fortunate, lucky and a hint of ridiculous. What a luxury!
On our 10 km hiking to the waterfalls, the park ranger gave me a very rich education of local plants, traditions and history. I used this opportunity to ask him about the pronunciation of Uganda and sure it was “You”ganda, not “Wu”ganda. I also asked about the concept of “birth” and “leave” and how they look at the idea of “ghost” and “spirit”. Sure enough my local tour guide was telling me everything the same. It’s not that I don’t trust my local tour guide, it’s I just want to verify things from a second source to confirm that I didn’t misunderstand them. I also wanted to know if what my local tour guide told me were local area believes or it’s popular and general customs in Uganda. We had a very enjoyable conversation which made the hiking much shorter and pleasant.
About half way through the hiking, the park ranger took me to an edge of a open space and then extended his arm to block me moving forward. I was just about to ask why would he took me here and he told me don’t take any more steps because we were standing right in front of a deep cliff. I immediately step back two steps. Though I hike all around the globe to conduct my photo creation work, I was born with acrophobia, fear of heights.
He then told me this is a very important land mark from ancient times. In the long and far past, there was a common tribal law and the law says a male member of a tribe was forbidden to have any sexual activity with a female before the age of 18. If any male member violated this law, the only punishment was to tight the legs and hands behind his back then throw him over the cliff right from where we were standing right now. My first reaction was how deep was this cliff? What I saw now were full of dense plants and bushes in front of my eyes and I couldn’t even tell where was the exact edge of the cliff. The answer was approximately 50 meters. I then asked again “What if the young man survived?” My idea was if the young man managed to survive this ordeal would the tribe re-accepting him back to the tribe? It turns out I was way too naive and I was so naive close enough to be called stupid. The ranger moved forward a step, stared straight at me into my eyes and said “There was not a chance to survive from this.” It was so scary, I felt a chill from my guts.
All right, I accept the answer. But then I asked. Yes, I am that annoying when things come to digging for the bottom of the truth. I asked “so if we go down this cliff I shall be able to see many human bones and skeletons, right?” He said “Yes, but there is a river down there and through the years whenever there were storms the river would flood the bottom of the cliff so there might be nothing to be found.” “Plus,” he continued, “wild animals would most likely come and finished the bodies.” I think the wild animals shall also had a great deal in no way any one would survive this ordeal.
I was hurry to get to the waterfalls so I didn’t give it much of a thought. Plus, standing on the top of a cliff is frightening enough for a person who is afraid of heights and I didn’t even want to think about it. I took a shot just to prove that I had been there and left. I mean left the spot, not dead.
After the end of the waterfalls activities and waiting for the dinner time, I recalled the scene at the cliff. Isn’t it a little bit excessive and cruel to have capital punishment just for having sex under 18? Even for ancient time, right? Imagine if this law is practiced in the modern world right now, aren’t we going to annihilating the entire human race? I felt there must be some reasonable reason behind this seemed overly excessive law. However, I couldn’t think of any at the time but the doubt was planted deep in my mind.
After dinner while other members were excitingly having conversations about today’s gorilla trekking, I was deeply on the question on my own. Suddenly it dawn on me and I reasoned a reasonable reason. Of course, let me make it clear that like all other reasonings I don’t have any hard evidence other than I thought so. I learned two things from this practice. First, it’s essential to feed my stomach first before dive into this kind of reasoning thinking. When I was hungry, my brain became cotton ball and didn’t work well at all. Now, let’s be serious. My reasoning is in the ancient and long evolution time, aboriginal people would be hunting, fishing and foraging to get food which is very scarce and limited. Feeding the entire tribe or village became the number one issue on a daily basis. Scientists experiment this in the laboratory by using mice. Moreover, there were many cases throughout history a large or entire empire disappeared from the surface of earth and the main issue was almost always because resources which means food. So, in the long history of evolution even aboriginal people learned from hard and painful experiences that population control is terminally essential for the survival of the entire tribe or village.
A teen aged boy is on his way approaching the peak of his sexuality. Especially if he tasted the forbidden fruit before 18, there was no stopping and easily to bring the fatal disaster to the entire tribe or village because of over population. I believe aboriginal people learned this in a very hard way which came with the capital punishment. It’s a way to prevent bigger tragedy. Yes, it’s harsh and cruel but absolutely necessary.
Even in this modern days, we promote birth control to tame the disaster of over population. In the ancient time, they don’t have the knowledge, method or a practical way to conduct birth control so the capital punishment was the only way. Therefore, before been thrown down the deadly cliff, there is self-discipline or self-control to achieve the same purpose. We are human beings and even though we still live with our inherited animal instincts, ultimately, we are homo sapiens, which means we are wise, and we shall be able to control ourselves. I had a chill from my guts just by thinking about standing right next to the deadly cliff where many young lives been thrown down and wasted.