Your
Scaly Ant-eating Brother Who Brings Rain
By Jeremy O’Kasick |
 Pangolin
drinking
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In celebration of Tanzania's incredible biodiversity, Thomson Safaris reports on the recent sighting of one mysterious animal.
It's said to look like a giant walking pinecone and to bring about rain, blessings, and good luck if it eats your maize and drinks your beer. In Swahili, they call it ‘kakakuona,’ which translates as ‘seeing a brother.’ |
When Alex Asenga ambled home from the pub one night,
he crossed paths with a creature that caused his jaw
to drop and his wobbly legs to take a few steps backward.
Just in front of Asenga’s thatched mountainside
cottage, the creature stood straight up on its hind
legs, more than four-feet long from tail to nose.
Covered
in reddish-brown, plate-like scales, the bizarre animal had
a slender conical snout, a thick powerful tail, and curled
four-inch front claws.
“I did not know what to think,” said Asenga, who
lives in a village in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro.
“I thought it was some kind of strange child of a crocodile
or a monitor lizard.” Perhaps Asenga figured he’d
had one too many drinks at the pub.
As he later explained to a local reporter, he went straight
to speak with some of the village elders to see if they could
identify the animal. Asenga’s description immediately
made all the elders gleam and smile.
“Kakakuona!” they bellowed. “That
is what you have seen. What luck!” Kakakuona
is the Swahili word for “pangolin,” a nocturnal
mammal that has been variably described as a scaly anteater,
a giant walking pinecone, and the last living dinosaur on
earth. The Swahili name translates as “seeing a brother.”
“These animals are a symbol of good fortune,”
explained veteran Thomson Safaris guide, Charles Mollel. “Many
people believe that if they see a pangolin, they must provide
it with food. If it eats the food, then that is a sign that
rain or a year of blessings and luck will come.”
In many parts of Tanzania, where drought is frequent and subsistence
farming is practiced by most, good luck and rain are often
considered one in the same. With countless areas in Tanzania
currently suffering from drought, many people have been on
the lookout for the elusive pangolin with the hope that the
rains will soon come.
The
Elusive Pangolin
Shy and solitary, the Pangolin only travels at night and prefers
forests and habitats near water. Other related species climb
trees. Travelers sometimes get a glimpse of giant ground pangolins
bumbling over the plains of the Serengeti. Nevertheless, they
are spotted and observed rarely, which adds to the air of
mystery surrounding them and perpetuates the belief that sightings
are a supernatural sign of impending good fortune.
| Like
an aardvark, the pangolin subsists on a diet of termites
and ants, using its weight and claws to smash nests and
mounds and then feed with its sticky elongated tongue
(up to16 inches long!). A single Pangolin can eat more
than 70 million insects a year. Similar to armadillos,
it rolls itself into a tight ball for defense, leaving
exposed only its armor of hard keratin plates. |
Rolling into a ball is a
pangolin's defense mechanism |
Its name comes from the Malaysian word pengguling
(“something that rolls up”). While the origin
of the name remains unclear, the Swahili word “Kakakuona”
reveals a human affinity for the animal that goes back centuries,
if not millennia. The beliefs surrounding the creatures are
not exclusive to Tanzania, either. Related species in other
African countries and in Asia have also drawn awe and reverence
since ancient days.
More recently, an annual fashion show in the sprawling cosmopolitan
city of Dar es Salaam has taken the name Kakakuona,
perhaps in admiration of the pangolin’s bizarre beauty.
Unfortunately, the superstition surrounding pangolins has
led some to hunt them and to take their scales as charms or
to use them in ritual sacrifices, although the most common
practice in Tanzania is to give the animals nighttime offerings.
Postscript
According to a recent news story from northern Tanzania, villagers
left out maize and beer once sightings of a strange animal
had been reported near their village. The elders later cheered
when they heard that a pangolin rushed straight toward the
offering and licked it all up. Shortly thereafter, their beliefs
were reinforced when the long-awaited rains began to fall.
“I myself don’t believe in the superstitions,”
said Mollel. “But I have seen pangolins in both southern
and northern Tanzania. They are a wonder to observe. The pangolin
is just one example of the many strange and amazing creatures
we have here. Tanzania is truly blessed with so much biodiversity.”
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