Word: forester
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Moses, like all other serious students of African bushcraft, is a reader of droppings, an analyst and commentator on dung. As he and Olentwala whistled the cattle along, he remarked now and then on the evidence that lay in the forest paths and meadows. Here a Dik-dik passed in the early morning. There a waterbuck had paused. Everywhere in East Africa such expertise is encountered...
Moses moves through the forest reading signs. He and Olentwala keep up an easy undulous whistling dialogue with the cattle. Moses explains that the whistles have meaning. The cows know by the Masai's whistle whether to go left or right, whether there is water near, whether they are headed back home...
...Boran cattle wear bells that thock and dong and clatter through the forest. The Masai and the cows are so intimately connected that each herdsman knows every cow individually (even, as now, when we are bringing along 140 head) and knows where each will be in the line of march. Moses says the same two white cows always lead the herd, and they do. And the same white cow always comes in last. Moses now and then quite tenderly browses with his hands over one of his animals and pulls off ticks, an act of love. Herding cows is infinitely...
...olive trees. Moses and Olentwala joke in Ol' Maa. The visitor stretches out and makes notes: "Moses has killed six lions, more than 60 buffalo. A buffalo wounded his brother last year, and he wants to kill lots of buffalo. He points to a buff. skull on the forest floor and says he killed that one there several months ago. Cows grazing all around me now. M. shows me a 'buffalo's house' -- a hollowed out space among the olive trees where the buffalo shelter. Moses: 'We like the animals. I am very sad if we don't see them...
...start digging his own grave -- before being reprieved for hard labor. He describes daytime marches through a desolate land of phantoms. "There was dew on the vegetation, and I washed my face in it. Deer were calling through the mist. We passed through alternating areas of thick forest and cassava fields. The stilted huts in the fields were empty and there was no one on the track...