392 GAME AND GAME PRESERVATION IN ZULULAND. 



and throughout the Special Areas, can therefore only result in 

 driving a large number back into the Open Areas. 



It must be borne in mind that in his heart the native does 

 not believe in the harmfulness of the tsetse-fly. 



I desire particularly to emphasise this statement, because a 

 great deal of twaddle has been said and written to the contrary. 



The inherent belief amongst them is that deaths amongst 

 cattle, etc., in game coimtry is that they are caused by the game 

 grazing over the same ground as the cattle, these latter thus being 

 compelled to swallow some of the game saliva '/' ainat'ciiyaiim- 

 ::ana'" as they put it). It is true that nowadays many natives, 

 if asked the cause of such fatalities, will say that it is the fly, 

 because they hear Europeans say so, but they do not believe it. 

 hence they fail to understand that there is any difference between 

 a fly area and another, and would as soon live in the one as the 

 other. 



Another cogent reason for their choice of these out-of-tlie- 

 way places is that they think they run less risk of detection when 

 indulging in their poaching and trapping proclivities. 



There is yet another very important point in connection with 

 natives living in fly-areas. Mr. Mitchell has stated in his report 

 that on the borders of the Game Reserves, " the native kraals 

 Avhich are found have, in practically every instance, lost their cattle 

 from Nagana. In spite of the knowledge that the area is a 

 deadly one for stock, the natives, however, usually prefer to 

 remain." 



Elsewhere, when considering the " spread of Nagana," he 

 states : " Wandering game must be held as most responsible for 

 the spread of the disease, but domestic animals suffering from 

 Nagana also constitute a grave danger when in the vicinity of 

 a tsetse-fly area." 



Quite recently some correspondence passed between the Ad- 

 ministration and the Native Affairs Department upon the subject 

 of natives being permitted to destroy game elsewhere than upon 

 their own grazing areas, and the latter urged, in sup]X)rt of the 

 concession, that owing to Nagana having encroached so much 

 on Native Reserves, the natives are forced to change their graz- 

 ing grounds constantly in order to fmd land not infected with 

 Nagana. 



T ask any unDrciud'ced person to i)lace this statement side 

 by side with that of the Veterinary Research Officer above cfuoted, 

 and then to say whether it is in the interests of the natives to 

 permit them to live with stock in endemic centres of Nagana, and 

 then to move their infected cattle about in their ward at their own 

 sweet will. 



If it is agreed tiiat these Special .Areas are "endemic cen- 

 tres," then it would be only an act of justice to the natives 

 living therein, and owning stock there, to save them, as it were, 

 against their will, and not to i^ermit them to remain and con- 

 stitute themselves a "grave danger" to the conimunitv at large 



