Elopement - Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life - page 43

watched, a young man strode up to the edge of the group carrying the
long, loosely spiralling horn of a greater kudu antelope. He put his
mouth to a hole in the horn and blew four loud blasts, so deep that I
felt them vibrating through my body. Screaming and howling, the
dancers scattered, knocking me over. Four or five warriors collapsed
and lay on the ground, quivering and groaning. People tried to pull
them to their feet, but they seemed to be unconscious. They growled,
drooled and blew. Their heels drummed on the ground. The horn was
blown only in the last days of graduation, and whenever they heard it
the warriors were overwhelmed with grief.
I followed Toronkei into the graduation hut that his mother had
built for him - a small wicker box rendered with cow dung - and
crouched for a while beneath the low ceiling until my eyes adjusted to
the darkness. When I could see, I noticed an unfamiliar woman sitting
on the cowhide pallet. She was very dark, with strong eyebrows, a
smooth, round forehead and a cool, almost mocking look. I intro-
duced myself. She turned away with an oddly bashful smile. I looked
at Toronkei, puzzled, and was surprised to see that he was laughing.
'This,' he said, 'is my wife.'
Three days before I arrived in the manyatta , he had run thirty miles
to visit a friend. As he approached the friend's village, he met the girl
walking up the track, and changed his plans. They spent the day
together, and by nightfall he had persuaded her to elope with him.
They waited until everyone in her village was asleep, then slipped out
of the compound and ran. The dogs woke, and her brothers set off in
pursuit. The two lovers darted through the scrub, but soon after mid-
night the brothers surrounded them. The girl refused to go home. She
told her brothers that if they wanted to talk to her they would have to
come to Toronkei's village. The brothers returned to their compound,
and Toronkei and his fiancée reached his manyatta just before dawn.
Her father was furious, but there was little he could do: his daugh-
ter would not be dissuaded. Toronkei had opened negotiations: the
father had demanded a bride price of five cows and 10,000 shillings.
Toronkei's parents were trying to talk him down. The girl came from
a rich family, and the deal would be tough.
Hearing this story, watching the proud, conspiratorial looks he
exchanged with his bride, seeing the hero's treatment he now received