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In addition to the contact between animals and the earliest occupants of
Makgabeng, the Khoisan and Bantu-speakers, the early European travellers
also hunted game in large numbers. Their possession of firearms made
them effective hunters, thereby hastening the extinction of game from the
Makgabeng area. The Buys, for example, people were reported to have
formed strong hunting parties in which they established strong trade in
meat, skins, ivory and other animal products 122 . In addition to the European
travellers, the missionary records also reflect their contact with animals. In
1888 Rev. Sack wrote on how animal species bothered him at his mission
station on the northern foot of Makgabeng:
If the ants were a nuisance, the snakes, which had
established themselves in the ruined walls that had so long
been uninhabited, were downright dangerous… Everyday
the situation with snakes is getting worse. The day before
yesterday, I discovered a very big Rinkals Cobra between
the stones of the kraal walls; Samuel killed it with a spear.
That evening I heard the Christians screaming. When I got
there I found a 3 foot Puffadder, which the men had killed.
Today, just after morning service, as the Christians settled
down in the shade of a tree in front of the church and were
reading the Catechism, a Tree snake suddenly fell down in
122 T. J. Makhura, The Bagananwa Polity … p. 74.
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