"Symbiosis or Death": - Rhodes University

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implication is that the San shaman has a spiritually symbiotic relationship with the
animal (as well as a physical one through the hunt and the need for physical sustenance).
The stanza’s final three lines refer directly to this symbiotic relationship and
lament its passing:
and, always, in that almost mundane merge
of hunter and prey, the sunfolk, the San,
their eland – long gone from here – everywhere.
The phrase “almost mundane merge” refers to the natural (mundane) relationship
between the San, as the hunter, and the eland, as the prey. This indicates that there is
another, spiritual dimension to this relationship. They are called “sunfolk” because the
San believe that the Great God is the supreme good being and dwells in the eastern sky,
where the sun rises (in Tobias 162).
The dislocation of the San culture is explored in detail in the final stanza.
Livingstone refers to the fact that the San have been used as trackers by the modern South
African army and have even been conscripted so that they are “now learning metallic
intricacies / of automatic weaponry” (lines 44-5). The poem ends on a note of rage and
helplessness. The final line alludes to a mystic experience: it appears that Livingstone
himself has experienced a trance-like state, has “dreamed into eland” the life and thought
of “symbiotic man”. 39
The final poem selected under the theme of human abuse of nature does not quite
fit, for in “Scourings at Station 19” (47) nature gains the upper hand. Or does it? In this
poem Livingstone uses the deluge myth to explore the ideas of nature’s cataclysmic
power and man’s determination to survive. The latter is evident in the final line: “life /
triumphs even on no longer trusted planets”. Livingstone, in the guise of a bantam, makes
this announcement. The figurative meaning for this domestic fowl is “a small but spirited
person” (OED). The ridiculous, dishevelled, teapot-like bantam cock parodies the poet’s
self-appointed role as knight-errant for the Earth. This amusing poem nevertheless has a
serious undertone, for it is a reworking of the ancient deluge myths.
The flood was used by the gods to punish the wickedness of man. In Genesis God
tells Noah why the flood is necessary:
39 “When viewing Bushman rock art we should remember that we are looking at a bridge between two
worlds. An incredibly intricate bridge coming from the very heart of Bushman religious experience.
Painted sites were storehouses of potency that made contact with the spiritual world possible” (Garner 3).