Nkuhuma Pride

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I thought I’d REPOST this fitting tribute by Michael Fleetwood, admin of lions of Djuma Facebook Group who does a great job at curating sightings, photos and historical notes of several of the northern prides.  


“Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.”
- Hans Christian Anderson

It is never easy to lose an individual that we have followed as a collective group of people fascinated, entertained, and educated by these most complex of big cats. However, each one we bid farewell gives us a chance to reflect, remember, and look forward, the most poetic of processes in the most tragic of times.

And so it is with the unfortunate discovery of the Nkuhuma Pride lioness Chela on Chitwa Chitwa this morning, April 28, 2024, that a chapter in the already-storied history of the Nkuhumas officially closes. It signifies a passing of the torch, leaving the lionesses born in 2016 (whom we have followed extensively and intimately since they were cubs) as the eldest females in a pride who means a great deal to us and who have suffered the losses of two of their adult lionesses in the past couple of months.

       
•••
Born in 2013 to one of the adult lionesses of the Nkuhumas (later the Oldest lioness or “Nana”) and sired by one of the Matimba male lions, Chela made up a litter of at least two cubs, with she and her sister being the youngest of a conglomeration of youngsters that included Amber Eyes & the Ridge-Nosed Lioness, and the Purple-Eyed Lioness and Junior (later one of the two Orpen males). The sisters and older cubs enjoyed a relatively stable upbringing, a stability that eroded considerably with the split of the Matimbas into two factions (the 4 “Northern” males and the 2 “Southern” males, Hairy Belly and Ginger) and the arrival of the five Birmingham Boys to the northern Sabi Sand in late 2014. Over the course of the next 10 months or so, the Nkuhuma Pride’s resolve was tested as the Pride suffered the losses of two adult females and Chela’s sister, leaving one mature lioness (her mother) and four sub-adult lionesses of varying ages, with Chels being just shy of three-years old by the time the Pride accepted the Birminghams at the beginning of 2016.

   
By some fortune, Chela had been able to avoid the fate of her sister and as she reached the onset of sexual maturity, began to consort with the Birminghams, indisputably bridging the tension and instinctual apprehension of the territorial takeover to a period of rebirth for the Pride, culminating in new cubs (including her younger half-siblings) and her first litter in August 2017. While she ultimately lost that litter (with her eight-month old daughter disappearing after a run-in with the three Avoca males on a buffalo kill on Buffelshoek), she proved more than capable of motherhood and her second litter saw a single male survive and reach maturity, ensuring her legacy continues.
   
But perhaps the most stoic irony of all was the role of shepherd that Chela played in her final years; after being protected from the onslaught of the Birminghams as a sub-adult, it ultimately fell to her, now the oldest of the pride, to guide a group of the Pride’s sub-adults through the turbulent waters of new males and unstable dynamics, a successful endeavor that fortified the Pride’s core group of lionesses. It is unfortunate that, despite her proven maternal instincts, her bad run of luck with rearing cubs left her with only one surviving heir. Although in retrospect, the difficult task of reaching adulthood for male cubs perhaps makes her son’s rearing that more meaningful.

   
As we look to see what the next few months, yea, and beyond look like for the Nkuhuma Pride, we will no doubt continue to reflect on the life and legacy of the lioness known as Chela, a lady of steel in a world of continuous fire.

       

Famba kahle Chela, rest easy.

Photos: Pieter Dannhauser, Chene Wales-Baillie, Marianne Rammal, Villiers Steyn, Chris de Sousa, Jane Kinnear-Smith, Anja Immelman, Anthony Goldman, Elephant Plains Game Lodge, Neil Coetzer Reply

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