ZANZIBAR'S VIRAL UNDERGROUND

by Martin Walsh

The walkway between caves at Mchekeni, Zanzibar (photo: Martin Walsh)

I worry about caves. I’ve been worrying about them ever since reading about the role played by Kitum Cave in the known history of Marburg virus disease. In the 1980s, two separate visitors to this “elephant cave” in Mount Elgon National Park were infected and subsequently died. Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) have since been identified as a reservoir host for marburgviruses, and it may well be that the inhalation of microbes from bat guano was the means by which these unfortunate tourists contracted the deadly disease.

I’m also fascinated by caves: they’re contagious in more ways than one. The islands of the Zanzibar archipelago, with their extensive limestone reef terraces, are riddled with caves and sinkholes. They’re a distinctive feature of the coral rag or karst landscape of both Unguja and Pemba, though often hidden from sight by thick vegetation, especially along the forested scarps in the south and east of the main island. Many of the caves have cultural significance as mizimu, the abodes of spirits that are regularly propitiated by the local guardians who have inherited this responsibility.

Entering one of the caves at Ufufuma (photo: Martin Walsh)

I wasn’t really aware of either the abundance of caves or the extent of this practice until Helle Goldman and I began researching knowledge and beliefs about the Zanzibar leopard (Panthera pardus adersi) in 1996. There’s a strong association between leopards and caves, because of the spiritual significance of both and the fact that leopards were believed to be often found in and around them. In some cases, leopards themselves are the spirits that subterranean offerings are made to. 

More recently, Maximilian Chami and others have begun documenting these and other sacred sites, though we’re far from possessing anything like an inventory or gazetteer. Following his father Felix Chami’s pioneering excavations, caves have also been providing us with remarkable insights into Zanzibar’s past, including the people and fauna of Unguja before it became an island. I’ve been a minor contributor to discussions about some of the emerging zooarchaeological evidence – and I look forward to more.

Unsurprisingly, some of the limestone caves on the eastern side of Unguja are now tourist venues. The impressive Mchekeni Caves, in the Kiwengwa-Pongwe Forest Reserve, have been open since 2006, though visitor numbers can be very low. Other caves have been developed privately. Kuza Cave in north Jambiani is more like a rock shelter or overhang (presumably exposed by an earlier collapse), with a beautiful turquoise pool that tourists are encouraged to swim in. The caves at Ufufuma, roughly halfway between Mchekeni and Kuza, are used by a traditional healer (mganga), who also entertains fee-paying tourists.   

Bats in the south cave at Mchekeni (photo: Martin Walsh)

Whenever I’ve visited Mchekeni, I’ve felt distinctly uneasy penetrating deep into the southern cave. This is not because there’s no path and it’s unlit, it’s because I’m thinking about bats. There are plenty of small bats clinging to the walls, harmless enough. But I can’t help but wonder about the viruses they might be carrying. Spillover events may be rare, but as the ongoing global pandemic has painfully reminded us, they can happen, and bats are, for better or worse, the reservoir hosts of numerous viruses, SARS-CoV-2 included.

Perhaps I should be more worried about the fruit bats hanging in the trees, and the fruit that they may have slobbered or defecated on. Or fretting about Pemba, where flying foxes (Pteropus voeltzkowi) and other bats have traditionally been hunted as bushmeat. Who knows what harms this may have caused in the longue durée of island history? Of course, Zanzibar has more pressing public health problems to deal with in the present. Sooner or later, though, Zanzibar and Tanzania will have to start thinking about the biosecurity of the growing number of caves on the tourist trail. Next time I go down there, I’m wearing a mask.

Further reading

Bardenwerper, Julie 2009. Spirits and Sacred Sites: A Study of Beliefs on Unguja Island. SIT Study Abroad, Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection. Paper 759.

Chami, Maximilian F. 2019. “Sacred Limestone Caves”: Management and the Use of Sacred Heritage Places in Limestone Cave Areas along the Swahili Coast of Indian Ocean in Tanzania. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus–Senftenberg.

Chami, Maximilian F. & Felix A. Chami 2020. Management of sacred heritage places in Tanzania: a case of Kuumbi limestone cave, Zanzibar island. Journal of Heritage Management 5 (1): 71-88.

From the Kuza Cave website, www.kuzacave.com

Faulkner, Patrick et al. 2019. Long-term trends in terrestrial and marine invertebrate exploitation on the eastern African coast: insights from Kuumbi Cave, Zanzibar. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 14: 479–514.

Goldman, Helle & Martin Walsh 2019. Classifying, domesticating and extirpating the Zanzibar leopard, a transgressive felid. Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift 30 (3-4): 205-219.

Prendergast, Mary E. et al. 2016. Continental island formation and the archaeology of defaunation on Zanzibar, eastern Africa. PLoS One 11 (2): e0149565.

Quammen, David 2012. Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic. London: Vintage Books.

Walsh, Martin 1995. Eating bats on Pemba island: a local innovation or cultural borrowing? Mvita: Newsletter of the Regional Centre for the Study of Archaeology in Eastern and Southern Africa 6: 15-18.

Walsh, Martin 2011. From green monkey disease to fruit bat viruses. East African Notes and Records, 26 December 2011.

Walsh, Martin & Helle Goldman 2007. Killing the king: the demonization and extermination of the Zanzibar leopard. In E. Dounias, E. Motte-Florac & M. Dunham (eds.) Le symbolisme des animaux: L'animal, clef de voûte de la relation entre l'homme et la nature? Paris: Éditions de l’IRD. 1133-1182.

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE! (a leopard skin puzzle)

Who says a leopard can't change it's spots? Shown below are five black and white photos of leopard skins (taken and edited by my colleagues Helle Goldman and Jon Winther-Hansen), each showing a comparable section of the midbody.* Can you spot any obvious differences between their coat patterns and configuration of rosettes? Can you group them into different categories?

We've shuffled the pictures up and given them random numbers, from 1 to 5. Use these to identify each skin and send me your thoughts, either by commenting on this blog or emailing us via zanzibar.leopard@virginmedia.com. Give it a go and contribute to science! All will be explained if and when we get some answers...

*Note that the photos aren't quite on the same scale, as the rulers show. Some of them have also become a bit squashed in the process of formatting for this blog.

leopard skin 1

leopard skin 2

leopard skin 3

leopard skin 4

leopard skin 5

IMAGINARY ANIMALS OF ZANZIBAR

On 14 June 2007, the Hon. Ame Pandu Ame, MP for Nungwi constituency in Zanzibar, asked the following question in the Tanzanian parliament:

Given that Zanzibar is part of Tanzania, and that some animals have now disappeared from the islands, such as Ader's Duiker (Paa-Nunga), Impala (Swala), Zebra (Pundamilia), and Ostrich (Mbuni):-

Does the government not see that there is a need to take these animals (which aren't dangerous to man) over to the islands so that people can see them there?*

The Hon. Member's knowledge of his own islands' fauna was evidently on par with that of the brains behind the "Rare Animals of Zanzibar" series of stamps that was issued in the mid-1980s. Two of the mammals depicted, a rhinoceros and a pangolin, have never occurred in the wild in Zanzibar, at least not since Unguja became an island at the end of the last Ice Age. The same applies to impala, zebra, and ostrich. And although Ader's duiker (Cephalophus adersi) is classed as critically endangered, a small population still survives on Unguja island.

The Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Professor Jumanne Abdallah Maghembe, was quick to set the record straight. He began his reply as follows:

Honourable Speaker, please allow me to inform your respected Parliament that impala, zebra, and ostrich are not native to Zanzibar, but were taken there in 1980 for a show. Once the show was over, they were put into a zoo in the forest at Dole Masingini.

Honourable Speaker, because of poor management and lack of expertise, the animals broke out of their enclosures time and time again and escaped into people's farms, where they damaged crops before being killed.*

Prof. Maghembe went on to explain that there were currently no plans to import and release such animals into the wild in Zanzibar, and gave the obvious ecological and other reasons for not doing so. He also gave an update on the status of the near-endemic Ader's duiker. "The only animal thought to have disappeared from the forests of Zanzibar", he added, "is the Zanzibar leopard (Panthera pardus adersi ["adders" in the original])."

I don't know what motivated the CCM MP's question: by and large Zanzibar manages its own natural resources without reference to the mainland, and Zanzibar's wildlife isn't a normal topic of debate in the national parliament. But I do know that the liberalisation of the economy and growth of (eco)tourism in Zanzibar has made people aware of the money-making potential of zoos and animal enclosures in a way that the state-controlled experiment at Masingini could never have done. Mohammed Ayoub Haji's Zala Park, a small zoo that is best known for its reptiles, was opened in Muungoni village, close to Jozani Forest, in the mid-1990s. For a long time this was the only facility of its kind, but more recently Zanzibar's political and economic elite have begun to muscle in on the action. There's now at least one private zoo on Unguja owned by a prominent businessman. Latest on the scene is Zanzibar Park, located on a 20-acre site by the Mwera road, 3 km east of Zanzibar town. This zoo's flashy website suggests that it's a step up from Zala Park in ambition and scale -- perhaps not surprising, given that it's said to be owned by Zanzibar's First Lady, Shadya Amani Karume. It opened to the public in October 2009, and houses at least some of the species mentioned by Hon. Ame in his parliamentary question.

One animal that's unlikely to appear in Zanzibar Park anytime soon is the Zanzibar leopard. As Prof. Maghembe suggested, some zoologists think that it's extinct, though this is by no means certain (Goldman and Walsh 2002). But lack of scientific corroboration hasn't stopped the rural inhabitants of Unguja from seeing this island endemic, or believing that leopards are still being kept and used by witches (wachawi) to frighten their fellow villagers and attack their livestock (Goldman and Walsh 1997; Walsh and Goldman 2007). Leopard-keeping narratives are so pervasive and persuasive that some foreign researchers have fallen for them and gone in search of domesticated leopards. Needless to say, these kept leopard chases have always proved futile. Likewise proposals emanating from the Government of Zanzibar and local conservationists that call for leopard-keepers to display or sell their leopards for display to tourists and other fee-paying members of the public (Ame 2003). Helle Goldman and I have written about this at greater length in a recent workshop paper (Walsh and Goldman 2010), and both the abstract and now part of the text can be seen on our Zanzibar leopard blog.

Afterword (image), 13 February 2011

from the Humphrey Winterton Collection

An undated postcard from the studio of J. B. Coutinho in Zanzibar (not a wild rhino, alas!)...

(Citation: Rhinoceros, Zanzibar. Winterton Collection of East African Photographs, Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston. Object 43-1-43-1. http://hdl.handle.net/2166.DL/inu-wint-43-1-43-1.)

----
* My translation from the Swahili.

References

Ame, Mwantanga 2003. Serikali iko tayari kununua chui. Zanzibar Leo, Sunday 13 April 2003, 6.

Goldman, Helle and Martin Walsh 1997. A Leopard in Jeopardy: An Anthropological Survey of Practices and Beliefs which Threaten the Survival of the Zanzibar Leopard (Panthera pardus adersi). Zanzibar Forestry Technical Paper No. 63, Jozani Chwaka Bay Conservation Project, Commission for Natural Resources, Zanzibar.

Goldman, Helle and Martin Walsh 2002. Is the Zanzibar leopard (Panthera pardus adersi) extinct? Journal of East African Natural History 91 (1/2): 15-25.

Walsh, Martin and Helle Goldman 2007. Killing the king: the demonization and extermination of the Zanzibar leopard / Tuer le roi: la diabolisation et l’extermination du leopard de Zanzibar. In Edmond Dounias, Elisabeth Motte-Florac and Margaret Dunham (eds.) Le symbolisme des animaux: L'animal, clef de voûte de la relation entre l'homme et la nature? / Animal symbolism: Animals, keystone of the relationship between man and nature? Paris: Éditions de l’IRD. 1133-1182.

Walsh, Martin and Helle Goldman 2010. Chasing imaginary leopards: science, witchcraft and the politics of conservation in Zanzibar. Paper prepared for the VIII European Swahili Workshop, Contemporary Issues in Swahili Ethnography, University of Oxford, 19-21 September 2010.

SCRIBD AND, FOR EXAMPLE, LEOPARDS

I started this occasional blog by posting short articles that I'd already written and (in all but one case) published. 'Occasional' became an understatement when I started scanning and posting papers and other miscellaneous writings to the document-sharing website Scribd. I've now uploaded more than 170 files to Scribd, including my doctoral dissertation (1984) about Usangu and a collection of research assistants' notebooks from western and central Kenya. I've still got a way to go, and haven't begun to scan notebooks written in Swahili by assistants in Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania.

One of the advantages of doing this is that I can now link directly to files on Scribd and/or embed them in the text of this blog. Here's an example, a poster shown at a conference in Oxford in 2007:



And here's a paper about the Zanzibar leopard:



To view and/or download these (and other documents) use the Scribd toolbar at the top of the windows.

THE ZANZIBAR LEOPARD BETWEEN SCIENCE AND CRYPTOZOOLOGY

by Martin Walsh and Helle Goldman

[text (with updated references) of an article originally published in 2003 in Nature East Africa, 33 (1/2): 14-16. An abridged version, 'The Zanzibar Leopard – Dead or Alive?', was published in 2004 in Tanzanian Affairs, 77: 20-23]



The Zanzibar Leopard, Panthera pardus adersi, is an elusive and possibly extinct subspecies endemic to Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. It has presumably been evolving in isolation from other leopards since at least the end of the last Ice Age, when Unguja was separated from the Tanzanian mainland by rising sea levels. The “founder effect” (genetic characteristics of the marooned population) and/or adaptation to local island conditions produced a smaller leopard than its continental relatives and one which “changed its spots”, or rather saw its more numerous rosettes partially disintegrate into spots (Pakenham, 1984; Kingdon, 1989).

Not much is known about the biology of the Zanzibar Leopard. Visitors to the natural history section of the Zanzibar Museum will be familiar with the stuffed and rather faded specimen kept in a display case there together with an old black and white photograph of a leopard trap. Apart from scraps of pelt furtively kept by hunters, to date we have only located five other skins: three in the Natural History Museum in London and two in the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Of these only the type specimen in London and the two Harvard skins are accompanied by their skulls.

The Zanzibar Leopard’s behaviour is also poorly understood. It has never been studied in the wild and the last time a researcher claimed in print to have seen one was in the early 1980s. Rural Zanzibaris’ descriptions of the leopard and its habits are coloured by the widespread belief that an alarming number of these carnivores are kept by witches (wachawi) and sent by them to harm or otherwise harass their fellow villagers. This belief comes together with an elaborate package of ideas about how leopards are bred, trained, exchanged and sent to do the evil bidding of their owners. For local farmers this supplies a neat explanation for predation by leopards on livestock and humans, and more generally for their appearance “out of place” in the vicinity of farms and villages (Goldman and Walsh, 1997).

The growth of human population and agriculture in the 20th century was largely responsible for this state of affairs, as people encroached on the habitat of leopards and the animals they preyed upon. Increasing conflict with leopards and the fear that this generated led to a series of campaigns to exterminate them. These were localised at first, but became island-wide after the Zanzibar Revolution, when a combined anti-witchcraft and leopard-killing campaign was launched under the leadership of Unguja’s most famous witch-finder, Kitanzi. The long-term result of this campaign and the subsequent classification of leopards as “vermin” was to bring them to the brink of extinction (Walsh and Goldman, 2003).

The available evidence suggests that when we began our joint research on the Zanzibar Leopard in the mid-1990s there were still a few of these elusive animals remaining (Goldman and Walsh, 2002). Now we can’t be so sure. Most zoologists think that this island leopard is extinct: indeed some of them already thought so when we began our joint study in 1996. This pessimistic conclusion scotched subsequent proposals for a conservation initiative targeting the Zanzibar Leopard: if they were gone or going then there wasn’t much point in trying to do anything about it - apart from supporting the habitat conservation initiatives that were already underway on the island.

By contrast, the majority of people who live and work on the “coral rag” lands of southern and eastern of Unguja, including government staff and conservationists, believe that the Zanzibar Leopard has not been completely exterminated. Claims of sightings abound, as do reports of other evidence for leopards’ continued presence on the island and their nefarious use by witches. Many of these reports are difficult to evaluate and impossible to verify independently. So far none of the cases that we have investigated over the past two years (2002-03) has produced confirmation of a sighting or other leopard signs.

The recent scientific “discovery” of the Zanzibar Servaline Genet, Genetta servalina archeri, previously known only to islanders themselves, suggests that perhaps Unguja has yet to give up all of its zoological secrets. This small carnivore, another island endemic, was first described from an old skin and skull obtained in 1995. Its status was uncertain until a number of individuals were photo-trapped in January 2003 (Goldman and Winther-Hansen, 2003a; 2003b). If the Zanzibar Leopard survives, then similar standards of proof will have to be applied for any record to be acceptable to the scientific community. Otherwise most of us will get no closer to it than that faded museum specimen and those colourful cryptozoological narratives.

Acknowledgements
In addition to all of the people and institutions acknowledged in our original (1997) report, we would like to thank Daphne Hills in the Zoology Department (Mammal Group) of the Natural History Museum, London, and Judith Chupasko and Mark Omura in the Mammal Department, Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, for facilitating the examination and recording of specimens.

References

Goldman, H. V. and Walsh, M. T. 1997. A Leopard in Jeopardy: An Anthropological Survey of Practices and Beliefs Which Threaten the Survival of the Zanzibar Leopard (Panthera pardus adersi), Zanzibar Forestry Technical Paper No. 63, Jozani Chwaka Bay Conservation Project, Commission for Natural Resources, Zanzibar.

Goldman, H. V. and Walsh, M. T. 2002. ‘Is the Zanzibar Leopard (Panthera pardus adersi) Extinct?’, Journal of East African Natural History 91 (1/2): 15-25. [with separate map]

Goldman, H. V. and Winther-Hansen, J. 2003a. The Small Carnivores of Unguja: Results of a Photo-trapping Survey in Jozani Forest Reserve, Zanzibar, Tanzania. Tromsø: privately printed.

Goldman, H. V. and Winther-Hansen, J. 2003b. ‘First Photographs of the Zanzibar Servaline Genet, Genetta servalina archeri, and Other Endemic Subspecies on the Island of Unguja, Tanzania’, Small Carnivore Conservation 29: 1-4.

Kingdon, J. 1989. Island Africa: The Evolution of Africa's Rare Animals and Plants. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Pakenham, R. H. W. 1984. The Mammals of Zanzibar and Pemba Islands. Harpenden: privately printed.

Walsh, M. T. and Goldman, H. V. 2003. ‘Killing the King: Political Imperatives and the Extermination of the Zanzibar Leopard’, paper presented to the International Symposium on Le Symbolisme des animaux: l’animal “clef de voûte” dans la tradition orale et les interactions homme-nature, Paris (Villejuif), France, 12-14 November 2003.