By Dieter Noli

Poison. From a Western perspective, the term does not exactly conjure up images of happy families opening up presents under the Christmas tree. No, this little word brings with it thoughts of underhanded dealings, stealthy murders, assassinations, pain and extended suffering. Hooded figures concealing little glass bottles in their bony hands roam the passages of our thoughts in the dead of night, leaving us with feelings of revulsion, fear and loathing.
Nice guys don’t use poison. And neither do nice creatures – which is precisely why the only good snake is a dead one, and why referring to somebody as a snake in the grass is not exactly a compliment.
It is therefore hardly surprising that Western civilization tends to frown on the habit of applying poison to arrows. At best it is seen as cheating and at worst as deliberate cruelty. To Westerners, a real archer either places his arrow correctly or goes home empty-handed. Using poison is simply not sporting and falls into the same category as dynamiting fish and robbing pensioners.
From an African point of view, however, well, firstly, snakes are rather useful at sorting out rats and will generally leave you alone if you do not step on them. So just watch where you place your feet. Besides, the same forces of nature that bring you the flowers that create such a glorious explosion of colour in the desert after the rains also brings snakes, scorpions, spiders, wasps, bees and centipedes. These slitherers, creepers, crawlers and fliers are not vicious killers. They are merely going about their daily tasks in an efficient manner, which, for them, happens to include the use of poison.
It follows that if it makes sense for Nature to use poison, it also makes sense for man to use it. And that is exactly what he did in Africa, the idea being to emulate Nature. By trial and error it was eventually discovered that the most efficient way to introduce poison into an uncooperative subject was to anoint an arrow with the deadly substance and shoot the shaft into the target concerned.
It is therefore hardly surprising that in southern Africa the word “poison” is virtually synonymous with that of “arrow”. The reason for this rests squarely on the shoulders of the Bushmen, the most ubiquitous archers of Africa. Who, after all, has not heard of these diminutive hunters, their small bows and tiny but invariably lethal arrows? Never mind the fact that a gemsbok struck by a Bushman arrow will typically die in an excruciating manner over a period of two to three days from renal failure, with half the wounded game never being found. The popular impression is that the Bushman archery system works, and this because the arrows are poisoned.
The fact, however, that the Bushman archery system could be somewhat less than perfect need not be the end of the road for the concept of the effective traditional use of the poisoned arrow in Africa. One has only to consider (amongst others) the Walinangulu, Wakamba and Hadza of East Africa, who used to shoot everything from lions and giraffes to rhino and elephants with poisoned arrows. If one then also considers that an elephant hit squarely by a Waliangulu arrow barely manages to run 200 or 300 paces before collapsing, it has to be accepted that the poisoned arrow in Africa was not only very real, but at times also highly effective.
This does rather beg the question that considering what is clearly a tradition of poisoning arrows in Africa, how come this strategy is no longer resorted to? Surely the aim of any hunter is to kill as efficiently as possible? If poison increased the efficiency of the traditional bows of Africa, surely it would also increase the efficiency of the modern bow? And surely modern poisons would be even more effective when combined with modern bows and arrows? So what exactly is the problem?
The answer, it would seem, lies in the “rules of engagement” which have been foisted upon us by the Western world. The main culprit appears to be America, the home of the modern bowhunter. Americans do not poison their arrows … or do they?
We all know that the late great Fred Bear was a highly accomplished bowmaker and bowhunter. What is not generally realised, however, is that he was extremely unhappy with the effectiveness of the bow as a hunting weapon, specifically its performance on whitetail deer, the preferred quarry of the North American sportsman. Bear estimated that one animal was severely wounded and lost for every one that was recovered, thus unknowingly echoing the track record of the African Bushmen. As he saw it, that was just not good enough. And the larger the animal, the worse the problems became. Fred Bear shot four bears with his bow, but only recovered one. A gut-shot polar bear drowned. A gut-shot brown bear disappeared. Another brown bear was maimed but got away. These animals weighed heavily on his conscience.
Bear tried to remedy the situation by developing the Bear Razorhead for tipping his arrows. While the results were encouraging, they were not heartening enough. So in the early 1960s he turned to poison, specifically SCC (Succinylcholine chloride or Scoline), a muscle relaxant that in the correct dosage is a very effective tranquilliser. In an overdose, it kills. It comes in the form of a white powder and is placed inside a rubber tube or pod that slips over the arrow just behind the arrowhead. When the arrow strikes home, the rubber is folded back inside the wound, thus exposing the deadly powder to the wound area.
The effects of SCC (depending on dosage and arrow placement) seem to be along the lines that would result from French-kissing a mamba. It kind of takes your breath away, leaving you all choked up, but not for long. Depending on whom you listen to, death is either rapid and painless, or slow and agonising, but it most certainly involves not being able to breathe any more. The effects of the drug wear off rapidly, to the extent that enthusiastic CPR would be an effective antidote in the case of arrow wounds that would have been non-fatal in the absence of poison. It does not appear to make the meat of the victim inedible.
To distance Bear Archery from any political fall-out that could have occurred, Fred Bear used a certain Dr Herrington as a front man for the idea, while publicly suggesting that the archery fraternity keep an open mind on the subject. Even so, the outcry against the concept by the various archery organisations was so extensive that Bear Archery nearly went under as a result of the ensuing boycott. In the end, Fred Bear had to withdraw himself from the discussion in order to save his business. He continued, however, to believe firmly that the use of SCC would make the bow and arrow a better weapon and hence a more ethically supportable hunting tool. His great fear was that if the general public ever found out how ineffective the bow and arrow really was when not used in combination with a potent poison, the ensuing outcry would result in bowhunting being banned altogether.
As Fred Bear saw it, there was no logical reason for not using SCC, the only problem being that word “poison” had extremely negative connotations. He may have had a point. While being killed will never be entertaining, it would probably be less distressing to pass away within minutes from lack of oxygen than over a period of several days from a gut-shot wound. That would make the use of SCC far more humane than relying purely on the cutting effect of a naked broadhead.
And today? Well, it would seem that, from a legal point of view, the use of SCC for bowhunting is not approved by the FDA (Federal Food and Drug Administration) in the USA and is therefore illegal. In practice, however, whatever laws may exist against the use of SCC for bowhunting are not enforced, and it is up to the individual hunter to decide whether or not he will use it. And use it he does. Estimates suggest that some 50 per cent of archers in some states regularly apply SCC to their arrows while keeping quiet about it.
This is rather interesting. If modern American archers, who mainly shoot at whitetail deer, are secretly tipping their arrows with poison in order to deal with that specific threat level, then surely any archers hunting in Africa would be ill-advised not to poison their arrows? After all, a substantial number of African game animals are far larger, much tougher and infinitely more dangerous than even the meanest whitetail deer could ever hope to be.
And since it is the size of the wound channel that does the killing when an arrow is used without poison, it stands to reason that, all other things being equal, the same arrow will be less and less effective as it is used on larger and larger animals. As Fred Bear found out to his detriment, increasing the size of the broadhead only works up to a point. After that it starts planing, which leads to an unacceptable loss of accuracy.
It follows that it may not be ideal to play the African bowhunting game by American rules, especially when it comes to large and dangerous animals. It may, in fact, be a better idea to play it by African rules. And African rules – not the laws, mind you – say that nice guys poison their arrows.
For now, of course, to do so would be illegal. At some point in the future, however, changes in attitudes and advances in poison technology may well result in the use of poison being made compulsory for all bowhunting activities. This, by the way, would not be a new idea. Fred Bear advocated it in 1964.