Eric Rundgen the morning after with the leopard that mauled him.

The legendary Howard Hill.

Eric Rundgen.

A Waliangulu elephant hunter.

By Dieter Noli

As African adventurers go, it is quite likely that nobody has ever really entered into the spirit of hunting with quite the level of enthusiasm, confidence, optimism and raw courage demonstrated by the white hunters of old. One has only to think of names such as Bror Blixen, George Rushby, Basil Reel, Clary Palmer-Wilson, Bunny Allen and Hemmingway, all heroes to a man. They met Africa head-on without flinching and shot the big five as a matter of course. Legends in their own times, they were variously trampled by elephants, gored by buffaloes, mauled by leopards, savaged by lions, chased by rhinos, ravaged by drink and loved by the wrong women. Speaking of which, one can but wonder what the women – both the wrong and the right ones – ever saw in these rugged individuals, who could hardly have been candidates for maintaining white picket fences. My wife assures me that a white hunter would be an Alfa male on steroids, thus appealing to the primeval female urge of being cared for by a capable male (note to self: invest in a bush jacket and a .470 Rigby nitro express double rifle for Valentine’s day!)

Yet, notwithstanding the dangerous lives they led, some of the white hunters did actually last long enough to reach a ripe old age. One of these survivors – in spite of being thoroughly mauled by a wounded leopard – was the irrepressible Eric Rundgren, a booming, boisterous, quick-tempered second-generation white hunter of Swedish extraction who reached the height of his volcanic career in 1958. A man of undisputed hunting prowess, he first worked for the Kenya Game Department, for whom he shot buffalo, elephant and lion, and later for Ker & Downey Safaris, eventually relocating his operations to Botswana. His ability to cover difficult ground in heroic quantities led to the natives calling him “Mchangi”, the wanderer. The fact, however, that his peers tended to refer to him as “The Maharajah of Mayhem” suggests that – even by their exacting standards – he must have been an eccentric of note!

A perfectly delightful and very telling incident involving Eric Rundgren was recently related to me by Brian Marsh, who obtained it first-hand from Alan Henderson. It seems that Eric was in Sitatunga rig (a floating shooting platform) on a stretch of water in Botswana with an American client who wanted to shoot a sitatunga. The man had brought both a .375 and a 300 Weatherby to the camp, wanting to use the latter. Eric flatly refused to let him do this, saying that the bullet of the 300 was far too fast and too easily deflected by reeds, and that it was the .375 or nothing. In the end the client agreed, and off they went on the hunt. When, however, it was time to take out the rifle, it transpired that the client had in fact taken along the 300, thus leaving Eric with a “fait accompli”. Eric was perfectly good-natured about this deception. Explaining that he had never held a 300 before, he asked to see it. The client proudly handed the weapon over, whereupon Eric tossed it over his shoulder into the water, and informed the American in suitably colourful language that the hunt was now over! In the end, however, he allowed himself to be mollified by the extremely apologetic client, and they had a very successful hunt – with the .375, of course!

In 1990, before I even knew who Eric Rundgren was, I met his son David at the University of Cape Town. At the time I was deeply involved in a technical investigation of African archery. Seeing my interest in the elephant-hunting Waliangulu archers of Kenya, David casually mentioned that his 72-year-old father – a white hunter who had hunted with the Waliangulu at one time – was in town. He was sure the old boy would love to chat and should he set up a meeting?

I could not believe my luck. As far as indigenous African weaponry is concerned, I don’t think that anything has ever come close to the bow and arrow combination wielded by the Waliangulu. These wiry little hunters, barely 5 ft 2 inches high, used bows some 6 ft 3 inches long, drawing as much as 131 lbs. Their arrows, fletched with vulture feathers, had an overall length of some 3 ft 3 inches, including a broadhead tip and a ten-and-a-half-inch detachable fore-shaft poisoned with Acokanthera longiflora. Thus armed, the Walinagulu indulged in their speciality, which was the hunting of elephants. This was normally done at a range of some three to eight paces, the arrow being sent into the soft underbelly, where there were neither thick ribs nor a thick hide to protect the animal, and where a plentiful blood supply would ensure a quick circulation of the poison. So effective was this weapon that an elephant would normally drop after having run barely 200 paces. And so accomplished were the hunters that one of them, Boru Dabassa, was known to take about 90 elephants every year.
So I, having only read about these legendary archers, was understandably extremely keen to talk to someone who had actually seen them in action. To my great joy, I ended up having lunch with David and Eric. The combination of old age and the attentions of the leopard had slowed him down a bit, but he definitely fell into the “large and jolly” category. David did the cooking, Eric did the talking, and I did the listening – in addition to which I recorded some one-and-a-half hours of the meeting on tape. Today, 17 years later, it makes for very interesting listening – even if following it is at times challenging, owing to the primitive pre-digital recording equipment, intruding table noises and not being able to see hand gestures. As I only wanted to know about archery, that was all we talked about. And what a fascinating talk it turned out to be.

According to Eric, the natives all used poison on elephant, buffalo, rhino and practically everything else except guinea fowl. The Waliangulu were excellent shots, had a very good sense of distance, and were able to hit pretty much anything at 50 to 60 yards. Even so, they generally stalked their prey with great skill and shot it from point blank range in the gut, after which an elephant would run some 200 to 300 paces before dropping. Eric said that the poison was kept fresh with a leather wrapping, and that the archer tested it for effectiveness by nicking the top of his arm with the tip, letting the blood run down the arm before holding the poison on the shaft against it. The blood would then start “boiling”, with the frothing action running up the blood trickle towards the wound. Before the poison reached the cut, the archer would wipe the blood away with his thumb, satisfied that the arrow would take care of the elephant.

The Waliangulu hunting strategy, as well as the equipment used, contrasted greatly with that demonstrated by the American bowmen who came to Eric in the 1950s as clients. It turned out that the only way they had even the slightest hope of hitting what they were aiming at was if they were put in a hide above water or a salt lick, in a situation where they knew the range to within one foot. If they were out walking in the bush, and if they saw a buck at 30 or 40 yards, they would have no idea what the range was, and would either wound it or miss it every time. More often than not they ended up shooting away all their arrows without having anything to show for it.

But it was what Eric described as “the Nagley affair” of 1958 that finally turned him against archery. Nagley, who was not an archer, had bet William Carpenter of General Motors 10 000 dollars that he would bag an African elephant with a bow. What had led to this bet was the fact that Howard Hill claimed to have shot an elephant with a 100 lb longbow in 1950. This was indeed the case. What the white hunters knew, however, and what the American public had been spared, was the fact that the elephant had first been immobilised by being shot in the front leg so that it could not move. In any event, Nagley, a 6 ft 2-inches chap, went to Bear, got a 60-pound recurve bow, and worked his way up to a 100 lb bow over a period of some six to eight months. Then he went to Africa.

Eric got Nagley into the Great Rift in the Congo, where the elephants were smaller and hemmed in by the terrain, thus making them easier to follow once hit. He then placed his client up on a river bank in such a manner that he was able to deliver his arrow as instructed from a range of about ten feet, hitting the elephant behind the ribs and angling the shaft forward. It took about five arrows to drop the elephant. In order for the bet to be won, however, the elephant had to be legal, which meant 20 pounds of ivory per side. Eric was satisfied, but they did not have a scale with them, so Nagley was not convinced and insisted on going after a second, larger elephant the next day. They did, and he got it, but it took about 20 arrows to do the job. According to Eric, the elephant must have died from wood poisoning, considering all the shafts that went into it.

The Waliangulu were not impressed. One of them took Nagley’s bow and drew it all the way back without even trying. They suggested that Nagley poison his arrows. Eric had seen enough. He was so disgusted by the way the elephants had been made to suffer, that he subsequently got bowhunting banned in Kenya. Nagley went home to boast and collect on his bet. He even had film footage to prove his case. The heavily edited film was sent to Eric. It showed one arrow going home, after which the elephant was down. Twenty arrows? What twenty arrows?

One can but wonder. How many prospective elephant bowhunters have been mesmerised by the “deeds” of Hill and Nagley, without realising what really happened on those fateful days in the African bush? How many archers have been left with a completely skewed impression of what a bow can do? How much needless suffering has the attempted emulation of those “deeds” caused in the past, and how much will it still be causing in the future? As for hunting elephant with a bow and an arrow that has not been provided with a liberal dose of an extremely effective poison – well, it would probably be best to let Eric Rundgren have the last word: “It does not work – I don’t care what anyone says.” And Eric, I submit, is better qualified than anybody else – alive or dead – to voice an opinion on the subject.

Let us heed his advice, shall we?

Updated: Friday, January 25, 2008 10:43 AM