Tracing the origin of the four-legged serpent in SA rock art

In 1987, the former Xhosa homeland of Ciskei launched a series of first-day cover stamps and postcards depicting a giant mythical snake in the Keiskamma River. The malevolent snake or inabulele formed part of the ‘The Story of Sikulume’, recorded by the historian George McCall Theal (1837 to 1919) in his Xhosa Folklore volume of 1882. In this folk tale, the human-swallowing inabulele is eventually killed in its watery lair by the boy-hero Sikulume.

Although this story is fictional, of course, to many Xhosa and Zulu speakers, these monster snakes of the subconscious sometimes slither into the conscious world, as was the case in 1997 when the Eastern Cape government in Bhisho demanded that conservation officials capture a serpentine monster in the Mzintlava River. The alleged , known as in historic Pondoland, had allegedly.