I arrived in this tiny Hambukushu village more than 30 years ago and here, a tale of huge Dragons that live in the Kavango river was and is still spoken of with much familiarity by so many as to make me a believer too. They spoke of a Female dragon, with features of a black mamba, but can also fly and breathe fire and is fearsome. It’s counterpart the male, is spoken of as being derived from a Python, has scales, 4 legs with clawed feet and horns like a Kudu and is called Dikongoro.
Legend says they both live here and are as normal a part of the Hambukushu people’s lives as the sunrise. They do not normally pose a threat to the community as they don’t eat people, but if you happen to see one of them (who look uncannily like the Eastern Dragons!) then a close family member will pass away within a day, or you will get very lucky very soon.
I was enthralled by the stories of how your dugout canoe may be caught in a whirlpool in the river where you could not escape, and you would have to offer a few drops of blood from cutting your finger, or perhaps a shiny ornament as a peace offering, and the dragon would throw you and your canoe far out of the river as the trade.
To show respect and to honor this fearsome beast, ‘Dikongoro Dragon’ was used as the name for our river rafting excursion as so many of my staff seriously claim to have seen the dragon and lost a family member as a result, or at least know of someone who has. Witchcraft is a normal daily part of life here and many place names honor the Dragons passing or perhaps where one was killed by the locals or where it surely lives.
I did some research and found that there are 65 documented Dragons Worldwide, and all of them look very similar to the Eastern dragons. When showing my staff pictures or models of these amazing creatures they identify them easily as nearly the same as the Dikongoro of the area and ask in wonder where I got it! How was it possible that this remote tribe has this amazing creature in their ancient history, obviously without ever having seen the clearly documented Asian one just like it before?
Many years of ponder and stories has convinced me that in fact the death of the family member is the key to seeing the Dragon. I believe that the dying relative probably subconsciously knows that their time is near, and that the family member also knows this, as they are closely linked.
I also know that our limited senses don’t allow us to see outside of their given frequency paramotors, but speculate that when death is near, perhaps we become more aware and our senses are ‘stretched’ somewhat, and we then see the Dragon who is there all the time!
In fact, I challenge you to prove me wrong when I remind you of the science experiment that we all saw as kids at school where a light was shone through a prism of glass and it produced the rainbow colors on its exit. Well consider that in nature when sunlight is similarly refracted through raindrops, that it does exactly the same and produces a rainbow… within another rainbow! Why two of them when there is only one source of light? And they are exactly symmetrically aligned inside each other. AND the colors on each start with the light colors on the outside progressively getting darker to the inside until they are lost in the middle fading to nothing that we can see between the two distinct magical arcs!
I say that the ‘empty’ space in between the two complete rainbows is where the Dragons live!
So now at Ngepi we can boast of having the ‘BIG-6’ 😊 because in fact we have had some non-believers from outside of the local tribe actually see the Dragons several times recently! I can’t wait!!
Regards,
Mark
