The Deer That Never Is

Aboakyer, the festival celebrated annually by the chiefs and people of Efutu in the Winneba traditional area of the Central region of Ghana to commemorate their migration from the North-eastern African town of Timbuktu in the ancient Western Sudan Empire to their present location on the central coast of Ghana, is just an interesting sight to behold. People from all walks of life troop to Winneba to witness the rich display of unadulterated culture and tradition handed down over generations.

Time check here in Ghana in West Africa, it is about 4:00am,a young man aspiring to be a veterinarian in a few years is up already preparing for the day. It is our first lecture in wild animal medicine. The lecturer is pretty popular and I took sometime wondering exactly what the demeanor of a man who works on these unfriendly organisms would be.At last we met, he was affable, buthis utterancesabinitioindicated he was in for no nonsense. 'Animals are time conscious and stick to their routine. You need to obey their routine in order to observe wild animals as part of surveillance programmes.Any little blunder committed in wild animal medicine, two options are available;either you die or the animal dies' he said chillingly. Well, if one knew the importance attached to some of these wild animal species, then you would just sacrifice yourself instead of the animal.

The introductory lecture was soon over and we had to take our first assessment in two segments. The latter part of the test made us feel like kids in a kindergarten class. He started shooting his slides of some common wildlife species.All we had to do was to identify the animal and indicate the age and sex of the animal. This test was important because in the wild animal medicine, you should be able to decipher these parameters from a flight distance before you attempt making any calculations of the dosage of anaesthetic agent needed for darting the animal.

The part two of this test produced some very interesting answers and to my utter dismay, I had only an answer correct.I should have two answers correct and besides that animal is common; I whispered to a friend.Another student quickly drew my attention to the fact that that animal is the one warriors go hunting for during the Aboakyer festival. I recount those days in primary and Junior High School, we learnt about festivals and most of the writers of the various books referred to the aforementioned festival as the deer hunting festival. Several years down the lane, I have come to realize that the wild animal is not what people have christened it. This animal being wrongly referred to as deer is actually a bushbuck.

The stakeholders involved in this circulation of this misinformation; the chiefs and people of Efutu,the Ghana Education service, the media (both electronic and print) and to some extent the Forestry and Wildlife commission. Coming to terms with this reality arouses some level of curiosity as to whether the good people of Efutueven know their tradition. Because, each year they hunt for this animal and the media which is also supposed to educate us, carries this misinformation and this points out clearly to the fact that the media sometimes does not research well enough before putting out information into the public domain.

The chiefs and good people have never had issues with the description of the animal they purport to hunt and sacrifice to their god and I fault them most because the bushbuck is an essential part of their tradition and they ought to know every fine detail about this animal. The migration of the people of Efutu into Ghana and happenings thereafter is beginning to seem as a legend to me.

The Ghana Education Service; the body which provides the curriculum and text books for use in public schools cannot be excused because they ought to have done in-depth research before putting together an important document such as a curriculum for use in schools across the length and breadth of the country.This discovery leaves me wondering as to which other misinformation is being imparted into our kids out there in schools depending on this syllabus provided by the Ghana Education Service.

This wild animal whosetrue identity has sunk into oblivion is without any iota of ambiguity, thebushbuck(Tragelaphusscriptus/Tragelaphussylavaticus). The bushbuck is the most widespread antelope we have in sub Saharan Africa.It is one of our own and we ought to stop confusing it with another animal elsewhere referred to as the deer.

Larry Kwame Tay
[email protected]
SVM-KNUST