Hyena: The Keeper of Secrets

In olden days, the hyaena was an animal that enjoyed the protection of the Zulu King and other kings, exactly as was the warthog and the vulture, the leopard and the cheetah. As I have said before, our people regard the hyaena with a mixture of contempt and reverence. They also regard it as an animal possessed of very deep magical powers. It is the symbol of secrecy; it is the symbol of hidden knowledge. 

In the language of the Sotho speaking people, the hyaena is called the Piri. This word ‘piri’ has to do with ‘sepiri,’ which is the Tswana and Sotho word for a ‘very big secret.’ Thus the hyaena symbolises the deepest secrecy. In South Africa there existed at one time a cult of priests and priestesses who where known as Piribatho. The word Piribatho means ‘hyaena people.’ Now, these hyaena people used to have villages on certain hills, and they were the keepers of the deepest secrets of the African religion.

In the western Transvaal (now Gauteng Province)there is still a hill there known as the Hill of Piribatho, ‘the hill of the hyaena people.’ It is said that in a hole on the summit of this hill are hidden artefacts made of precious metal, artefacts possessing the deepest magic from the most remote past. 

In the language of the Zulus the hyaena is called ‘Impisi.’ This word Impisi comes from the verb ‘pisa,’ which means ‘to create anew,’ ‘to join together’ or ‘to burn away.’ Thus the hyaena is called ‘the purifier,’ ‘the one who renews old things,’ ‘the one of the secrets.’

By the whiskers of my…

There is something strange about the hyaena: its whiskers have a strange property. If you find a handful of hyaena whiskers (the hair around the creature’s lips) and you burn these outside the door of a house at night, the people in that house fall into a deep sleep and are utterly helpless. It is a known fact that in certain parts of South Africa, amongst South Africa’s great cities and townships, there are gangs of criminals who burn hyaena whiskers outside the houses of their intended victims. The people inside the house fall asleep so heavily that the criminals enter the house with ease and take every stick of furniture and other property out of the house and leave the sleeping inhabitants lying naked upon the cement floor. 

Hyaena Dreams

Our people believed that if you owned a little business, the worst thing that should happen to you is to dream about a hyaena, because that means that a cunning person is going to come to you and “crook” you for everything you have got. But it is believed that when you are sick, chronically ill, and you dream of a hyaena, this means that a wise person is going to visit you, who will give you a medicine that will heal your illness. Yet another dream about a hyaena is that if you are a lover and you dream of a hyaena, this means that your lover is unfaithful and that he or she is going to run away very soon, taken away from you by a cunning Lothario.

Source: Credo Mutwa