His mother had wanted a girl, but knew he was a boy because during her pregnancy she found that she really enjoyed sucking on the crusty soil that formed the outer layer of an anthill, was nauseated by the smell of fish, and was quick to lose her temper. When her labour pains began on a Sunday afternoon, she was grateful to him for being so considerate as to come on the day of rest. She called for her mother-in-law, who, suspecting why she was being called, brought her sister along too. Both women walked as fast as their age would allow them, and along the way gave instructions to the children playing doro at the edge of the homestead to bring boiled water and their packets of medicinal herbs from the kitchen, and to be quick about it. In the hands of the two women who had delivered most of the children in the village, he came safely into this world with both his hands resting, open-palmed, on his stomach, which was a sign that he carried within him an important task – a task given him by the other world.

His father, hoping that his third son would be a great hunter like his great-grandfather, who had been such a renowned hunter that apparently there was still a legend of him in Swaziland, made him his namesake, and to stress the point gave him ‘hunter’ as his middle name so that his full name was Lukhayezi Mzingeli Hlotshwayo.

For the early part of his life, Lukha lived up to the expectation of his name with great ease. His slingshots and traps saw him bring home all manner of things he was proud of having killed: locusts, birds, rabbits. When he was not hunting, Lukha went about herding cattle, practising ukujaqa with other herdboys, swimming naked in rivers, climbing marula, mqokolo and mulberry trees, and eating their sun-kissed fruits while perched on branches. Lukha would only know that the exquisite feeling he felt during this time was called happiness later in life, when there was no happiness to be found around him.

His troubles began when he was ten years old and the Native Commissioner of the district visited the village and announced that all children over seven years old, especially the boys, would have to attend a nearby school the government had built for native education. Lukha attended the school, but when he tried to read, the letters that seemed to stay put for everyone else would not do so for him. For him, the letters moved around and jumbled up the words, thus turning them into little puzzles that he could never quite crack. He toiled at this labour unsuccessfully for two years before his parents decided to defy the government’s edict and allow him to stay home and do the things he loved to do – hunt wild animals and herd cattle.