Dissident Nature

When I was about three years old, a new kid arrived on the scene. His name was Daniel. Like Daniel and the Lion’s Den… but nobody would ever call him that. He was small, skraal, pale and often sick.

Our old man is a wordsmith – so names, stories, myths and legends have always been a golden thread in our family, the stories often outgrowing life itself.

Here’s the story of Mook Lion, as best as I can tell it.

Long ago, our ballie was writing a book. It was a fable of sorts, and the main protagonist was a bedraggled hyena. The underdog of the jungle, always going on some adventure to prove himself, or win a place among the pack of revered African beasts. This hyena was called Mookie. At some stage in his emergence, my lil' brother got the moniker Bush Mookie… the hyena.

Mookie was born in the concrete jungle of downtown Jozi, in