Autour de l’hippopotame

You can’t just casually kill a hippo- you have to fight it!» A traditional hippopotamus hunt is organized at the bend of the Niger in Mali. It is harpooned with spears attached to floats, as it was done regularly only a few years ago. The hippopotamus weighs from 3 to 4 tons and can supply meat for a village for almost a year. So for the inhabitants of Ouatagouna, all hopes are concentrated around this animal. «In order to carry out this traditional hunt, everyone must agree, everyone must be of the same mind.» The Sorko believe that the hippopotamus is the shrewdest of animals – it knows that the whites now hunt it with guns and it has become very wary.