Eye Brother Horn

Author: Bridget Pitt
Publisher: Catalyst Press
​Reviewer: Beryl Eichenberger
Colonialism. Much has been written about it, much discussion has ensued and many fingers pointed at the perpetrators. For missionaries the opening up of Africa to convert the heathens was a zealot’s dream, for the British landed gentry the promise of huge wealth in these untamed lands with the sugar cane, mines and wild animals was too good an opportunity to miss. Our current environmental devastation is very much because of the uncontrolled and vicious 

hunting of that time. Dispossession was the name of the game for the superior colonists.
We live with that legacy today and, in Eye Brother Horn Bridget Pitt has written a sensitive and unusual novel of late 19th Century life in the depths of the Natal bush on a small mission station. The novel has a magical quality where Pitt has taken African beliefs and the mysticism that surrounds them and employed them in a rich and spiritual story.
Spanning 17 years from 1862 we follow the story of brothers:  the sensitive Daniel, son of missionary parents and Moses, found in a basket on the river bank (biblical connotations noted). These are not biological brothers; Moses, is black and Daniel is white.  Their parents, Reverend Whitaker (umFundisi - Teacher) and his wife Kazi consider them as brothers and bring them up equally. Fairly easy at first, however tribal influences are at play in this remote station and the reader is fully aware that this seemingly idyllic childhood cannot continue. Growing up as they do, the pull of African culture versus white colonialism will have its effect on both of them.
For Daniel it is the pulse of the animals – his brush with a rhino as a babe in arms has unlocked an awareness of animal suffering – a pain that overwhelms and sends him into strange trances when an animal is threatened. As much as Moses feels his tribal roots, he has embraced the sciences – astronomy and maths - and the education given him, planning on how to use it. A sensible boy with ambition. It is Daniel who seems to have that mystic soul, a connection to the inner emotions through that brush with the rhino and ‘ with its single fleeting gaze into his own eye, forging some intractable bond.’ And this is where the story takes an unusual trajectory
As I read I was struck by the reversal of roles of the two boys, Daniel is dependent on Moses, but Moses has an inner strength that drives him. But it is the coming of age that is heartbreaking when the promises of the greedy Sir Roland split the boys apart. Moses is forced to take his place amongst the natives and their apartness has a devastating effect on the softer Daniel.
Pitt writes in the present tense, a style that I enjoy as I felt very much within the story. She skillfully brings the Zululand of the 1860s into focus. The bush, the missionary station, the native’s disdain of the ‘white man’, their underground rumbles, the Zulu royalty and the importance of the tribal rituals. But the arrogance and superiority that lay with the colonialists is prevalent, the dismissal of an ancient culture, ancestors and customs and the ownership of man and beast are shameful. Good on Pitt to evoke those emotions and her obvious love of the wild and rhinos in particular make us remember why this current generation has a duty to preserve what many of our own kin destroyed.  While this is an account of the destruction wrought by the colonialists it is also a poignant story of bonds, of defying convention and being true to oneself – at whatever cost.
My only criticism is that the many Zulu words included could be lost on a wider audience and this would be a pity, as there are strong messages that apply globally. ​