The Elephant With A Hole In His Head

To many, he became the most famous of the Magnificent Seven. Yet Mafunyane was not the largest of the great tuskers. In fact, by elephant standards, he was considered relatively small in stature. What made him unforgettable was something far rarer; presence. His tusks swept down in perfect symmetry, impossibly elegant and almost sculptural in their proportions, carrying a quiet grandeur that seemed to belong to another age entirely.

Named after the Tsonga word for “the irritable one”, Mafunyane earned a reputation for his unpredictability and elusive nature. Rangers and trackers knew him not only by his immense ivory, but by his remarkable identifying features - a curious hole through the right side of his skull that extended into his nasal cavity, and the distinctive splayed imprint left by one of the toes on his hind foot.

There was endless speculation surrounding the strange wound in his skull. Some believed it may have come from a violent clash with another bull during musth - that heightened period of aggression and dominance amongst male elephants. Others wondered whether it had been caused much earlier in his life, perhaps shaping not only his appearance, but his temperament too. And temperament he certainly had.

Like many great bulls, Mafunyane spent much of his life alone, drifting through remote country where few roads existed and fewer people ventured. He belonged to the wilderness completely.

In 1983, conservationists fitted Mafunyane with a radio collar so that his movements could be monitored and protected from poaching. The operation itself became part of his legend. After being darted from a helicopter and carefully measured by the team on the ground, the great bull struggled to rise. His magnificent tusks, so admired by all who saw him, prevented him from lifting himself properly from the earth. Time and again he tried to stand, only for the weight and angle of the ivory to work against him. Eventually, with the help of a front-end loader padded carefully with canvas and timber, Mafunyane rose to his feet and disappeared once more into the mopane bush; leaving behind an unforgettable silence and immense relief amongst the gathered rangers.

Only a few months later, in November 1983, Mafunyane’s remains were discovered near the banks of the Zari River in the north-western wilderness of the park. He was believed to have been approximately fifty-seven years old. His death marked the passing of one of Africa’s great tuskers. Yet somehow, legends such as Mafunyane never truly disappear. They remain woven into the memory of Africa itself - carried in stories shared around campfires, in the quiet reverence of trackers who once followed their spoor, and in the enduring awe inspired by elephants whose existence seemed almost mythological.

At Patrick Mavros, these stories matter deeply to us. They remind us that the wild places of Africa are not simply landscapes, but living archives of memory, mystery and extraordinary beauty. And occasionally, if one is very fortunate, the bush allows you to encounter a creature so remarkable that it alters forever the way you understand the wilderness. Mafunyane was one of those creatures.