59plant species to local extinction, and preventing tree saplings from sprouting, but
universally condemned for making travel through the forest on traditional paths dif-
fi cult. Travelling through the forest is also made more dangerous, as dense thickets
of Lantana can be tall enough to hide an elephant , causing even normally cautious
Solega people to wander too close to these animals. This plant is usually referred to
as ro:jiga (possibly from the English ‘rose’), but it can also be called uṇṇi gutti ‘tick
bush’, although it is unclear whether this is a reference to the fact that these bushes
can harbour ticks, or whether being scratched by the thorns of the plant is being
likened to tick bites.
3.2.1 Plants Used to Be People
There are many instances to be found in Solega folklore that show how Solega
people identify with a range of non-human organisms—examples can be found, in
Solega mythology, of organisms that are said to possess human-like traits. In some
cases, this is the result of an organism once having been a human, who was forced
to take on a non-human form due to extenuating circumstances. Trees were once
humans who had avoided offering any aid to the god ma:desurã during his battle
with the demon savaṇa. Seeing that these same people expected to profi t from
savaṇa ’s death in spite of their inaction, ma:desurã , in a fi t of rage, cursed his cow-
ardly followers, and turned them into trees where they stood.
Perhaps as a direct result of this myth, Solega people rarely cut down entire trees,
preferring instead to remove individual branches for fi rewood or to harvest the fruit
growing on them. It is taken for granted that a su:lu ‘soul’ resides in all plants and
animals, and a tree that is cut makes a mournful gi:nk sound as its su:lu departs (this
sound has also been characterised as a: a: gri: gri: in [ 86 ]). To lessen the spiritual
trauma being caused to the tree, the woodcutter places a special rock next to it, into
which the su:lu enters. This is reminiscent of the kallugombe that form a vital part
of Solega funerary rituals—these are smooth rocks that represent the soul of a
deceased person, which are placed, along with older kallugombe , in clan -specifi c
sacred sites in the forest.
3.2.2 Relationships with Individual Trees
As mentioned above, individual trees can come to hold special signifi cance for
Solega people. Sometimes, trees that are afforded a high status for cultural reasons
can even be given proper names. These proper names often live on to serve as place
name s long after the tree has died or fallen over, thus preserving the memory of the
individual tree, the ethnospecies it belonged to, and any special properties associ-
ated with it. Trees that are singled out for naming are almost always large, and pos-
sess one of a small number of key attributes. Chief among these is being a host to
3.2 Solega Attitudes Towards Plants