When the Matriarch Falls
Prelude to Reclaiming the Fire
“In the wild, an elephant herd is not ruled by strength, it is guided by memory.”
This one is personal; it took a study of elephants for me to figure out what’s wrong with us. I come from a clan whose totem is the elephant, and in my inquest into elephant herds, juxtaposing against the African people, reality hit home. If you get this post, you get my line of thinking. In the deep rhythms of Africa’s wild landscapes, elephants walk ancient paths, not just as giants of the land, but as custodians of generational memory. At the centre of each herd is the matriarch — an elder female whose knowledge guides everything from where to find water during drought, to how to mourn the dead, to when to play and when to move.
She is not just a leader.
She is the memory of the land.
But what happens when the matriarch dies?
When poachers or hunters kill her, often for her ivory, the damage extends far beyond the loss of one life. Scientists studying orphaned elephant herds in places like Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa and Tsavo in Kenya have documented a pattern of social collapse:
Young males become hyper-aggressive, attacking rhinos, vehicles, and other elephants.
Herd structure disintegrates. Discipline and ritual vanish.
Reproductive and emotional behaviours go haywire.
The young, though biologically strong, are culturally unanchored.
This is more than animal instinct gone awry. It’s the collapse of cultural continuity. In elephants, like in humans, memory is not genetic; it is taught. Just as elephants gather in silence around fallen kin, so too did our ancestors sit with the body, chant its legacy, and pour libations that turned loss into lore. In both species, death was not disappearance, it was ritual.
And this is where the metaphor stings.
“Rufu runodzidzisa rwendo.” — Death teaches the journey.
Africa too lost her matriarchs.
Under the violence of colonisation, the elders — those who carried the cosmologies, land ethics, medicinal lore, kinship laws, and languages — were silenced, displaced, or killed. A foreign system replaced them with imported gods, foreign rulebooks, and mimicked modernities.
The result? A continent with powerful youth but severed memory.
A people with instinct, but no map.
Like orphaned elephants, many African societies became fragmented, reactive, and vulnerable to exploitation.
This is the wound that colonialism left, not just economic or political, but deeply psychological and cultural.
And yet, elephants offer hope.
Studies show that when older matriarchs are reintroduced, order returns. Young elephants begin to emulate again. They recalibrate. They remember how to be.
Africa too is remembering.
As we revive languages, recover wisdom traditions, and re-listen to the elders who survived, we begin to find our rhythm again, not by going backward, but by reconnecting with what colonisation tried to sever.
The fire of memory, once stolen, is being rekindled.
And in that light, Africa walks forward, not alone, not orphaned, but re-anchored in its own wisdom.
Welcome to “Reclaiming the Fire”, a 6-part series that is direct, unapologetic and purposeful. The series culminates in an essay that details the generational psychological damage that has occurred since the 1884 Berlin Conference, followed by a workshop, conversation to put everything into perspective.
A Final Reflection
The average lifespan of an African elephant is 60 to 75 years, strikingly close to the biblical lifespan often quoted in Psalms: “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years...” (Psalm 90:10).
This shared span is more than coincidence.
It hints at a natural alignment between memory and time, between the generational arc of wisdom and the rhythms of life itself.
Just like an elder human, an elephant matriarch spends a lifetime gathering experience, not to dominate, but to guide. Her death marks the fading of a generation’s hard-won knowledge, unless that memory is passed on intentionally.
In both species, longevity is a vessel for legacy.
When we lose elders — whether to bullets, neglect, or systemic silencing — we do not just lose lives.
We lose maps, archives, living textbooks.
But if we listen to stories, to rituals, to rivers, and to roaming herds, we might yet find the wisdom paths again.
And walk them. Together.
Let us become matriarchs in the making. Carriers of warmth, watchers of waterholes, keepers of paths.
References and Further Reading:
Freeman, L. (2025). Teenage elephants need a father figure. BBC Earth. Read the full article
Shannon, G. et al. (2013). Effects of social disruption in elephants persist decades after culling. Frontiers in Zoology. View study
McComb, K., Moss, C., Durant, S., Baker, L., & Sayialel, S. (2001). Matriarchs as repositories of social knowledge in African elephants. Science, 292(5516), 491–494. DOI link
Bates, L. et al. (2025). Elephants: How the loss of matriarchs fractures a society. Daily Maverick. Read article
Douglas-Hamilton, I. et al. (2006). Behavioural reactions of elephants towards a dying and deceased matriarch. Save the Elephants. PDF report
Archie, E. A., Moss, C. J., & Alberts, S. C. (2006). The ties that bind: genetic relatedness predicts the fission and fusion of social groups in wild African elephants. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 273(1586), 513–522. DOI link
Tsavo Trust. (n.d.). The importance of elephant matriarchs. Read the full article
Save the Elephants. (2022, August 10). The power of elephant matriarchs. Read the full article
Animals Around the Globe. (2023, July 6). Elephant matriarchs know every waterhole for miles. Read the full article
Science News Today. (2023, March 14). The silent crisis: How the loss of experienced elephants endangers elephant societies. Read the full article