Acknowledgements
Warning: if you are, like my wife, the sort of weird person who reads the end of books before the beginning, there are some spoilers ahead.
The idea for this book came from a conversation I had with an academic over a cup of coffee in the town of Hoedspruit some time ago. That person told me of work being done to study the use of umuthi by both poachers and national parks rangers in South Africa.
I’m incredibly grateful to that first contact, who wishes to remain anonymous. That discussion led me to Dr Tony Cunningham, an expert in this field who patiently answered my many questions about umuthi and belief systems, and read the relevant sections of the manuscript. Tony was keen to stress how African traditional beliefs aligned with similar views, practices and religions
