South Africa: The lions from heaven

White lions are thought by the Shangaan people to heal and protect the Earth. Photo / Mark Scott

Many African tribes, particularly the Shangaan, have long believed that when the earth is sick God sends his children out in the form of white lions to heal and protect.

Trouble is, Arrive van de Venter says, for a long time no one had ever seen a white lion so the story was written off as just a story.

In the late 1960s, though, a Zulu historian and lion shaman called Credo Mutwa started predicting the coming of the white lions, because the earth was sick.

Everybody laughed at him, Arrie says. But Mutwa detailed exactly where the lions would appear, pinpointing Timbavati game reserve in Pumalanga in South Africa.

Timbavati in Shangaan means the place where the star beasts came from heaven.

Then, on February 16, 1975, it happened. A man by the name of Chris McBride was on a morning game drive with some guests in the Timbavati and drove past a popular drinking spot for animals.

He saw a lioness with four cubs, two of them snow white - the first white lions seen in modern times, and just 47 metres away from where Mutwar had predicted they would appear.

"That, ladies and gentlemen," says Arrie, "is a little too close for comfort. There are things in nature that we do not understand.

"Everybody was in awe. The whole scientific world jumped up and said 'but it's impossible, where do they come from?' Everyone except the Shangaan. They said, 'Well, we told you. We've been telling you they are coming, the earth needs them'."

After that, for a while white lions appeared everywhere in the Timbavati, but all of a sudden they were gone again, massively hunted and captured.

There are few white lions alive now. They live mostly in zoos or in facilities like the one at the Legend Golf and Safari Resort, where Arrie says his main mission is to breed and release them back into the wild.