Dazzled by the brilliance of collective friendship

A ‘herd’ is a common collective noun for animals. Whenever we see them in batches, this is the noun that springs to mind first. When I was young, growing up in a very small town just big enough not to be called a village, farmer Krishnan used to walk his herd of cows past our front yard gate promptly at six every morning. The neighbour used to say that you could set your watch to the rhythmic clicking of their hooves on the slowly-disintegrating tarred road outside. And if you missed setting your watch at precisely 6am, you got a second chance at exactly 6.10am when the farmer’s wife, Mrs Krishnan to us, walked their herd of buffalo past the gate.

The Krishnans, thanks to their herds, became synonymous with milk, which they supplied to nearly the entire township. As proof that the animal numbers in town were doing quite well, thank you, in ratio to their human counterparts, there were several households that reared goats. Herds of them would be seen roaming around, grazing for grub and, if unwittingly a front gate happened to be left unlatched, the goats would take that as a free invitation to come in and sample the garden plants. Many a marigold patch got ravaged this way, the marigold usually providing a tasty entree before the same goats found, at the back of the house, the most succulent spinach and bean trees, neatly twined on runners to allow the plants the best creep-ability. Which, of course, the unwittingly-let-in goats crept up to and put a stop to.

I’m pretty sure even the staunchest vegetarians amongst us, on discovering the havoc wreaked in their gardens, must have entertained notions of spicy mutton curry. It’s what happens when the will breaks down and irrationality takes over, as my friend Barney remarked recently. You simply want to lash out wildly, as some form of defence for the poor defenceless marigold flowers and the beans that were this close to plucking and peeling, and the spinach leaves, red and green and broad as two palms held together.

Anyhow, while recounting some of these early-childhood anecdotes to Barney recently, over our customary cup of coffee, we of course arrived at the point where we learned, as young pupils perhaps in grade four or five, that ‘herd’ as a collective was all very well in general use but in reality several animals actually possessed their own personal collective. One of the earliest I learned was ‘a pride of lions’. I still see in my mind’s eye the large poster held up by the teacher, of a group of male lions, taken side on, walking majestically through a clearing, one of them taking time to turn and look right into the camera, his mane ruffled by what must have been a gentle breeze passing by at the time.

Bird-like collective

Barney, who has done a lot more travelling, told me that it was not at school where he really encountered animal collective nouns, but when he visited South Africa and went out, two days in a row, on safari. And Barney, being Barney of course, he was keen as always to refresh my memory and remind me that wolves hunt in packs, while goats hung around — “Not in herds, Kevin, but in tribes.”

So there’s a new one for me, even at this late stage in life. As they say one never stops learning. Sheep of course, retain their bird-like collective and go about in flocks. Gorillas, apparently, hang out in troops while a group of rhinos is referred to as ‘a crash’. We can all guess why!

“And what do zebras get called when they’re partying together?” Barney asked. I had to pass on that, too. “You’re just too brilliant this morning, Barnes,” I told him, tongue in cheek. “Nearly fluked it there,” he replied, “Not brilliant, Kev. Dazzle. That’s what they are. A dazzle of zebra.”

Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.