Lions with coats as white as snow used to belong to the world of myth. The first reported sighting of a white Lion by a European witness dates back to 1938, but it was only in 1975 that Chris McBride, an animal biologist, officially verified their existence through photographic evidence in his book “The white lions of the Timbavati”, published in 1977. White Lions, similar to other sacred white animals around the world, are not albino animals. The white lion is a rare phenotype or colour variant of the tawny African lion, with their colour being due to a recessive gene.
White Lions have been part of oral African tradition for centuries and have great spiritual significance. Timbavati, located in the northeast region of South Africa next to the Kruger National Park, is the only place in the world where white lions naturally occur. Timbavati was identified as a sacred site by the earlier African kings
…show more content…
Tucker hypothesized that the message of the white lions was a warning against humanity’s unrestricted, excessive consumption of nature which desecrates natural law. She propounds that we have violated a sacred contract insofar as we have exceeded the proper bounds of the kill. In one version of the Greek myth of Orion and Artemis - the goddess of the sacred hunt and guardian of animal life on earth - Orion was slain because he boasted that he could rid the earth of all wild animals. The lore of the white lions is closely associated with the constellation Orion, the Hunter, also known as Matsieng to the Bushman (Tucker). According to Creto Mutwa, lions came from the constellation of Leo and he tells the African myth of the Exiled