RUANDA-URUNDI: Two Cows in Every Pasture

When one well-to-do Ruandan greets another, he places his hands lightly on his friend's elbows and says: "/ sho, sho, sho, gir inka" (I hope your cows are doing well). The friend replies: "Eeh, eeh" (I hope yours are too).

In Geneva last week, the U.N. Trusteeship Council took up the case of Ruanda-Urundi's 1,000,000 sleek, lyre-horned cattle, which were doing much too well for the good of the land's 3,800,000 people. A report on the Belgian administration of the Central African trust territory had revealed that the cattle were crowding the humans for living space.

This state of affairs has come about because a cow in Ruanda is like a Cadillac in the U.S.—a mark of social distinction. The natives almost never sell or slaughter their cows, in time of famine prefer to die of starvation beside their impassive bovines. Each animal has its own name and every Ruandan dreams of at least two cows in his pasture. The cows are now increasing at the rate of 120,000 a year. They tie up the best land, hamper the natives in raising food crops. "Except the king,"*runs a popular saying, "nothing ranks above the cow."

"The thorniest problem," gloomily concluded the report. "An untenable situation if both men and cattle continue to increase . . . Rational but brutal intervention [i.e., killing the cows] would be liable to cause violent reactions . . . would wound the Africans in their deepest susceptibilities."