"Before Names Were Given" - Chacma Baboon

“Before Names Were Given”
 
Long before roads cut through valleys and fences learned to stand their ground, he was already here.
 
Baboons have watched this land change for thousands of years, moving with the seasons, reading the mountains, surviving where others vanished. In his face lives that history.
 
Every crease echoes mornings on cold rock, afternoons beneath relentless sun, and nights spent listening for danger.
 
In black and white, the noise of the world falls away. What remains is something older than memory, a presence shaped by endurance rather than dominance. His gaze is not confrontational, it is patient.
 
As if he has seen humanity arrive, settle, and forget, while he continues to remember.
Before Names Were Given is a tribute to one of South Africa’s most misunderstood guardians, a reminder that some souls belong so deeply to the land that they cannot be separated from it.