We may have lost the African Cup of Nations, but South Africa’s sheep shearers rank among the best in the world
David Le Page in Bloemfontein
Like spindly insectoid arms, the clattering electric clippers descend from red wall-mounted thoraxes to molest the shuddering sheep.
It’s the Bloem agricultural show. Walk past the cult of the Holstein, the tranquil haunches of the Swiss browns and the ranks of John Deeres. Here, beneath a great corrugated iron roof, you’ll find men, women and woolly mammals mingling on a shit-strewn concrete apron.
The sheep are being judged for quality, and soon it will be the turn of the shearers. Heats for Saturday’s World Championship finals began on Thursday.
In the meantime, advertising banners sway above red-coated flunkies manoeuvring their unwilling charges into taut-limbed poses. Woolly testicles sway like sporrans in tandem with the belt- suspended bellies of the judges.
When the rams in the arena have been judged for their wool, they’re hauled off for shearing, often controlled with two fingers hooked into their arses.
The shearers turn the sheep on to their backsides, pinion a forelimb between their legs and clip smoothly down the belly. Then they strip the hind limbs. The head is stretched back and the taut throats are shaved.
Great dreadlocks of lanolin-steeped wool descend from heaving flanks, sometimes mingling with turds from unhappy anuses. Spots, sometimes streams of blood appear as these shearers cut the flesh of their hapless charges.
The real art isn’t in the machine clippers, though. It’s in the blades, and the world’s reigning master of this centuries-old tool is South African.
Sweliwile Hanns is South African, most comfortable speaking Xhosa, and spends nine months a year travelling the country in a band of itinerant shearers. He has been shearing since 1982, but his skills only attracted the attention of coach Eliot Nyata in 1995. That’s not surprising – it’s generally agreed that it takes five years just to become competent in this ancient skill.
Craig Madge, a visiting Englishman, drops his preparation of four different pairs of blades to gaze awestruck as Hanns strips the wool from a particularly blessed animal with considered, symmetrical strokes.
“We couldn’t believe the neatness of these guys when we first came out here,” he says of the South African hand shearers.
Even working with this kind of precision, Hanns can strip the fleeces from 10 merinos in 15 minutes.
Nyata is a cheerful man, and visibly proud of his protg, who won the South African championship for the first time in 1995.
In 1997, Hanns came third in the world championship in New Zealand. His greatest moment came in 1999 when he won the world championship in London. Now he must defend his title, but he does so without fear. “I’m not bothered by nerves,” he says.
It’s a calmness born not of arrogance, but of confidence. Away from the sheep, though, he carries an aura of understated nervous energy. His presence is that of an artist. And like an artist he cannot explain his skill.
Nor can anyone else, really.
“Practice, practice, practice,” says Nyata.
“Fitness and dedication,” says Allan Baggett, Australian embryo buyer and a veteran of 27 years’ shearing himself.
If the skill cannot be explained, what of its product? Neatness is crucial in competitions. If you cut over the same area twice, the resulting shorter fibres lower the value of the fleece, and you lose points. You have to choose blades to match the stock, and for these merinos with their close wool, smaller narrower implements are necessary to penetrate easily and cut precisely.
Points are deducted for cuts, in proportion to blood drawn. Slice too deep, and you can be disqualified. It’s crucial to have good animal handling skills. The calmer your customer, the less likely it will wriggle and lunge into your blades.
The shearers, from 16 different countries, are allied in a body that half resembles a medieval guild and half a modern sporting association. The world council met on Wednesday to discuss the organisation of the championships, principally co-ordinated by the Golden Shears committee. Such interest in an obscure, superficially antiquated art seems almost ridiculously eccentric. The poor reputation of sheep doesn’t help.
Madge, though, launches a vigorous defence. “Those who consider them stupid just don’t know how to manage them. They’re a flock animal. They operate with a kind of collective consciousness.”
Of shearing he says, “It’s the oldest profession outside of prostitution.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite rival its ancient relation for popularity, and competition is probably essential in helping ensure that shearers do not disappear altogether.
According to Baggett, the craft – even with the use of electrical clippers – is dying in Australia. South African shearers may be poorly paid now, but in a few years, it’s likely their skills will be in demand as far afield as the United States and the Falklands as the locals lose interest.
Youthful Eastern Cape shearer Kenneth Norman, one of the two electrical shearers on the South African team, is planning to travel on his skill. “You earn up to R900 a day in the United Kingdom, and probably more in the US,” he says.
Hanns and Nyata both come from the Eastern Cape township of Sterkspruit, near Aliwal North. Will they be passing on the skills they so esteem? Thirty- seven, Hanns has four children, only one of them male. He laughs heartily when asked if his daughters will learn his skill.
The craft’s future probably lies with people like Madge. He makes his living dealing with sheep, but only spends part of his time shearing. He works with blades “to keep the craft alive”.
But the craft is not yet threatened in South Africa, and the living proof is Sweliwile Hanns.