With deer season over around here, I'm rereading Richard Harland's book "The Hunting Imperative". I just got to the part were Richard is starting his carreer Parks. Early on he steals the affection of one of his friends' two dogs and finds himself the master of a lab named Bvekenya, named after an old school ivory poacher and one of Richard's boyhood heros. His friends' other dog was a skinny, sickly critter named Ganyana. This seems an odd coincidence, that name showing up twice in what had to be a very small Parks community in the old Rhodesian days. Sitting here with some rye and venison, I've been wondering who was the original Ganyana? Our member, the dog, or some other shady character ?

Dean

or if our Ganyana looks like a mangy old dog

My hunting buddy in Argentina has a Rhodesian Ridgeback named Mugabe...coincidence?

Doesn't Ganyana mean something in Shona? Does anyone out there know the English translation of the word. Be careful now!

Ganyana is the siNdebele (matabele language) word for Wild Dog - Lycaon Pictus.

Bvekenya Barnard was Pete's dad wasn't he?

I think more distant than that, but I believe you're right about their relation.

Brett

The name "Bvekenya" pronounced VeKenya (silent B), is derived from Pete's ancestor, Cecil Rutgert Barnard. Bvekenya is a Shangaan word which means "the one who swaggers when he walks". Cecil obtained his nickname from having suffered a severe dose of sunburn between his legs.

Cecil was born in 1886 in South Africa on a small farm, his father of Scots descent and his mother, mixed Dutch/Irish. In 1910 he packed his bags with his trusty .303 and followed the Great North Road. Bvekenya was a notorious elephant poacher, and did all his hunting on the boarders between Mozambique, South Africa and the then Rhodesia, in an area known as Crook's Corner.


His life story can be found the book entitled "The Ivory Trail" and written by T.V. Bulpin.