In late 1929, Stephanus Cecil Rutgert Barnard sighted his rifle on an elephant with tusks that stretched to the ground. This event was to mark a turning point for the famed elephant poacher, who is better remembered by his Shangaan nickname of Bvekenya. The encounter is dramatically recounted in TV Bulpin’s book The Ivory Trail. For years Barnard had dreamt of this moment, of shooting the elephant called Dhlulamithi (a Shangaan word meaning “taller than the trees”). But Bvekenya couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger, and then and there decided to give up the way of the gun.
In the years since Bvekenya left his favourite haunts around Crooks Corner, where the boundaries of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique meet, the question had been asked: whatever happened to Dhlulamithi? Did he live out his days roaming the Gona-re-Zhou area in south-eastern Zimbabwe where Bvekenya came across him, or did he perhaps fall victim to another elephant poacher?
At first check it appears that Dhlulamithi did fall prey to a bullet, fired not by a poacher but rather a hunter. In August 1967 a South African Defence Force general, Victor Verster, shot a massive bull elephant in the Gona-re-Zhou nature reserve. Its tusks, weighing 48kg and 60kg, were some of the largest to come out of southern Africa. In the book he edited, Name uit die verlede, U de V. Pienaar claimed that this was Bvekenya’s elephant.
But Richard Harland, the professional hunter who guided Verster on the day he shot the elephant, is of a different opinion. “Firstly, Dhlulamithi is actually a hereditary title given to any big bull. And secondly, it was about 40 years after Bvekenya came across his elephant, so I think Bvekenya’s Dhlulamithi would have been long dead,” he says.
Elephant expert Anthony Hall Martin agrees with Harland. “When an elephant has tusks of that size, it’s probably in the last five years of its life,” he explains.
So to find out what happened to Bvekenya’s elephant we have had to head further back into the past, where the likely suspects are somewhat obscured by history, legend and bush rumour.
The most incredible story that is associated with Dhlulamithi is told by professional hunter and author Brian Marsh. While Marsh was operating in south-eastern Zimbabwe in the 1960’s he and the game authorities used to come across dead elephants that had been shot with a 4-bore muzzle loading rifle. According to Marsh, the story goes that the poacher was actually Bvekenya’s son by a Shangaan woman.
“He was a real will-o’-the wisp. The authorities could never catch him. He must have been a big man to handle a gun of that size,” says Marsh. “It is said he even called himself Bvekenya and, like his father, used to give meat to the local Shangaans who in return would hide him and tell him when the authorities were in the area. It was also rumoured that he shot Bvekenya’s Dhlulamithi.”

As to who this shadowy poacher actually was is a bit of a mystery. Bvekenya’s son, Izak, has no idea who this supposed half-brother was and warns that it wouldn’t be the first time someone had impersonated his legendary father. “At least three people have pretended they were either my father or family member,” says Izak.
Ron Thomson, author of the book The Adventures of Shadrek – Southern Africa’s Most Infamous Elephant Poacher, says “I only know of two poachers of any consequence who operated in south-eastern Zimbabwe – the first was Bvekenya and the second was Shadrek.”
Shadrek’s life was just as colourful as that of Bvekenya. The son of a local Ndou chief, Shadrek poached elephant until he temporarily reformed his ways and worked with Thomson in the then Rhodesian game department.
Later the two of them were responsible for locating several ZANLA guerilla camps in Mozambique during the Rhodesian Bush War. “He was a short man and not a good shot, but he killed a lot of elephant,” recalls Thomson.
However, Shadrek was too young to have shot Dhlulamithi. Nor, according to Thomson, did he ever hunt with a 4-bore muzzle loading rifle. “His weapon of choice was a 10.57 rifle and later an AK-47,” says Thomson.
But perhaps the best clue as to what happened to the original Dhlulamithi lies in two black and white photographs. The first is believed to have been snapped by British South Africa (BSAP) policeman George Style, and appeared in the BSAP magazine, Outpost. The photograph shows a huge elephant who, according to Izak, is the Dhlulamithi his father encountered.
During the 1920’s, Style was stationed at Nuanetsi in Zimbabwe. Part of the area he had to police was Bvekenya’s old hunting ground. In an article he wrote for Outpost, he described how he eventually met up with Bvekenya in South Africa and the two became friends. Style knew of the elephant that Bvekenya was obsessed with and took a photograph of it.
The second photograph appears in the book Conservationists and the Killers, by John Pringle, and shows a pair of huge tusks that are claimed to have come from Dhlulamithi. The caption says the tusks were sent to ivory trader R. Balmer in Lourenco Marques (Maputo) in 1932. He in turn exported them to England for auction by S. Figgis and co. The tusks weighed a whopping 73kg and 73,5kg.
“The two tusks are quite unusual and you can see by comparing the two photographs that they came from the same elephant,” says Izak.
But where those tusks are today remains a mystery, as does the identity of the person who pulled the trigger on Dhlulamithi.
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Vester's Elephant
What has happened to the ivory of Verster's elephant which was shot on a government sponsored VIP safari '67 in then, Gonarezhou Controlled Hunting Area?
I understood that the tusks ended up in the South African Embassy in Washington but Bruce Couper believes they may now be hanging in the elephants "hall of fame" in Kruger.
Bruce has given me a copy of a photograph of the tusks - although both are large one tusk is considerably smaller than the other, their weights of approximately 48 and 60kg's confirms this. Bruce however notes the weight of the tusks in Kruger as being 57.2 and 64.8kgs.The photo shows the larger of the two tusks to be of a different shape to the smaller, it could possibly be considered to be twisted.
Richard Harland and Tim Braybrook conducted this safari and are probably the only persons who may have some recollection as to the appearance of the ivory. Can either of you two help or beter still provide me with a photo(faxed photocopy would be fine) of the tusks once they had been extracted?
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A few thoughts as the year ends:
Time in particular has prevented me for delving into other pertinent issues such as the Hwange game count, trophy quality with respect to lions and the Hwange water supplies - further credits to those who have assisted. These will have to wait until some time in the new year.
This year has been particularly rewarding in as much that I have received good response to my appeals to trace old colleagues. This has resulted in the mailing list growing from about fifteen or twenty odd a year back to just over a hundred ten now, the Parks Roll has also, as a result, been expanded.
Then there has been the contributions and interesting snippets of information I have received which has made it possible for me to alter the format of the letter from being solely dagaboy orientated to be newsletter in the true sense of the word plus collect material for the book

In conclusion then, as the year rapidly draws to a close I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all the very best for 2004. As we welcome in the new year I would ask you to drink a toast to our many friends who are no longer with us and to remember those in poor health.

I look forward to hearing from you, the newsletter is what you make it.

Mike