The White Kudu by Gisela Hoyle
This is the kudu – the antelope, which in so many ways is the 
main character of The White Kudu. The silence of antelope has always held a great fascination for me – it made them so different from other animals both wild and domestic. In my imagination it set them apart entirely from the rest of the noisy world. Even in death they were silent, uttering no cry when shot. Kudu are grey and they, along with the Eland, are associated in many San myths with rain and with the spirit world. Ou Groote, as his name implies is one of the greater Kudu – tall imposing but graceful creatures, not to be confused with the sweet but innocuous lesser kudu, found in East Africa. Kudu are shy, unlike Wildebeest which will show off; if they think they are being watched. And they seem to have a great love for freedom – which greatly increased my love for them, too. Elusive dignified and quiet. 
In the real world, Ou Groote lived on Oom Stoppie’s farm (a neighbour, our dentist and a very good family friend). No one really knows where he came from. Kudu can clear a fence of 2metres from standing, so they can’t really be kept in anywhere; they jump even game fences all the time, not being small animals. Anyway Ou Groote was huge and beautiful, with wide-spread horns (not antlers) which had all three twists, but he was lame in one hind leg. He was also a loner – you only ever saw him alone, if at all. Oom Stoppie loved this animal and his awe got passed on to all of us and we knew it had been a good trip if we had glimpsed Ou Groote, although I think only my father and Stoppie really could tell whether it was him or not. Poor old Stoppie got teased a lot about Ou Groote and we would tell him that we had glimpsed him on Pniel or a De Beers farm, miles away from his land; some of the guys would even pretend they had shot him by accident – it never failed as a wind-up. Stoppie would go out into the veld and simply sit in Ou Groote’s area for ages and Ou Groote would look at him and they would be happy. When we visited Stoppie’s farm and managed to glimpse Ou Groote, it would almost inevitably be at the last gate, but we never knew whether he had come to say goodbye or simply see us off his land.
One day Stoppie came to my father in high agitation, he thought he had shot Ou Groote and he was lying dead, and Stoppie was too afraid to go and see alone. My father went with him. It was not Ou Groote, so that was fine. But eventually his lameness and age crept up on Ou Groote and even Stoppie could see he was suffering too much. But he could not bear to shoot him and again it was my father he asked to go with him. I have never felt that preparing for a hunt was a sacred ritual, but those two friends heading off to kill another old friend was sacred, though it was very quiet and very different from the usual noisy procedure. We all kind of hung around the house in misery wondering when the shot would come. When the two came back, they did not bring Ou Groote’s body, I don’t think anybody ate him, but they lit a fire and sat drinking whiskey till very late into the night.
There were lots of other eccentric animals – Charlie the Ostrich, who lived in our garden for a while; then there was a Springbok who always hung out with the Zebras and finally Bokkie, an infant Eland, whom my father had rescued by caesarean, after highly pregnant Mum had been shot, but none of them, though we loved them in a more ordinary way, ever inspired the awe of Ou Groote, or the sense of blessing if one got to see him.
In the novel the whiteness of this Kudu is a reference to both the White lions of Timbavati, who are believed to be messengers of redemption, and to paintings of shamanistic experiences in San culture.
Gisela