Thursday, July 7, 2011

New Resource for John Dunn Book

I just found and joined a new forum today. It's a forum that deals with the Anglo-Zulu War, and there are some threads that deal with the topic of John Dunn. Mostly the members there have a positive opinion of John Dunn, and I was glad to see that.

My first post was to ask what does John Dunn's Zulu name mean. The Zulus called him Jantoni, and I have to believe it was some kind of complimentary name. Because Dunn was considered a good guy to them. I mean, he was best friends with their king, after all. So I want to get the English meaning right. This is one of the items that needs to be accurate. And unfortunately, none of the four books I have say what Jantoni means.

But I did find out some other things on this forum today. One of those things was that Dunn had more than the 49 wives most sources say he had. He actually had a total of 65 wives. It was just that when Dunn died, he was survived by 49 wives, and accounted for them in his will. So that's where that number came from.

It makes sense. It's likely that Dunn may well have lived longer than some of his wives. I found out that Dunn was very much into abiding by Zulu laws, too. And one of those laws was execution for any wife who committed adultery. From what I learned today, out of his 65 wives, two were unfaithful to him, but it was the last mistake they made, if you know what I mean. Such was life in Zululand!

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