Elephas Maximus : A Portrait of the Indian Elephant

Rating:
Summary: Engaging and informative portrait of the Indian Elephant
Review: _Elephas maximus_ is a rather engaging- if sometimes a bit rambling - portrait of the Indian elephant (author Stephen Alter admits that the more proper common name is Asian Elephant but as he focuses on only _Elephas maximus_ as it is found in India he keeps the name Indian Elephant). Alter sought to tell the natural history of the elephant as well as its human history on the subcontinent, depicting it in history, mythology, religion, art, and literature. As he notes in the prologue, the somewhat tangential order of the chapters follows a series of journeys the author made in different parts of India in 2001-2002. Roughly chronological, each chapter details his experiences with actual elephants, those who live and work with them, and his viewings of elephant art (as well as many asides about elephants in history, legend, and literature) as he visited various national parks, shrines, museums, and festivals throughout India.

I learned many interesting facts about elephant biology; the bull elephant experiences a cyclical period of sexual arousal, known as musth. Similar to the rut of a stag, musth is signaled by excretions from glands on either side of the elephant's forehead (in Indian poetry it is described as being a sweet perfume that attracted bees, though the author found it a "sour, oily" odor that attracted swarms of flies). Musth can occur any time of the year, though often afflicts elephants in June as monsoon rains begin. Elephants in musth are very temperamental and prone to fits of rage - tame elephants rarely if ever work during musth - and remain this way from a few weeks up to several months.

Alter recounted the many differences between African Elephants (_Loxodonta africana_) and Indian Elephants; African Elephants tend to be taller (up to 12 feet at the shoulder versus the Indian being no larger than 10 feet), heavier (African bulls can weigh over 6 tons; Asian bulls closer to 4 tons), have larger ears, rougher hides, more wrinkled trunks, and a differently shaped skull; Africans have a more extended and tapered head while Asians have a flatter face and a more bulging forehead. The tip of the trunk on an African Elephant has two prehensile "fingers" while the Asian Elephant has but one. In Africa, both male and female elephants posses tusks; in Asia only males have tusks. Even then not all males have them; about 40 percent of all Indian bulls are tuskless and are called makhnas (in fact in some areas, such as Sri Lanka, only 10 percent of all males are tuskers, though this percentage varies a great deal locally). He discounts notions that the Indian elephant is more easily tamed, noting that simply that there is a considerably longer tradition of such training in India than anywhere else in the world.

The elephant has a tremendous role in Indian religion. One example is Ganesha or Ganapati, the elephant-headed deity, bearer of joy and good fortune and son of Shiva and Parvati, who is worshipped for ten days every year in temporary shrines called mandals in the state of Maharashrta, at the end of which clay statues of Ganesha are paraded through the streets and immersed in the Arabian Sea. Ganesha is often depicted with a broken tusk and often any elephant that has only one tusk is called a "Ganesha."

Literature about elephants -whether factual or fanciful - has long dominated India writings. Gajashastra, or "elephant science," was studied and recorded in ancient texts, themselves based on much older oral traditions, recorded in such pieces as _Hastyayurveda_, a part of the classic Sanskrit canon, and the _Matangalila_, a piece of Gajashastra composed by the Sanskrit poet Nilakantha. The latter book divided elephants into three castes; the bhadra, or noble tusker (suitable for carrying royalty); the manda (slow and dependable ordinary elephants), and the mriga (relatively lean, long-legged, and fleet-footed elephants). These texts have proven to be quite accurate and insightful, showing a real understanding of elephant physiology and training.

The elephant has long been a prized target of the hunt or shikar, both before the age of British imperialism and during the days of the British Raj, though by and large elephants were more likely to be captured than to be shot (or as some of the shikaris of the Raj said, the elephant was "something one shot from, not at"), nevertheless solitary tuskers were often misrepresented as rogues and were judged to be fair game. More often attempts were made to catch elephants for use by the military, logging, and by royalty; methods varied greatly from digging a deep hole in the ground and covering it with bamboo, dirt, and grass to mela shikar (riding tame elephants into a wild herd and lassoing selected elephants with grass ropes) to khedah (involving driving herds into large wooden stockades by groups of beaters).

Alter spent a great deal of time talking to those who handled elephants. Most tame elephants in India have two or three handlers; the mahout is responsible for the elephant's training and daily maintenance while the charrawallas (fodder cutters) assist him, their jobs being to collect fresh leaves and grass, keep the stables clean, and give the elephant its daily bath (often the charrawallas work as apprentices, aspiring to become mahouts themselves).

Elephants are still kept in large numbers in captivity, with India possessing 3,500 captive animals (and 28,000 wild ones out of 50,000 wild elephants in Asia and 16,000 total in captivity). They are still used in a limited way in logging; for years they were vital in this capacity owing to their ability to traverse difficult terrain and move huge loads (now they are still found in forests but often used to patrol against elephant, rhino, and tiger poachers). Many temples and private individuals provide elephants for rent essentially, as their mere presence in weddings is considered auspicious. Rides on the back of elephants are important in tourism, not only for foreign tourists but those from other parts of India.