by Natascha Zwaal
Due to the interaction of elephant with human beings, the elephant occupies an important and mythical position in the culture and oral traditions among the local population. Many tales are told with the intention to justify the behaviour of elephants in a given region. The most interesting and fascinating of these tales are those that attempt to give explanation to the origin of these elephants, their related human aspect as well as their relations with other animals.
The belief that marauder elephants migrated from Chad is generally agreed upon in this region. Far behind, before the elephants were signaled in this region, travelers from Chad were said to have told mythical stories about some gigantic animals: even the most colossal of all the villagers was unable the reach or touch the back of this enormous creature with the hand."
The story of the arrival of the first elephants in the villages is also told with mythical vehemence: The first elephant to arrive, got there in the night. Without the slightest noise nor did it destroy any farm. Just its footprints were conspicuously marked out on the ground. At dawn, these footprints, as large and wide as the human feet put together, were discovered by the villagers. These villagers thought that someone must have done it as a work of art. Speculations were made to this unrivaled phenomenon. Finally, after a few days, the villagers saw the animal. It was a miracle.
The biological genealogy of the tale of the elephant is told thus:
The cockroach gave birth to the hare. The hare begot the pig, and the pig begot the elephant. This frightened and worried other animals because the evolution was to lead to a disaster. So they resolved to plunge and drown the elephant into the river. In the river, the elephant was pregnant of another child. After a minor explosion, the hippopotamus was born.
Oral tradition equally tries to explain why elephants are on the one hand foolish but, on the other, intelligent.
A long time ago, there was a woman with her three children. She was pregnant of the fourth child. The other three children feared that the fourth was going to be nuisance to them so they resolved to prevent or avert its birth. One of them thought of an idea. He waited for the moment when his mother would go to the stream to carry water and proposed to help her. When the poor woman stood by the river bank, he pushed her and threw her into the river. As a consequence of the shock, the woman gave birth to the fourth child, which come out to be a hippopotamus. The woman returned home and prayed to God to punish her first three children for the vicious act. God listened to her prayers by transforming the three children. One became a cockroach which will forever be feeding on human refuse, the other a pig who would endlessly be digging the earth, and the last an elephant forever propelling mud and soil towards its body like a valueless creature. This explains why the elephant is all that foolish.
On the other hand, The elephant is intelligent because it is a transformed human being.
This belief is deeply rooted in the local populations which justifies the human traits of the elephant through the following points:
- Elephants have mammary glands (breast) and breastfeed their offspring exactly like human beings.
- The feet of elephants have five toes just like human feet.
- Elephants have a trunk which is like a human hand. They use it to collect their food and to grab a branch which they can use to hit someone.
- Elephants depend on one another for food.
- Elephant communicate with each other by using a language.
- Elephants can wash themselves with their trunks just like humans do with their hands.
- Elephants can collect water from the bottom of a deep well just like village women do.
The area where many tales are told is one relationship between the elephant and other animals. This one below tries to explain why the elephant is afraid of the hen.
A long long time ago all animals were living together in one village. One day a competition was organised to find out who could eat much more food and much faster than all others. There were two candidates: The hen and the elephant. The elephant, feeling proud that he was going to win with a sweep of the left hand, decided not to waste much time for this match. Just when the match started, he fed himself of all what he found: branches, leaves, roots, etc.
The hen on her part started slowly and steadily pecking here and there. Just after a while, the elephant's stomach was full so he decided to rest for a while. He noticed later that the hen was still pecking, and asked her, "Have you not yet had enough?" The hen answered, "Not yet", and continued pecking. The elephant, being unable any longer to bear the hen eating incessantly, fell back on the food. His intestines already too full could no longer contain any more food, so elephant did not know what to do again and where to put anymore food. After a couple of minutes he found himself obliged to stop. The hen, for her part, did not seem in any way to get tired. The elephant, already wound out, began snoring. While he was sleeping, flies settled on him and two of them settled on his eye. The hen, which had continued pecking though it was to peck even the flies, she pecked those that sat on the elephant's eye. The elephant sprang up in fright, thinking that the hen had become mad. He shouted out in panic, "This hen will never stop eating. She eats everything on her way and she wants now to devour me." He asked all the animals to run away for their dear lives and they did so.
Half way gone, they split into two groups: A group made of those who were not totally frightened (cats, sheep, cows). They became domestic animals. The other remained in the forest for ever (lions, antelopes, elephants). These are wild animals. Till today, the elephant is still afraid of the hen.
Another branch of this same folktale is the competition between the hen and the elephant which was to see who could eat ten tins of millet:
After having finished the millet, the hen continued to pick out millet grains that had fallen on the dung of the elephant. The elephant was frightened, thinking that the hen would eat him also.
The story that the elephant was afraid of the hen, may justify why people use hens to drive away elephants.
Co-authored by Martin Tchamba
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