Pink Elephants on Parade

A friend of mine from Bangalore, India sent me a link to a Discovery Channel program called "The Lost Temples of India." The first temple to be explored is the Tanjore Shrine built by Rajaraja Chola I. If you've ever seen one of these Discovery Channel shows on ancient wonders, you know it's almost obligatory to do a modern day recreation of some architectural feat to understand how it would be possible for an incredible structure, such as the Tanjore Shrine, to have been built without the aid of modern machinery.

It turns out that Rajaraja kept a whole herd of war elephants, and historians speculate that these massive animals helped move the stone from the quarry to the building site. Think Flinstones, but with elephants instead of wooly mammoths. The recreation on the Discovery Channel program showed two elephants dragging a massive piece of stone over logs. Men ran behind them, grabbing the logs left in their wake, and using them to create more rolling track ahead.

But what really caught me about this documentary was not the fact that these creatures could move enormous weights- it was the bit of the film that talked about the Rajajraja's use of elephants in war. They immediately brought to mind Tolkien's oliphaunts.

First, to please Professor Tolkien, let's talk a little about the etymology of this word. In Middle Earth, it is only hobbits who refer to these enormous creatures as oliphaunts. They are known to Gondorians as mûmak.

But it is the word oliphaunt that sticks with us, probably because it sounds quite a lot like elephant, and because we identify most easily with the hobbits.

We can be certain Tolkien was familiar with the olifant horn, a battle horn made from the ivory tusk of an elephant. The olifant played a critical role in the Song of Roland, in which the hero is too proud to blow his olifant for help in battle, until it is too late.

"Oliphant" still survives as a Middle English word for elephant. It came down to the English tongue through various roots describing both camels and elephants, having roots of elef- in Greek and Latin languages, and having roots of of olb- and ulb- from Germanic languages.

But no matter how you spell it, there is no doubt these were powerful, dangerous creatures in war. So, back to historical war elephants to learn a little about how they were used.

Trained for battle by mahouts, war elephants were something like modern day tanks. They could move armies at incredible speeds toward battle, and cut through ranks of enemies with the razor sharp blades on their trunks. They could trample cavalry without even trying. Spear throwers on their backs struck at the mounted and foot soldiers below.

But don't forget that these war elephants had it pretty tough. They were beseiged by a number of horrors. First of all, hundreds or thousands of screaming, armed men were surrounding them. War elephants were an obvious first target, a tactical target to be taken down straight away. Enemies would swarm to strike the elephant's legs and bring them down.

Secondly, it was common practice to send animals with lit straw on their backs charging and smoking at the elephants in order to frighten them. I read one report (Roman) in which live pigs were doused in sticky oil and lit afire. Their shrieking was known to cause intense terror to the elephants (poor pigs, too!!!).

So how did the mahouts get the elephants to plunge into the terror of battle? Just as a human warrior might bolster his courage with a little alcohol, the elephants were given fermented rice liquor before they were driven to fight. The mahouts quite literally got them drunk.

So, as I sat thinking of war elephants, and the great vats of rice liquor into which they must have thrust their trunks, do you know what started going through my head?

That's right: Dumbo. You know the scene where he gets a little tipsy? There are a million cartoon elephants dancing in bubbles around his head, and they play the song "Pink Elephants on Parade."

Goofy? Sure. But it's a heck of a lot more fun to think about than those poor pigs! And you've got to admit it's a catchy tune.