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The Largest of Ethiopia's Living Animals, II

Addis Tribune (Addis Adaba)
December 27, 2002

Richard Pankhurst

Ancient Ethiopian Elephant-Hunting

This post turns to old-time Ethiopian hunting methods, as reported by the classical writers.

The ancient Greeks, at least in part on account of the Ptolemaic experience, took a keen interest in Ethiopian or neighbouring other African methods of elephant-hunting. Their accounts, irrespective of their accuracy, which may well require debate, deserve historical attention.

Diodorus

Diodorus, basing himself, as so often, on Agarthachides, writes of what he calls the "Ethiopians known as Elephant-fighters", who, we may assume, inhabited what is today eastern Sudan, north-western Ethiopia, or western Eritrea. Of these people he reports:

"Dwelling as they do in regions covered with thickets and with trees growing close together, they carefully observe the place where the elephants enter and their favourite resorts, watching them from the tallest trees; and when they are in herds they do not set on them, since they would have no hope of success, but they lay their hands on them as they go about singly, attacking them in an astonishingly daring manner. For as the beast in its wandering comes near the tree in which the watcher happens to be hidden, the moment it is passing the spot he seizes its tail with his hands and plants his feet against its left flank; he has hanging from his shoulders an axe, light enough so that a blow may be struck with one hand and yet exceedingly sharp, and seizing this in his right he hamstrings the elephant's right leg, raining blows upon it and maintaining the position of his body with his left hand. And they bring an astonishing swiftness to bear upon this task, since there is a contest between the two of them for their very lives; for all that is left to the hunter is either to get the better of the animal, or die himself, the situation not admitting any other conclusion, as for the beast which has been hamstrung, sometimes being unable to turn about because it is hard for it to move and sinking down on the place where it has been hurt, it falls on the ground and causes the death of the Ethiopian along with his own, and sometimes squeezing the man against a rock or tree it crushes him with its weight until it has killed him. In some cases, however, the elephant in the extremity of its suffering is far from thinking of turning on its attacker, but flees across the plain until the man who has set his feet upon it, striking on the same place with his axe, has severed the tendons and paralysed the beast. And as soon as the beast has fallen they run together in companies, and cutting the flesh off the hind-quarters of the elephant while it is alive they hold a feast".

Ethiopian elephants, from an engraving in Ludolf's seventeenth century "Historia of Ethiopia,"

which claims that these animals almost share "Human understanding"

Photius

<![if !supportEmptyParas]>Photius, who gives a similar account, also describes a second method of hunting, as reported by Agathachides. He states that "three men armed with a single bow and numerous arrows covered with snake poison would place themselves in the forest on the tracks of the beasts". Then: "On the approach of the animal one of the hunters holds the bow firmly against his foot, while the other two stretch the cord with all their force, and shoot the arrow, aiming at a single point, the middle of the flank, so as to pierce the skin and wound the beast in the pit of its stomach; the creature thus hit writhes, then shakes convulsively, loses its strength, and collapses".

One last, apparently most ingenious local method of hunting (the accuracy of which may be questioned) is reported by both Diodorus and Photius. They claim that the hunters would cut the trees against which the animals were accustomed to rub themselves and often slept. The trees thus sawn, fell, they assert, in such a way that the animals, finding nothing to lean upon, lost their equilibrium, and thus became an easy prey for the hunters.

Do we believe this?

Diodorus, writing of the latter, says:

"Some of the natives who dwell nearby hunt the elephants without exposing themselves to dangers, overcoming their strength by cunning. For it is the habit of this animal, whenever it has had its full of grazing, to lie down to sleep, the manner in which it does this being different from that of all other four-footed animals; for it cannot bring its whole bulk to the ground by bending its knees, but leans against a tree and thus gets the rest which comes with sleep. Consequently the tree, by reason of the frequent leaning against it by the animal, becomes both rubbed and covered with mud, and the place about it, furthermore, shows both tracks and many signs, whereby the Ethiopians who search for such traces discover where the elephants take their rest. Accordingly, when they come upon such a tree, they saw it near the ground until it requires only a little push to make it fall; thereupon, after removing the traces of their own presence, they quickly depart in anticipation of the approach of the animal, and towards evening the elephant, filled with food, comes to his accustomed haunt. But as soon as he leans against the tree with his entire weight he at once rolls to the ground along with the tree, and after his fall he remains lying on his back the night through... Then the Ethiopians who have sawn the tree gather at dawn, and when they have slain the beast without danger to themselves they pitch their tents at the place and remain there until they have consumed the fallen animal".

Such methods of hunting are also mentioned by Strabo, and should be compared with accounts by later writers.

Elephant-hunting in Post-Pharaonic Times

Elephant-hunting in the Ethiopian region continued in post-Pharaonic times. The "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea", an important Greek text probably written around the first century AD, reports that at Adulis, as well as other ports on the northern Horn of Africa, "there was imported... iron, which is made into spears used against elephants and other beasts, and in their wars". Describing this hunting the author observes: "Practically the whole number of elephants and rhinoceroses that are killed live in the places inland, although at rare intervals they hunted on the sea-coast even near Adulis".

Further evidence of the scale of elephant-hunting at this time is evident from the fact that ivory, according to both the Periplus and Pliny was one of Adulis's principal exports.

Elephant-Taming

How far the Aksumites had mastered the skill of taming elephants is uncertain. Munro-Hay, a modern historian of Aksum, speculating in his book "Aksum: An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity", as to whether "the rather unreliable African elephant could have been utilised" to help move the famous Aksum obelisks, observes that this is "not known, but makes an interesting speculation".

Evidence from the Aksumite period is in fact contradictory. An early fourth century inscription of King Ezana refers to his deploying a military unit called daqén, which some authorities have assumed to be related to zahon, the present-day Amharic for "elephant", from which they assumed that the regiment was accompanied by one or more of these animals. The question is further complicated by the fact that the usual Ge'ez term for elephant is nagé, which two linguists, the Frenchman Halévy and the German Littmann, have derived from the Sanscrit naga, leading them to suppose that the Aksumites may in fact have been importing elephants from western India.

Two centuries later, Kosmas Indikopleustes, an Egyptian merchant-cum-monk who visited both Adulis and Aksum, emphatically stated in his book "The Christian Topography" that "the Ethiopians do not understand the art of taming elephants". He nevertheless contradicts himself by continuing: "Should the king wish to have one or two for show, they capture them young and subject them to training".

Nonnosus, a Byzantine ambassador to Aksum who visited Aksum at about the same time, claims on the other hand that Emperor Kaléb actually had - wonder of wonders - a chariot pulled by elephants.

Both writers testify to the Aksumite kingdom's immense population of elephants. Nonnosus states that at Aue, midway between Aksum and Adulis, he saw "a large group of elephants, about five thousand in number". . Kosmas agrees as to the multitude of these mighty animals, and declares: "The country abounds with them, and they have large tusks which are exported by sea from Ethiopia even into India and Persia and the Homerite country [south Arabia] and the Roman dominion".

And that was quite a journey!

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