Elephants Souls and Death Ritual ::
Elephant intelligence
Elephants are amongst the world’s most intelligent species. With a mass just over 5 kg (11 lb), elephant brains are larger than those of any other land animal, and although the largest whales have body masses twentyfold those of a typicalelephant, whale brains are barely twice the mass of an elephant’s brain. The elephant’s brain is similar to that of humans in terms of structure and complexity – such as the elephant’s cortex having as many neurons as a human brain[1], suggestingconvergent evolution.[2] A wide variety of behaviors, including those associated with grief, learning, allomothering, mimicry,art, play, a sense of humor, altruism, use of tools, compassion, self-awareness, memory and possibly language[3] all point to a highly intelligent species that are thought to be equal with cetaceans[4][5] and primates[6][7]. Due to the high intelligence and strong family ties of elephants, some researchers argue it is morally wrong for humans to cull them.[8]
Aristotle once said that elephants were “The beast which passeth all others in wit and mind”[9].
Death ritual
Elephants are the only other species upon Earth other than humans and Neanderthals[31] known to have any recognizable ritual around death. They show a keen interest in the bones of their own kind (even unrelated elephants that have died long ago). They are often seen gently investigating the bones with their trunks and feet, and remaining very quiet. Sometimes elephants that are completely unrelated to the deceased will still visit their graves.[9] When an elephant is hurt, other elephants (also even if they are unrelated) will aid them.[19]
Elephant researcher Martin Meredith recalls an occurrence in her book about a typical elephant death ritual that was witnessed by Anthony Martin-Hall, a South African biologist who had studied elephants in Addo, South Africa for over 8 years. The entire family of a dead matriarch, including her young calf were all gently touching her body with their trunks and tried to lift her. The elephant herd were all rumbling loudly. The calf was observed to be weeping and made sounds that sounded like a scream but then the entire herd fell incredibly silent. They then began to throw leaves and dirt over the body and broke off tree branches to cover her. They spent the next 2 days quietly standing over her body. They sometimes had to leave to get water or food, but they would always return.[32] Occurrences of elephants behaving this way around human beings are common through Africa. On many occasions, they have buried dead or sleeping humans or aided them when they were hurt.[19] Meredith also recalls an event told to her by George Adamson, a Kenyan Game Warden regarding an old Turkana woman who fell asleep under a tree after losing her way home. When she woke up, there was an elephant standing over her, gently touching her. She kept very still because she was very frightened. As other elephants arrived, they began to scream loudly and buried her under branches. She was found the next morning by the local herdsmen, unharmed.[32]
George Adamson also recalls when he shot a Bull elephant from a herd that kept breaking into the Government gardens of Northern Kenya. George gave the elephant’s meat to local Turkana Tribesmen and then dragged the rest of the carcass half a mile away. That night, the other elephants found the body and took the shoulder blade and leg bone and returned the bones to the exact spot the elephant was killed.[33] Scientists often argue the extent that elephants feel emotion. A large variety of animals display what appears to be ‘sorrow’ through body language, posture, movement and actions but seeing elephants standing over a body, burying them, refusing to leave and their trunks being observed hanging limp certainly seems evidence that perhaps much deeper and complex emotions are involved.[33]
As noted earlier, the concepts of suffering and death (and even what we might refer to as “empathy”) appear to be highly developed in elephants, even regarding unexpectedly witnessed human suffering, leading to a perception by many humans who have lived in close interactivity with them that the animals appear to view humans – and occasionally other highly-developed mammals, such as domestic dogs – as somehow truly similar to themselves in this realm; sympathetic, one could say. More research obviously needs to be done in this area, but the evidence remains persuasive.
WIKIPEDIA SOURCE
