World Elephant Day – Pieces of History

Today’s post comes from Thomas Richardson, an expert archives technician at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis, Missouri. 

They’re the largest land animals, have the longest gestation period for land animals, are hard workers, are the core of many religious beliefs, and have done everything from going to war to protecting the tiny town of Whoville. They’re elephants!

August 12 is recognized as World Elephant Day, and here at the National Archives, we showcase the beauty, significance, and welfare of these mammoth animals. They’ve been gifts from heads of state, political mascots, beloved entertainment icons, and endangered creatures being saved from poachers and extinction.

Today, only three species of elephants exist in the wild: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. While the species differ slightly in appearance, elephants behave in much the same manner in terms of social organization, raising offspring, and playing a key role in their ecology. 

If you haven’t noticed, elephants are HUGE. Their skeletons contain over 350 bones; their weight can range from 8,000 to 13,000 pounds (their hearts alone can weigh almost 50 pounds); and just the trunk contains more than 150,000 muscle fibers. The trunk functions as nose, hand, and straw, allowing elephants to carry items up to 800 pounds, suck up gallons of water, and use it like a snorkel when submerged underwater. Male and female elephants can both have tusks, but males’ trunks are typically larger and longer.

Elephants have a unique social structure, being led by a matriarch within a larger matrilineal family group. Males are typically more solitary and normally only associate with a group during mating periods. Otherwise, males are alone or live with other males. Among thousands of mammalian species, elephants have been known to excel in maintaining large family groups over decades, with older generations caring for calves in the absence of parents. 

Elephants have a long history that is due not just to their biological evolution rooted in the Palaeocene Epoch 60 million years ago. Cultural and religious depictions in the earliest years of human civilization made the elephant a staple in many Asian and African cultures. In early antiquity, elephants were domesticated and used by humans in agriculture. They carried heavy loads over short distances and provided excellent transportation over rough terrain.

Elephants were also pressed into warfare. Ancient kingdoms in India and Southeast Asia were among the first to tame and equip elephants for war, outfitting them with metal tusks and wooden parapets. The most famous instance was during the Second Punic War, when Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca marched overland and crossed the Italian Alps with dozens of elephants (no remains of which have been found as it has been speculated that Carthaginian troops ate them when food supplies ran low).

Elephants are a major focus in religion as well. Ganesh, a god with the head of an elephant, is a significant deity in Hinduism. The Eight World Elephants, Ashtadiggajas, are those responsible for supporting the earth in Hindu cosmology. African religious fables from the Ashanti people tell of wise elephants that are consulted to settle disputes among humans. Many temples in Southeast Asia hold captive elephants that are caparisoned for religious holidays.

These are just some examples of the many interactions elephants have with humans. Not all associations have been positive, however. For as long as elephants have been seen as sources of divine and natural symbolism, they have been exploited as a natural resource for profit. The most unscrupulous example is the ivory trade. Elephant tusks are made of dentine and mineralized collagen making it tough yet durable. Walruses, whales, hippopotamuses, warthogs, and other mammals with large teeth are sources of ivory. Harvesting ivory though is fatal to the animal.

Hunting elephants for their tusks caused a significant drop in their population. Nearly half the African elephant population was killed as a direct result of the ivory trade. The practice had always been controversial, but by the 1970s, as elephant populations dwindled, a handful of nations began government regulation of the practice.

In 1973, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (shortened to CITES) was a multilateral treaty signed by member states of the United Nations. The treaty laid specific terms for restricting the trade of endangered species and instituted programs for maintaining biodiversity and implementing sanctions on black market goods and poachers. Poaching still poses a significant threat to elephant populations, but numbers have increased again since the early 2000s. The United States Customs and Border Protection agency maintains a list of prohibited and restricted items that can be imported, one of which is ivory. 

So, if elephants aren’t indigenous to the United States (since the last wooly mammoth in North America died over 10,000 years ago) how have elephants influenced our nation? Enter German cartoonist Thomas Nast. During the 1874 midterm elections as political and economic scandals fueled third party antagonisms, Nast depicted Republican votes as an Asian elephant rampaging through a forest, scattering other animals representing various political platforms.

Nast’s prolific reputation as a political cartoonist at the time made it a relatable and powerful image in the United States. It had a positive reception among Republicans, and by the beginning of the 20th century, the elephant became a symbol of the Republican Party and has been used to depict Republicans in political cartoons ever since. 

Elephants have their own connection to the White House as well. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln politely refused a gift of war elephants from King Rama IV of Siam, citing steam power as superior to animal power.

In 1947, President Truman received an elephant as a gift from Norodom Sihanouk, the King of Cambodia (despite the fact he was a Democrat and might not have wished to be photographed with an elephant).

Future President Gerald Ford used elephants in his 1950 congressional campaign. An elephant parade marched through Washington, DC, celebrating the inauguration of Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953.

And in 1984, President Jayewardene of Sri Lanka presented a baby elephant to President Ronald Reagan at the White House; fully caparisoned in gold and red velvet. 

Elephants have and continue to occupy a special place in our global heritage. They are a keystone species serving as a barometer for the health of an ecosystem. Whether they are revered as divine beings or sports mascots, elephants have shaped the natural environments and the species around them, humans included.