Elephants know your darkest secrets

November 25, 2016

IF a couple sleep together before they marry, their parents may never know. But the elephants will.

Many in this part of Cambodia are animists, particularly the Banang, the ethnic minority. Their lives have depended since ancient times on the forests and they believe spirits come out to watch at night and that only living with nature will bring them peace. Discontented spirits are behind all misfortunes, be it a broken bone or house that falls.

The greatest of the forest creatures is the elephant. The Banang have for centuries used them for labour but also for transport. They travelled only as far as an elephant could walk. They visited distant relatives and parked their elephant beside a tree until they were ready to go home again.

They lived their lives at the speed, or lack of speed, of a plodding elephant. And then life changed. The government discovered that people who had lived for ever in their communities had no documents for their land. They had been there for generations but had no title to their homes or the land on which they stood. It had never been necessary.

"The first the people knew", we were told, "was when officials turned up with bulldozers and said they were to move out, that several communities were to be merged into one. What they'd always considered their land had been sold without their knowing, usually to foreign rubber companies."

At the same time came small motorbikes, better roads and then the first cars. Villagers had less need for elephants. A male elephant costs €20 000, five times the price of a house. No surprise, then, that they were sold to rubber companies. And there they carried concrete electricity pylons or tree trunks. Or, if they were sold into the tourist trade, they spent their lives on endless, brain-deadening, foot-destroying trips round the block with western tourists on their back.

There are two misconceptions about elephants, we learned at the Elephant Valley Project. It takes only a handful of visitors a day to see the elephants it has rescued, which explains why we have spent several days at Senmonorom, awaiting our turn.

One is that elephants have strong backs, that they can carry heavy loads. The other is that their leathery skin makes them resistant to beating, even with spiked clubs. The result is that many of the project's elephants have spines and ribs deformed by their loads and that their bodies are scarred - one even blinded - from being repeatedly urged to work harder when exhausted.

A young red-haired British specialist in animal sciences led us through the undergrowth.

"Elephants are strong," Ben said sadly. "But, for their size, they're not as strong as humans. You and I, we can carry our own weight on our backs. If we have to walk long distances, we can carry 15 per cent of our own weight. An elephant can't. Its strength is all in its shoulders, above its front legs, to bear its head and its trunk. Its back is actually quite weak."

A *mahout* lends a hand while a fellow French visitor keeps her distance

It was for the elephants that we'd ridden to Senmonorom, although we hadn't expected to suffer so much in the process. We'd been lugging far less than an elephant but we had growing feelings of solidarity.

"Not only do the elephants need medical attention when they get here but we have to teach them to be elephants. Some have never washed themselves. We have to teach them by pairing them with elephants who know how to do it, so they can copy. Elephants are intelligent, they learn fast, but one here won't dip down into the water, always the last to go into the water, because of some event in her past.

"And then, for decades they've been fed only at the start and end of their working day. They will work on and on until they're exhausted and they have to rest their trunks on the ground in the hope that they'll be rewarded with something to eat and drink.

"They have to learn how to eat naturally, in the wild, because an elephant will eat 20 hours a day."

There are no rides at the Elephant Valley Project. There is no approaching of elephants, let alone touching. If an elephant comes close, fine, but it's always the elephant's choice. A happy elephant flaps its ears or turns its back, "because no animal will turn its back on anything it considers a threat.

"But"... and Ben smiles... "do watch out when an elephant turns round. Because when an elephant farts, it stinks. It really stinks."

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