A Sketch of Assam: With some account of the Hill TribesButler, John, Major
History
A Sketch of Assam: With some account of the Hill Tribes
Butler, John, Major
Assam (India) -- Description and travel; Assam (India) -- Social life and customs; Ethnology -- India -- Assam
be trusted to walk alone, unhampered with ropes. When a male elephant,
with tusks, becomes entangled with the noose round his neck--which
noose, by the way, has a knot to prevent strangulation--the animal
frequently rushes down with the utmost ferocity on the tame elephants,
and with his tusks gores them in a most frightful manner. In such a
case it becomes necessary to quickly bind his legs with large ropes,
and no further resistance is then of any avail. The individuals
who throw the noose over the wild elephant's head are oftentimes
in the most imminent danger, but their agility in shifting their
position to any part of the body of the tame elephant, enables them to
elude injury. The tractability and sagacity of the tame elephant in
making every effort to secure the wild elephant by putting the ropes
round his legs, is very remarkable. Indeed, so cunning are the tame
elephants,--so intuitive is their apprehension of their duty--that
there is little difficulty in capturing the wild elephant.
It is calculated that not less than five hundred elephants are yearly
caught in Assam and sent to Western India for sale. At Chittagong,
in the south-eastern quarter of Bengal, the mode of catching wild
elephants is very different from that adopted in Assam. Herds of
fifty elephants are there surrounded by two or three hundred men,
the jungle is filled, and a regular barricade of trees, with a trench,
formed; the elephants are thus unable to break loose; tame elephants
are then sent into the enclosure, which is called a Keddah, and the
wild elephants are quickly secured with ropes.
The formation of these enclosures is a work of great labour and
considerable expense; but the Government are amply repaid by
the sale of about one hundred elephants annually, caught in this
manner. Chittagong elephants are considered very superior to those
caught in Assam, the former being stout, strong, short-legged beasts,
and the latter lanky and weak; but whether the prejudice be just,
may be doubted, as there are many noble elephants in Assam that
would prove most serviceable in any part of India, and the prices
they would fetch amply repay any charge incurred by Government for
an elephant-hunting establishment in Assam.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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