Victorian mourning, was it learned from the Elephants?

 Elephant's are extremely intelligent animals who form strong family bonds. Capable of intense emotion and acts consistent with "burying" their dead and even shedding tears. The shocking truth behind pachyderm mourning.

Elephants use their feet to try and resuscitate the dead.

 Elephant researcher Martin Meredith had this story to tell:

  ”The entire family of a dead matriarch, including her young calf, were all gently touching her body with their trunks, trying 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 two days quietly standing over her body. They sometimes had to leave to get water or food, but they would always return.”

A female elephant guards a corpse from hyenas.

An article in the  Oct 8, 2006 New York Times Magazine discusses elephant mourning in greater detail,

“When an elephant dies, its family members engage in intense mourning and burial rituals, conducting week long vigils over the body, carefully covering it with earth and brush, revisiting the bones for years afterward, caressing the bones with their trunks, often taking turns rubbing their trunks along the teeth of a skull’s lower jaw, the way living elephants do in greeting.”

Elephants carry bones up to a mile or more

They can mourn themselves to death as well. This was evidenced in a Zoo in India. A 72 year old elephant named Damini could often be seen caressing the stomach of another female elephant who was pregnant. 

After the younger elephant died in child birth, Damini completely stopped eating and drinking resulting in her own death. Read more of her story Here.


One of the most incredible stories on elephant mourning concerns the death of a conservationist and writer, Lawrence Anthony.

 Anthony dedicated his life to conservation. He bought the Thula Thula game reserve, spread over 5,000-acre in KwaZulu-Natal. A pivotal point in his career came when he was called upon by a conservation group to rescue a group of nine elephants who had escaped their enclosure and were wreaking havoc across KwaZulu-Natal – and were about to be shot. 

Lawrence rushed to the scene and tried to communicate with the matriarch of the herd through the tone of his voice and body language. He eventually rescued them and brought them back to his reserve. He became known for his unique ability to calm traumatized elephants, After that, he became known as “the elephant whisperer.”

 


In March of 2012 Lawrence Anthony passed away...
What happened next defied all explanation.

For 12 hours, two herds of wild South African elephants slowly made their way through the Zululand bush until they reached the house of late author Lawrence Anthony, the conservationist who saved their lives.

Marching in to pay their respects to their "human" friend.

The formerly violent, rogue elephants, destined to be shot a few years ago as pests,were now on a personal mission.

For two days the herds loitered at Anthony’s rural compound on the vast Thula Thula game reserve in the South African KwaZulu – to say good-bye to the man they loved. But how did they know he had died March 7?

There are only two elephant herds at Thula Thula. According to his son Dylan, and both arrived at the Anthony family compound shortly after Anthony’s death.

“They had not visited the house for a year and a half and it must have taken them about 12 hours to make the journey,” 

 Dylan is quoted in various local news accounts.

“The first herd arrived on Sunday and the second herd, a day later. They all hung around for about two days before making their way back into the bush.”

 Are elephants capable of mourning humans? It's hard not to think these elephants didn't come to pay their respects to the man who had dedicated his life to saving theirs.