Elephant swords

fernando · 13th December 2018, 12:47 PM

Points taken Ariel ... and undisputed; restraining chains for captivity and restricted movimentation, such as parades or fighting sessions.
This brings a question; how do they 'store' elephants ? We can follow Alvaro Velho's description of how they teach the female to go find a male and entices him to follow her and falls into the disguised trapping pit; where he spends six days before they start feeding him, firstly with little food and more each following day until he starts coming to eat. This goes on for a month, when they start bringing him food while they soften him, up to when they lay (with him) on the pit ground. And this they do for as many days as needed to lay their hands on his teeth. After which, they go down and throw some gross chains on his feet, in having them placed they teach him so well that nothing they miss except to talk. And then they keep them in stables, like horses; and a good elephant is worth 2 000 cruzados.

Could the term used by Garcia de Orta, camaras (chambers) be equivalent to Velho's stables ?

However if we consider such stables resource to be consistent with the needs to lodge a couple civilian animals for working purposes, how would they do with a thousand war ones ? Open air, chains by the thousand ... pegged ?

Another subject yet to be (more) clarified is that of the use of whipping chains in war elephants trunks. It might be pure fantasy but, there is no smoke without fire ... or is there ?

PS:
Time to remind that, ongoing translations are passive of unwilling flaws; some of the posted episodes are picked from the original post-medieval scripts which contain, for a non expert, several 'awkward' expressions; and still one has to interpreter them and then convert them into a non native idiom; no language degree here. Efforts go for a reasonable transmission of the essential parts in context.

13th December 2018, 12:47 PM	#30
fernando Lead Moderator European Armoury Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Portugal Posts: 9,666	Points taken Ariel ... and undisputed; restraining chains for captivity and restricted movimentation, such as parades or fighting sessions. This brings a question; how do they 'store' elephants ? We can follow Alvaro Velho's description of how they teach the female to go find a male and entices him to follow her and falls into the disguised trapping pit; where he spends six days before they start feeding him, firstly with little food and more each following day until he starts coming to eat. This goes on for a month, when they start bringing him food while they soften him, up to when they lay (with him) on the pit ground. And this they do for as many days as needed to lay their hands on his teeth. After which, they go down and throw some gross chains on his feet, in having them placed they teach him so well that nothing they miss except to talk. And then they keep them in stables, like horses; and a good elephant is worth 2 000 cruzados. Could the term used by Garcia de Orta, camaras (chambers) be equivalent to Velho's stables ? However if we consider such stables resource to be consistent with the needs to lodge a couple civilian animals for working purposes, how would they do with a thousand war ones ? Open air, chains by the thousand ... pegged ? Another subject yet to be (more) clarified is that of the use of whipping chains in war elephants trunks. It might be pure fantasy but, there is no smoke without fire ... or is there ? PS: Time to remind that, ongoing translations are passive of unwilling flaws; some of the posted episodes are picked from the original post-medieval scripts which contain, for a non expert, several 'awkward' expressions; and still one has to interpreter them and then convert them into a non native idiom; no language degree here. Efforts go for a reasonable transmission of the essential parts in context.