Elephant swords

[fernando]

Another technique would be, not pegging (as per caption author's conclusion) but shorten the chain within a quick sliding system, so that the animal can not run due to not being able to stretch his legs enough to a faster moving. This would not be an unprecedented procedure .

[mahratt]

Originally Posted by fernando

Another technique would be, not pegging (as per caption author's conclusion) but shorten the chain within a quick sliding system, so that the animal can not run due to not being able to stretch his legs enough to a faster moving. This would not be an unprecedented procedure .

Absolutely right!

[ariel]

Originally Posted by fernando

Another technique would be, not pegging (as per caption author's conclusion) but shorten the chain within a quick sliding system, so that the animal can not run due to not being able to stretch his legs enough to a faster moving. This would not be an unprecedented procedure .

Perhaps. No doubt elephants were used as war machines and the means to control then were necessary and thus reasonably well developed. However, we are talking about the veracity of the descriptions of these methods.

I could find no mention of restricting their stride by adjusting chain length. On the contrary, leg chains were clearly described as “pegged” or “nailed” to the ground which, IMHO, is highly doubtful taking into account massive bulk and strength of the animals. I have read that when the animal went berserk, the mahout just severed his spinal cord adjacent to the skull.

My question, therefore, is whether we can discard these “ humane” descriptions? Do we have a right to propose ( or invent) alternative techniques ( chain length manipulation) in the absense of any evidence to their existence?

Pics in Post #77 have important relation to our topic, i. e. India. They are from SE Asia, where real war elephants were used as battle machines as late as 1895 against French.

Recommended book: Michael W. Charney “Southeast Asian Warfare 1300-1900”
Has a big chapter on war elephants.

Originally Posted by fernando

Another technique would be, not pegging (as per caption author's conclusion) but shorten the chain within a quick sliding system, so that the animal can not run due to not being able to stretch his legs enough to a faster moving. This would not be an unprecedented procedure .

Perhaps. No doubt elephants were used as war machines and the means to control then were necessary and thus reasonably well developed. However, we are talking about the veracity of the descriptions of these methods.

I could find no mention of restricting their stride by adjusting chain length. On the contrary, leg chains were clearly described as “pegged” or “nailed” to the ground which, IMHO, is highly doubtful taking into account massive bulk and strength of the animals.
My question, therefore, is whether we can discard these descriptions? Do we have a right to propose ( or invent) alternative techniques in the absense of any evidence to their existence?

Book by M.W. Charney” Southeast Asian Warfare 1300-1900” has a very big chapter about war elephants.
Salient points:
-mad elephants either wrecked havoc on their own troops and ran away from the battlefield or were killed;
- no mention of any nailing to the ground or adjusting the length of leg chains as a means of control;
-at ~1650 the use of tusk swords ( Pikes) was recorded;
- Bowery ( 1905) mentions that Sumatran animals had a 4.5-6 m chain tied to their front leg and the elephant coiled it around his trunk. That was their only weapon. Flinging the armored trunk laid low both men and horses. No free-hanging chains are mentioned;
- riders might have been armed with muskets or small swivel-guns;
- their use was limited by their skittishness and predictability: one society after another ceased to employ them as war machines;
-introduction of large caliber firepower eliminated the use of war animals by 18 century;

[mahratt]

Sometimes just need to carefully look at the miniatures that were drawn at the time when war elephants were used. On the images everything is clearly visible. Although, of course, it would be better to have the opportunity to refer to the recollections of eyewitnesses, who themselves saw the peculiarities of the use of war elephants.

[ariel]

Regretfully, all the materials discussed here suggest very strongly that that the miniatures showing fancy trunk swords and kilometers of leg chains are .. ehhh.. how to say it mildly? ..artistic license and that Nikitin’ et al accounts of 100-500 kg tusk swords are physically impossible. Travelers to new and exotic places always exaggerate and fantasize: men with dog heads, armed monkeys, half-men/half-boars, stone forts on animal’s backs, numbers of gorgeous women they had sex with, size of fish they caught, casino winnings etc

As they say, show me the money, i.e. physical examples. Up till now we saw short-bladed tusk daggers and nothing more.

[mahratt]

photo

[fernando]

This is more in a way to distinguish what period chroniclers 'saw' and what they were only 'told' of, and their candid posture about such difference.

The actual Magnum Opus of this brilliant phisician was not the "ASIA" decades but Colóquio dos simples e drogas he cousas medicinais da Índia, published in Goa in 1563. Composed of 57 coloquiums where he answers questions asked by a ficticious visitor, Dr. Ruano, about his acquired knowledge of India.
In colloquy 21 - Do Ebur ou marfim e do elefante ...
Ruano: From what disease elephants die and what is their use in these lands ?
Orta:They are very melancholic and more afraid in the night than during the day and when they sleep at night it seems as they see fearful things and set themselves free, the way to prevent it is their naires (*) to sleep on top of them and keep speaking to them so that they don't fall asleep. They have several camaras (**): many times and other times strong jealousy and fall great fury in that they brake their chains and do a lot of damage through where they go by ..... As per their service besides the work of carrying and move the artillery from one place to another they serve the Kings in battle, and there are Kings who have 1 000 elephants and others less and other times they go to war armored .... here comes the part already mentioned of the tusks weapons resembling plow irons and all .... i saw them battling what i saw them doing wrong is not other thing than put people in disorder and make them flee, some times i am told they run away and cause more disruption on their own that in the opponents, this i haven't seen.
Ruano: Is there another way they fight ?
Orta: Yes, but this is one by one with their naires that teach them trained on top of them and is a very crude battle, where they wound each other with their teeth, one attacking and the other parrying they wound each other bravely and often they may be seen striking such great blows that they hurt their foreheads that one of them falls death on the ground, and there is a Portuguese worth of faith (***) who told me he saw a very powerful elephant die from a thrust that one other gave him. They also fight if they get them drunk (****) and flee, an they sometimes grab a man with their trunk an make him in pieces, as i saw a few times.

(*) As they call the elephant's master/tamer in the Malabar. In the Deccan they call them Peluane.
(**) In modern Portuguese this means chambers, but i don't figure out what it means in this context.
(***) Reliable.
(****) Jens, not drugged but ...

[Jens Nordlunde]

Thank you Fernando.
The picture is an elephant fight before Muhammad Shah c. 1730-40.
Mughal Paintings. Art and Stories, The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2016, p. 252.