Elephant: The God

Amongst Africans, the elephant is known by a name which means the same thing no matter which language one happens to speak; the Zulus call this great beast Ndlovu, while the Tsonga and Shangane people call it Njovu, the Venda know it as Ndou, and all these ancient words mean the same thing: The Forceful One. 

Our people used to believe that elephants were not merely animals, but were rather supernatural beings or gods, and that ivory, as well as the bones of the elephant, were the purest substance known. Out of ivory our people used to carve their holiest images: busts of gods and goddesses as well as those of god-kings and queens, and it is still believed even now that ornaments made of ivory possess great magical powers and they enable the possessor of them to enjoy heavenly protection at all times. Kings and chieftains used to wear such ornaments especially in times of war so as to be protected against assassins and poisoners.

There were those amongst our people who believed that an elephant was a reincarnation of a dead god, who had been killed by other gods in heaven, and in the years before the Second World War there roamed, in a part of western Tanganyika, a large elephant that the tribes people knew by the strange name of ‘Ishe’ which is the African corruption of the Islamic name for Jesus, which is Issa. One day, a gang of poachers was seen trailing this great beast and a force of warriors went for the poachers and attacked them, to protect the beast they believed was sacred, and in the ensuing skirmish all the poachers and four of the warriors were killed…Ishe lived to die of old age.

So deep is the reverence in which the elephant is held in some parts of Africa that, for example, if a member of the Masai people of Kenya finds a placenta of an elephant in the bush, he immediately erects a wooden enclosure with four entrances around it to protect it. An elephant’s placenta is held to be an extremely sacred object, which brings great good luck to the finder. It is said that when the end of the world comes, the last elephant in Africa will engage the last rhinoceros in mortal combat and both animals would die, pleading with God to use their blood to create new animals once more. Out of their blood God would create new animals, and out of their skulls and jaws and leg bones, a new and much more beautiful world.

A story by Credo Mutwa