Elephants and the concept of Death

    I took the title for my post right from the Chapter 7 title from our textbook, The Archaeology of Death and Burial. In the chapter, Pearson writes a blurb on whether animals understand the concept of death, in ways to similar to humans. He talks briefly about Goodall and her chimps and then gets right into discussing one of my favourite things in the world: elephants.

Elephants greeting. Source: Wikipedia

     I've been obsessed with elephants since as far as I can remember so I was pretty stoked to read about them in a school textbook. I have so many elephant related items, my apartment looks like a shrine to the great elephant species! Anyways, Pearson goes on to talk about how African elephants bury and grieve over their dead. As I carried on reading the article, I got recollections back to a documentary I watched I few years back. I wish I could remember the name of it so that I could re-watch it; it was pretty amazing. However, Pearson brought me right back. 

    Upon seeing the bones or carcass of another elephant, a family will stop and investigate them, even if the elephant was unrelated to the group. The ritual includes touching the bones gently with their trunks while remaining very quiet, covering the body with leaves and grass, and if the elephant belonged to their own, staying with the body for days or weeks at a time.

Just beautiful.

   I've even heard stories of elephants burying sleeping humans whom they thought had perished. I love reading tid bits such as those Pearson included in our readings because it's interesting to step outside the lens of human experience of death into the broader awareness of how other species understand death. 

On a mostly related note, while trying to find the name of that documentary I watched, I found this awesome Cracked article titled "5 Mind-Blowing Ways Animals Display Human Emotion". Check it out: http://www.cracked.com/article_20141_5-mind-blowing-ways-animals-display-human-emotions.html