from the earth. Tallulah, another member of the family, even tried stuffing a trunkful of grass into Tina’s mouth. Tina’s mother, with great difficulty, lifted the limp body with her mighty tusks. Then, with a sharp crack, Teresia’s tusk broke under the strain, leaving a jagged stub of ivory and bloody tissue.
The elephants refused to leave the body, however. They began to dig in the rocky dirt and, with their trunks, sprinkled soil over Tina’s lifeless form. Some went into the brush and broke branches, which they brought back and placed on the carcass. By nightfall the body was nearly covered with branches and earth. Throughout the night members of the family stood in vigil over their fallen friend. Only as dawn began to break did they leave, heading back to the safety of the Amboseli reserve. Teresia, Tina’s mother, was the last to go.
I have often watched people linger at the graveside after the ceremony of committal. The body has been returned to earth and the spirit commended to the keeping of God. The prayers have all been said and the last “Amen” has been uttered. Yet the family members remain by the grave, saying their final farewells. Perhaps elephants feel a similar reluctance to say goodbye to their loved ones. One mother elephant whose calf was stillborn stayed with the body four days, according to Moss, protecting it from lions and scavengers that lay in wait. Mothers who lose their calves can be lethargic for days afterward, she discovered, and the loss of a family matriarch can disrupt the social organization for long periods, sometimes permanently. It is not unscientific to suppose that elephants may experience shock and depression comparable to what human beings feel when a loved one dies.
Other eyewitnesses agree with that assessment. D.J. Schubert, who became well-acquainted with elephants while working in the Peace Corps in West Africa, once chanced upon a family of elephants surrounding a fallen infant. After long hours of trying to help the baby to its feet, the elders finally buried the corpse with dirt, grass, and leaves. Family members then continued to stand watch, slowly rocking their great bodies and comforting each other, intertwining their trunks and using that sensuous appendage to gently touch each other’s mouthparts, seemingly in a kiss. “I had just witnessed an elephant funeral,” Schubert says.5 The Peace Corps volunteer was sleepless later that night, feeling bereft and alone, remembering the screams that had been exchanged between the mother and her sick, dying child. Who could doubt that the elephants themselves were also troubled and uneasy? As evening descended, the family with a baby missing must have known something of what religious people call “the dark night of the soul.”
I feel a sense of compassion for Teresia and also for Koko, pained and at the same time comforted to realize that in thinking and wondering about death I am not alone. Koko’s answers to the question “Where do gorillas go when they die?” are probably as good as yours or mine. None of us really knows what happens to people or primates or other living things when they die. One thing seems certain, however. All of us face the end of life with some of the same primary emotions. It is wrenching. It makes us sad. Although of different species we are not so separate as we seem.
I feel richer knowing that gorillas love—not just like human beings, but in their own meaningful way—and that elephants also share feelings of tenderness and grief—not just like ours, but not so different, either. Such knowledge reminds me that my own private loads of anguish and my own private moments of intimacy and joy are not so private after all. The realization that we share tears and affection tells me that you and I and Tina and All Ball are interconnected. We are part of a larger world: not an inert or unfeeling world but a world full of pain, healing, passion, and hope.
In such a world we find the consolation of companionship. As Helen Keller writes, “We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world—the company of those who have known suffering.” The company of the bereaved may be much larger than we once imagined. It may include not only gorillas and elephants but many others in the nonhuman realm whose thoughts and emotions about the end of life are similar to our own. A friend of mine who raised cattle on a small farm in Central America told me how one day a calf was slaughtered by a band of campesinos, who roasted the flesh for an impromptu fiesta. For weeks afterward, until the onset of the rainy season, the remainder of the herd gathered each afternoon and stood lowing in a circle around the spot where the young one had been butchered. How can we heedlessly take the life of another animal? How can we kill without wondering what agony that creature feels, or what heartbreak besets its mate and offspring? Knowing that our pain is shared might make us more careful, less callous, in our dealings with other creatures.
Concern for the distress of animals is a time-honored precept of many religious traditions. Accounts of elephants shedding tears can be traced all the way back to the Ramayana, one of the ancient scriptures of India, and ahimsa, the principle of non-injury toward other living things, has been a part of Hindu philosophy for thousands of years. Buddhists, similarly, vow to free all sentient beings from suffering. Jains refuse to kill even the smallest organism. Western religions have not always been so attuned to the plight of other creatures. Yet the prophet Mohammed is said to have awakened from his nap one afternoon to find a small, sick kitten sleeping on the edge of his cloak; he cut off his garment rather than disturb the pathetic creature. Hebrew scriptures contain numerous admonitions to care for creation, as in Deuteronomy, where the law forbids harnessing a bull and-a donkey together, since “the weaker would suffer in trying to keep up with the stronger.” In the New Testament, the apostle Paul tells us in characteristically mythic language that “the whole created universe groans in all its parts” under the burdens of suffering and death. Perhaps if we listen intently we can hear the groaning of the animals, who beg for our mercy and forbearance.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
