Elephants in African Myths
<p>A myth from the Kamba tribe in Kenya¹ offers an origin story for elephants that explains their intelligence: elephants were once human. In the tale, a poor man, hearing of the wealthy, generous Ivonya-Ngia (“He that feeds the Poor”), set out to discover the secret to being rich. After a long journey, the poor man arrived at a beautiful mansion surrounded by verdant pastures with abundant herds of cattle and sheep. Ivonya-Ngia generously offered the poor man a hundred sheep and a hundred cows, but the poor man refused, demanding not charity, but Ivonya-Ngia’s secret to success. So Ivonya-Ngia gave the poor man ointment and told him to rub it on his wife’s canine teeth. The poor man left and convinced his wife to participate, because it would make them rich. Soon after, her teeth elongated and toughened into ivory tusks the length of a man’s arm. The poor man pulled the tusks and sold them, and excitedly began rubbing the ointment on her teeth again. This time when his wife’s tusks grew in, she refused to let her husband touch them, and eventually her entire body changed, growing and greying until she changed into an elephant. She left her husband to wander the forest, where she gave birth to their sons, the first line of elephants.</p>
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