Elephant swords

[ariel]

Beats me...
I just do not understand why don’t we have any physical “ trunk” swords?

We have living examples of outdated temple swords, super heavy training swords, exotic tribal swords, variety of sousson pattas, - i.e. by definition rare examples that were superseded by the widely used ones, but no “trunk” swords.

Fighting elephants were used for centuries and in humongous numbers. And still, we have physical examples of “ tusk” swords but not “ trunk “ ones.

Perhaps, the local medieval chapter of Indian PETA banned their use and destroyed all the specimens:-))))))

[kronckew]

Military Elephants when they die, like Vikings, must die holding their sword in their trunk and are thus buried with them in the elephant graveyard, secretly, by the other martial elephants, a place which no living human is allowed to discover. From there they Enter the elephant equivalent of Valhalla, where each Male elly has a herd of 72 Females and a horde of human servants to cater to his every whim. As long as they have a sword in their trunk, which is locked with a random 1024 character and number combination (with special symbols) password only the elephant can remember. Thus Elephant trunk swords do not seem to exist in the Human world. It is the will of Ganesh.

[fernando]

Wayne ... please !

[fernando]

Originally Posted by ariel

... Fighting elephants were used for centuries and in humongous numbers. And still, we have physical examples of “ tusk” swords but not “ trunk “ ones...

Could it be that tusk swords had a more uniform shape, more subject of adornment and all, and lived longer due to their later use in parades and escorts ... and trunk swords were more of a raw and random implement, more doomed to disappear into scrap ?
Indeed without a living example we can only speculate.

On the other hand, some of these period chroniclars were sharp narrators; difficult to digest that they confused trunks with tusks.
Still we face situations like:

Linschoten, a Dutch adventurer that visited those areas aboard Portuguese ships (1570-80), from whom he 'borrowed' significant navigation notions:

...Those from Ceylon (Sri lanka) and Pegu (Burmania) use elephants in war; they bind swords to their teeth, and above them go five or six men with beasts, arches and pots of fire; but if an elephant goes back, the others follow and run over their own troops...

João Ribeiro, a Captain who has been in command of the Portugueses forces in the island (1685-93), having written "HISTORIC FATALITY OF CEYLON ISLAND"

... The King of Candia, when wiling to attack us, brought in the front of his army some elephants with whom he could break us, and they placed in their trunks shapeless swords the width of a hand and each brought on top two mahouts, so that we killed one, the other remained...


So here have two guys writing about the same island, both mentioning elephants warmed with swords, however with a distinct system.

.

[ariel]

Tough to argue with eye witnesses.