Traditional: 'Salute to the Elephant'

Traditional: ‘Salute to the Elephant’

O elephant, possessor of a savings-basket full of money.

O elephant, huge as a hill. Even in a crouching posture.

O elephant, enfolded by honor: demon, flapping fans of war

A demon who snaps tree branches into many pieces and moves on to the forest farm.

            5          O elephant, who ignores ‘I have fled to my father for refuge’

                        Let alone ‘to my mother’

                        Mountainous Animal, Huge Beast who tears a man like a garment

                        And hangs him up on a tree.

The sight of whom causes people to stampede towards a hill of safety.

            10       My chant is a salute to the elephant.

                        Ajanaku who walks with a heavy tread.

A demon who swallows palm-fruit bunches whole, even with the splay pistil-cells.

O elephant, praise named Laaye, massive animal, blackish-grey in complexion.

O elephant, who single-handedly caused a tremor in a dense tropical forest.

15       O elephant, who stands sturdy and alert, who walks slowly as if reluctantly.

            O elephant, whom one sees and points towards with all one’s figure.

            The hunter’s boast at home is not repeated when he really meets the elephant.

            Ajanaku looks back with difficulty like a person suffering from a sprained neck.

20       the elephant has a porter’s knot without having any load on his head.

            The elephant’s head is his burden which he balances.

            O elephant praise named Laaye, ‘O death, please stop following me’

            This is part and parcel of the elephant’s appellation.

            If you wish to know the elephant, the elephant who is a veritable ferry-man.

25       The elephant whom honor matches, the elephant who continually swings his trunk.

            His upper fly-switch

            It’s the elephant, whose eyes are veritable water-jars.

            O elephant, the vagrant par excellence

            Whose molar teeth are as wide as palm-oil pits in Ijesaland.

30       O elephant, lord of the forest, respectfully called oriribobo

            O elephant whose teeth are like shafts.

            One tooth of his is a porter’s load. O elephant fondly called Otiko

            Who has a beast-of-burden’s proper neck?

            O elephant, whom the hunter sometimes sees face to face.

35       O elephant, whom the hunter at other times sees from the rear.

            Beast who carries mortar and yet walks with a swaggering gait.

            Primeval leper, animal treading ponderously.

This is a traditional poem; therefore, it is a traditional communal property. The credit of its composition is not associated with any individual poet. However, ‘Salute to the Elephant’ is translated from the Yoruba language into English by Professor Abidoye Babaola who has done a lot of scholarly works in the area of Yoruba oral literature.

                       

BACKGROUND TO THE POEM

In traditional Yoruba culture and community,   oratory and orality are highly relishing. Yoruba culture is fully developed orally in all forms: songs, proverbs, rhetoric, and poetry. These are orally transmitted from one generation to another. Such meticulously fashioned oral splendor can be found in incantatory chant (ofo) hunter’s dirge (iremoje) hunter’s chant (ijala), lineage poetry (oriki orile), and oracular chant.

The hunter’s chant (ijala) which is our concern here is used by hunters to address their games, especially the dreaded and the dreadful. In addition to appraising their games, hunters also use ijala to recount their mysterious experiences or encounters during their hunting expeditions. In this case, the hunter-poet celebrates the massive structure and gigantic strength of the elephant in a language that is simple, elegant and replete with images and figures of speech.

THEME

The poem explores the massive physical structure of the elephant to show his destructive strength and his economic value. The poem has a set of themes that are interlocking but all bordering on the strength and structure of the elephant. One of the themes is that the elephant has a great economic value. This is expressly stated in line 1: ‘O elephant, possessor of a savings-basket full of money’. This subtly and metaphorically suggests the wealth that comes to a lucky hunter that kills the elephant has to sell such an animal that is so big that ‘even in a crouching posture, he is ‘as huge as a hill’ (line 2); and ‘his own head is a burden to him’ (line 21). What a profitable hunt to kill an animal whose eyes alone are ‘veritable water-jars’ (line 27), whose ‘molar teeth are as wide as palm-oil pits, (line 29), and only ‘one tooth of his is a porter’s load (line 32).

Another theme is that the elephant is a destructive animal. This fact is established in the following line:

Demon who snaps tree-branches into many pieces and moves on to the farms. (4)

….. Huge beast who tears a man like a garment. (7)

And hangs him up on a tree. (8)

All this explains why at the sight of the elephant ‘people stampede towards a hill of safety’. (9)

There is another theme that the elephant is death incarnate. This is stated in line 22.

Which is an apostrophe.

                                    ‘…. O death, please stop following me’

And in the classical allusion contained in line 24:

                                    ‘…. The elephant is a veritable ferry-man.’

There is also a theme that the elephant, as a result of his outstanding physical features is an admired and a honored animal. This fact is clearly stated in:

                                    ‘O elephant, enfolded by honor…’

And  

                                    ‘the elephant whom honor matches’ (line 25)

Therefore

                                    ‘My chant is a salute to the elephant’. (line 10)

In the main, the poem seeks to show the ambivalence inherent in the physical size of the elephant – the economic, advantage of the size, and his destructive characteristics symbolized in his heavy tread.

FORMS AND STRUCTURE

The poem has 37 lines of unequal length, and it is not divided into stanzas. Though the poem has no rhyme scheme, it has a rhythmic movement, which is regulated by the punctuation marks. ’Salute to the Elephant’ takes the form of a direct address to eulogize the elephant who is the subject of this poem. The poetic persona, who is not specifically named, is a hunter.

Twenty out of the whole thirty-seven lines that constitute the poem are a sentence each. These sentences make statements in relation to the elephant’s complexion, physical size, strength, destructive nature, and economic value. The poem is ambivalent in tone because, on the one hand, it comprehensively articulates the physical properties of the elephant which it admires and celebrates. On the other hand, it highlights the awe which the sight of the elephant evokes in people. This makes the elephant to be admired and dreaded.

LANGUAGE AND TECHNIQUE

The language of the poem is not only simple, it is also based on the oral tradition of the Yoruba’s. In its destruction of the size and strength of the elephant, the poem gives employs some figurative expressions, as well as images to make its description clear and vivid. The fact also has to be borne in mind that it is a translated placed of work from the Yoruba oral tradition. An analysis of some of the figurative uses of language is given below:

                                    Metaphor                lines 1, 3, 24, and 37

                                    Simile                                    lines 2, 7, 19, 29, and 39

                                    Hyperbole               lines 2, 7, 27, 29, and 32

                                    Personification      lines 1, 3, 5, and 25

                                    Onomatopoeia       lines 30 and 32

Repetition               lines 13 22, 17 and, 11 and 17, the phrase ‘O elephant’ is repeated  many times in the poem.

Allusion                    lines 24 is a classical allusion because in classical legend, the ferry-manwas charged with the  responsibility of conveying bodies to the land of spirits.

Euphemism:            lines 24 is also a euphemism.

A few images are used to depict the association of the elephant with wealth, destruction, and death; and to emphasize his massive physical structure. The analysis is given below.

An image of affluence is created by presenting the elephant as a money-bag in line 1. We can say that the elephant ‘walks slowly as if reluctantly’ (line 15) and ‘with a swaggering gait’ (36) because, in addition to his heavy physical build, he is also a big man. And a popular Yoruba parlance means jeje lolowo n yan, which means a wealthy man walks gently or slowly. This image is further reinforced in line 30 where the elephant is regarded as ‘lord of the forest’, that is, the one who owns the forest and therefore deserves the respect of everyone. This also explains why he is respectfully called Orirobobo.

An image of destruction and devastation is also created from the second half of lines 3 – 9. This image is wrapped up in line 14 because the word ‘tremor’ apparently and appropriately evokes destruction and devastation. Besides the fact that the elephant is directly addressed as a death in line 22, an image of death is also suggested in the euphemism contained in line 24, and in the attributive name of the elephant – Ajanaku.

Images of hills and mountains are used to depict the colossal physical structure of the elephant. The heaviness of the elephant’s frame is suggested in his ‘ponderous trading’ and in his burdensome head which causes him great difficulty when he looks back.

It is useful to remark that the beauty and success of this poem, as a creative work of art, lies in the simplicity of its language, its graphic description of the elephant which is clearly brought out in fitting figures of speech and images that are easy to understand. All these enhance the poem’s moral nature.

REVISION QUESTION

1.      The tone of this poem is ambivalent. Discuss.

2.     In what way has the use of imagery helped in the graphic description of the elephant?

3.     How have alliteration and hyperbole contributed to the vivid description of the elephant?

4.     What device is used to emphasize the subject of this?

5.     Is the elephant really being addressed in this poem? Justify your answer.

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