Tusks…
” To use silence so well: If I could choose for people one attribute of Elephants,
I ‘d choose this:
~~ Katy Payne
The torn boughs trailing
O’er the tusks aslant,
The saplings reeling in
the path he trod …
declares his might —
Our lord the Elephant
chief of the ways of god…
( poem by : John Lockwood Kipling )
Makhna in musth…
MUSTH…
” excitement , swiftness, odour, love, passion,
complete florescence of the body, wrath , prowess ,
and fearlessness are declared
to the eight excellences of musth ”
~~~ matangalila
Nilakantha
Makhnas…..are
tuskless male elephants….
During musth the temporal gland
of the male swells and secretes a fluid….
During this period the males seek out and mate with cows.
Musth is sometimes described as
” an instinctive desire in the male elephants to fight and even kill, before mating ”
They are generally
big fellows with powerful trunks….
A big makhna is generally feared
by the members of any herd….
They seem to make up in size
of body & trunk for the lack of tusks &
are generally enormously powerful elephants….
It has been recorded that in the case
of a fight between a good sized tusker & a makhna…
the makhna snapped off one of the tusks of its
opponent with its trunk…
many males in musth also have a continual discharge or
dribble of urine , with damp patches on their hind legs…..
Living with a damaged skull 