# How to bury an elephant? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 22, 2017, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-bury-an-elephant/802366 "2017-11-22T02:55:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-bury-an-elephant/802366/21 "2017-11-24T14:53:07Z")
In the novel “The Old Wives’ Tale”, they use two other elephants to assist in loading a dead elephant onto a train car. The (fictional) incident takes place in the 1860s. > [@](#): > > On the previous night one of the three Wombwell elephants had suddenly knelt on a man in the tent; he had then walked out of the tent and picked up another man at haphazard from the crowd which was staring at the great pictures in front, and tried to put this second man into his mouth. Being stopped by his Indian attendant with a pitchfork, he placed the man on the ground and stuck his tusk through an artery of the victim’s arm. He then, amid unexampled excitement, suffered himself to be led away. He was conducted to the rear of the tent, just in front of Baines’s shuttered windows, and by means of stakes, pulleys, and ropes forced to his knees. His head was whitewashed, and six men of the Rifle Corps were engaged to shoot at him at a distance of five yards, while constables kept the crowd off with truncheons. He died instantly, rolling over with a soft thud. The crowd cheered, and, intoxicated by their importance, the Volunteers fired three more volleys into the carcase, and were then borne off as heroes to different inns. **The elephant, by the help of his two companions, was got on to a railway lorry and disappeared into the night.** Such was the greatest sensation that has ever occurred, or perhaps will ever occur, in Bursley. The excitement about the repeal of the Corn Laws, or about Inkerman, was feeble compared to that excitement. Mr. Critchlow, who had been called on to put a hasty tourniquet round the arm of the second victim, had popped in afterwards to tell John Baines all about it. Mr. Baines’s interest, however, had been slight. Mr. Critchlow succeeded better with the ladies, who, though they had witnessed the shooting from the drawing-room, were thirsty for the most trifling details. > > The next day it was known that the elephant lay near the playground, pending the decision of the Chief Bailiff and the Medical Officer as to his burial. And everybody had to visit the corpse. No social exclusiveness could withstand the seduction of that dead elephant. Pilgrims travelled from all the Five Towns to see him. Later, the elephant is chopped up for souvenirs by the crowd. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2017, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-bury-an-elephant/802366/22 "2017-11-24T15:28:56Z")
> [@JPrescott](#): > > Am I the only one that mentally added “Need answer quick!” to the end of the thread title? No. ---
**Author:** ![leo153](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/958977/32.png) [@leo153](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leo153)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2018, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-bury-an-elephant/802366/23 "2018-04-18T20:37:51Z")
> [@Iggy](#): > > If the story of [Mary the elephant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_(elephant)) (photo in Wikipedia article may be disturbing to some) is any indication you dig the hole pretty much where the animal dies. Use a water hose to remove the last bit of earth. Let gravity do the work. Brilliant! ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2018, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-bury-an-elephant/802366/24 "2018-04-18T22:17:30Z")
Now you’ve changed your claim, haven’t you? You know we haven’t got an elephant. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2018, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-bury-an-elephant/802366/25 "2018-04-18T22:27:20Z")
This is how the town of Oquawka, Illinois dealt with this issue in 1972. > **[Norma Jean Elephant (1942-1972) - Find a Grave...](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/15631829/norma-jean-elephant)** > > Norma Jean was a full grown elephant with the Clark and Walters Circus. She was the main attraction when one night, on July 17, 1972, she was struck and killed by lightning. Her trainer, Possum Red, was knocked thirty feet by the blast. She was... Here’s a slightly more detailed story. > **[Norma Jean, Elephant Killed By Lightning, Oquawka, Illinois](https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/3619)** > > Norma Jean was the star of the Clark and Walters Circus until a bolt of lightning killed her in Oquawka's town square. Signs pointing toward "Elephant Killed By Lightning" direct you to Norma Jean's grave from all points in Oquawka. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2018, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-bury-an-elephant/802366/26 "2018-04-18T23:14:06Z")
How did they move the elephant from below the bridge into the barn? Edited to add: I assume a fall from a bridge would have left him incapable of plodding any distance. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2018, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-bury-an-elephant/802366/27 "2018-04-19T03:27:15Z")
A group of miners could dig a hole like that by hand in half a day. Also, your quote mentions a mound. So they may have dug partway down and then just carted in dirt to cover him. Either way, basements and tunnels and mines were dug thousands of years before that. Did you think that humans were incapable of engineering solutions just 150 years ago? ETA: If I were looking for him, I’d start under the floor of the barn he’d been rotting in. ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2018, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-bury-an-elephant/802366/28 "2018-04-19T03:39:35Z")
I experienced this first hand as a kid (about 10 years old) back in India. Overnight, a mahout had brought his elephant to the entrance door of the cathedral adjoining our school to maybe get some shelter from the rain. The elephant had died in the early hours and we all gathered around it in the morning before school. Over the next day, a big pit was dug right next to the mortal remains. The elephant was buried with a lot of lime (to help decomposition) into the pit. After almost a year, they dug it back up to recover the bones/ivory (I presume) and moved the remains to another place. There was a statue of mother Mary right beyond the gates and by coincidence the elephant had died looking at the statue. As a kid, this picture stayed in my mind as if Mother Mary was helping alleviate the elephant’s pain in its last minutes on earth. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2018, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-bury-an-elephant/802366/29 "2018-04-19T09:40:20Z")
If you only have lemons, you can always make lemonade, but if you have an elephant you can: - skin it for taxidermy - skin it for leather - make four [count’em, - four!] umbrella stands - feed your pigs / dogs / multitudinous children who are sick of eating rhinoceros and yak - sell the bones to a museum - make bone meal. In an era when people still made a living from collecting dog shit and dead horses for tanning and other noxious trades, its very likely that the bonanza of a dead elephant would not get over-looked for too long, and numerous freeloaders would have to be kept away from it by a man with a sharpened stick. After all, every pound put to some good use was one less pound that had to rot away. AND I picture the man as having one of those Amish chin-beards. Douglas Adams suggested the name [Scethrog](http://tmoliff.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/scethrog-n.html)for them, but do they have a proper name? ---
**Author:** ![Ignotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecc23a/32.png) [@Ignotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignotus)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2018, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-bury-an-elephant/802366/30 "2018-04-19T17:57:26Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > But that still leaves the problem of how you move the body into the grave. > A group of men with shovels can dig a hole as deep as necessary, or as shallow as they want. > > Either way, you still have to fill the hole with a 6000 pound elephant. Archimedes allegedly used blocks and tackle to single-handedly achieve this purpose (though with a ship, not an elephant carcass). ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2018, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-bury-an-elephant/802366/31 "2018-04-19T18:13:12Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > But that still leaves the problem of how you move the body into the grave. If I recall correctly, a big hole was dug near the dead elephant and the hole sloped (inclined) towards the elephant. Ropes were then tied to the elephant’s neck and feed. The ropes were long and went over the whole to be tied to yokes of several bulls. The bulls then pulled the elephant down the incline (while the bulls themselves were on the other side of the hole) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-bury-an-elephant/802366.md?page=1)