A Myth

In the beginning of time, the elephant was not created to be as big as it became, but due to a metabolic mistake, they ended up growing and growing and growing much larger than the creator had designed them to be. These first elephants also did not have a trunk, but only a nose, much like that of a hippopotamus, to breathe through. They drank water in much the same way as zebras and antelopes, bending down and putting their mouth in the water.

This worked well until they got so large that it was almost impossible for them to reach the water in the waterholes. They had to be content getting their liquid from the rainwater which was caught in the leaves of the trees. This worked fine during the rainy season, but not at all when it was dry. The elephants were getting desperate for an answer.

One elephant got to so desperate for drink he went down to the water hole to watch how the other animals were drinking, in hopes he could find a way to quench his thirst. He watched the giraffe spread his legs wide apart to allow his head to reach the water. He tried to copy this, to no avail. He watched as one after another of the animals came and drank, but he didn’t find anything he could use to reach the water. Then a warthog trotted up to the water hole and knelt down on his knees. “Ah,” said the elephant. “I can do that” and he dropped down on his knees and dipped his face into the water.

At that moment a crocodile was swimming in the waterhole, looking for a meal. When he saw the elephant’s mouth in the water he immediately sprang forward and bit. He caught the nose of the elephant and began to pull him into the water not knowing how big the elephant was. The elephant jumped up off his knees and pulled back. The crocodile refused to let go, and swimming strongly, tried to pull the elephant into the water. The elephant dug his heels into the shore and refused to give in. The battle raged for several hours with neither giving way. As they pulled, the elephants nose got and longer, as the crocodile managed to swim further out into the waterhole. Finally, the crocodile opened its mouth to get a better grip on the elephant. Immediately the elephant pulled his nose out of the water and ran back into the forest.

Once he was back with the rest of the elephants, they all began to jeer at him, making fun of his long nose. He crept away from them and hid in the forest hoping that his nose would shrink. It didn’t. He got to the point where he needed to drink again so he returned to the waterhole. He dipped his nose into the water, sucked some up and then shot it into his mouth. He had solved his problem.

He returned to the elephant herd and convinced them to come down to the waterhole with him. There he pulled the water up into his nose and then shared it with the other elephants, shooting it into their mouths. In time, the other elephants decided they wanted a long nose too, so they went to the waterhole, dropped to their knees, put their face in the water and waited for the crocodile to catch on to their nose. The crocodile was a stubborn one. He kept trying to pull the elephants into the water, but all that he managed to do was stretch out their noses.

Over time the herd of elephants had more members with long noses than those they had been born with. As the years passed evolution stepped in. Baby elephants were born with longer and longer noses until finally they all had long noses which we now call trunks.