Elephants
There was a young man who worked at the Palace Backpacker Memorial in Childers. A memorial that honoured the seventeen backpackers who died there from an arson attack. One day, as he was going through the local paper for photos of a recent event the memorial had hosted, he found an article on Toby the elephant. Wanting to know why there was an elephant in Childers, he went searching for more. After scouring the internet, asking every soul in Childers, and enlisting the help of an archaeologist he knew, he found the place where Toby lies deep in the red soil. It was an unassuming patch of grass; nothing but a railway track running past and the buzz of retail shops nearby, behind the community pool and by the cafe where they sell the smoothest almond croissants. It was just there. An elephant buried beneath his feet.
You agreed to meet this man at the cafe with the smoothest almond croissants. A small rustic place filled with upcycled furniture cramming the room. You take a table near the window. A warmed almond croissant and your beverage of choice is brought out for your enjoyment as the man joins you with an earl grey close behind. The sunlight from the window falls just so, like the Juno Instagram filter in action. The man tells you about Toby the elephant as you enjoy your baked and brewed goods.
The story begins in colonial South Africa, behind the conflict brewing between the Dutch and English settlers. The rains are longer this season as rivers fill to their brim and somewhere in the interior of those lands, a fleeting memory of an elephant herd wanders. With them, a new calf. When elephants are born it seems to always rain. It is said that when it rains in Africa it is auspicious, almost blessed.
This new calf does not yet have a name. It comes later in the story. Depending on the storyteller the calf is either a boy or a girl, for today it will be both. When this young elephant was born, they were able to walk and talk with their family. Elephants are born smart; they do not always have the luxury to learn outside the womb. This herd would wander the interior of the land following the paths of their ancestors’ learnings. Our dear calf followed as they were told, watching and learning from an attentive mother. Elephants are known to have deep family connections. And elephants never forget.
As time went on, they grew up, watched their mother’s death, and soon would lead their family through the tracks long travelled. As it always has been. As it always will.
Yet a story needs a hook. Dramatic tension leading to a climax. Something must happen, the characters must hurt, there must be some complication. One day, which started like any other day, our elephant was taken from their family to a port to leave. The details of this kidnapping are not known. But it was violent, with tools of pain and nets of iron, tears and blood flowed. This was not the choice of elephants but the will of men.
The elephant carted away from their family was named Toby. A name not given but forced by the Brothers Wirth, Australia’s next big travelling circus. From family to unmoving cage, through a forest of stone and men, Toby left on this unnatural floating rock, some may call a boat. With them was a menagerie of displaced souls destined for a distant port called Melbourne. For Toby it was a terrifying prospect to be surrounded by water. Yet reality is unfair like that, and a ship is no place for an elephant. Those torturous months were full of Toby’s fellow inmates desperate roaring, squawking, and bleating to go back to an ever-fleeting home. Uncaring silencers move from cell to cell, making the cacophony a little quieter with each patrol. An elephant never forgets.
Arriving in the strangest of lands Toby was ‘ushered’ off the boat and began ‘training’. No rest for the wicked as they say. These bipedal Jailers had a new purpose for them. By day they would labour with logs and cases, fabrics, and signs. An elephant made for a good beast of burden to build and pull down a circus. By night they would sit in the fruit of their labours, a colourful big top lit up in bright lights. A huge crowd would come from all around to see the Brothers Wirth circus, Australia’s greatest show of all time. There in the centre of hundreds of screaming, cheering, laughing, smiling faces was a bear, a camel, a monkey, and Toby the elephant, having a proper English afternoon tea. Dressed up in costumes one would call their Sunday best, frills and shimmering fabrics wrapped these hapless victims as the crowds laughed. ‘How silly these creatures to drink tea and butter scones, how gaudy, how strange’ the crowd would remark. For Toby, in a skirt too small for them, fumbling with a teacup that was never meant for their trunk, well, an elephant never forgets.
This life for Toby went on for years. They were the star of the show at the Melbourne Cup, Sydney’s royal easter show, and the Ekka. Whilst still being their own roadie. The glamour of show business.
On a train. Off a train. Unload. Perform. Load.
On a train. Off a train. Unload. Perform. Load.
On a train. Off a train. Unload. Perform. Load.
On a train. Off a train. Unload. Perform. Load.
Crunch.
Oh no. Toby had stepped back rather than forward while loading another carriage onto a train. Under Their foot is a broken thing which once yelled and prodded them. Then from the onlookers came familiar tools of pain, tears, and blood. An elephant remembers.
Toby was no longer passive to their captor’s treatment and within a few months, two more “accidents” occurred. One was crushed between Toby and the train, the other got new ivory body piercings.
Now we come to Childers, July the 28th 1909. The circus arrived from a show in Gympie, an article from the Bundaberg Mail reads.
“A fatal accident occurred in the railway yard this morning. A man named Henry Dale, aged 40 years, employed with Wirth Brothers’ circus, was loading trucks, with the Elephant Toby, when the animal suddenly turned on him and butted him twice or three times in the chest and body against a railway truck. The elephant again butted him, and then made off. Dale struggled to his feet and ran a few yards and then collapsed. He expired about 15 minutes after the accident. His ribs and chest were terribly crushed. He came from New Zealand and was an extremely popular man. He was married. The elephant has been badly behaved and in an ill-tempered mood previously, and has hurled several other employees.”
Mr Dale was not Toby’s usual carer, and he was more violent than others. Rumoured to be a frequent user of physical punishment when Toby disobeyed. Toby was said to have died that day and was buried without ceremony near the Childers railroad. The article about Toby exonerated their master and vilified their resistance.
That is it. That was Toby. If you were wanting more we could talk about how according to a paper in Melbourne, they had an incredible memory and were worth 2000 pounds. A Parramatta paper said they were 80 years old. The Sydney Morning Herald said they got to the age of 120. But all of the papers vilified them and used the name that their captor gave them. That is the tale of Toby the elephant, buried so far from home.
After the tale, the man asks if you would like another drink. They do make a mean peach tea here, he says. Coming back with two upcycled vessels of liquid comfort, he asks you what you think. He asks what you would do next. He has been mulling over where to go from here. He has fabricated three viable solutions. He talks you through each one asking for your thoughts.
His first was to leave Toby in the ground. To walk away and leave the elephant to its rest. Toby has lived a long and terrible life. Ripped from their family. Sent to an unknown country far from home. Forced to work hard labour, building, and tearing down the place where they were mocked by gawking crowds. They deserve rest, to find peace and quiet. It seems like the obvious choice. The problem though, says the man, as it has been for Toby’s entire life, is us. Humans have a hundred tales of discovering lost things, unearthing them, and showing the world what strange curiosities that exist. The story isn’t secret, it has been documented and published countless times. There will be others to come. Even if you walk away and leave Toby to rest, can you be sure the next curious person will not? Can you?
The man then elaborates on his second idea, honouring that Toby is there. Give them a proper burial, a monument, or a tombstone. Lay them to rest and give them all the final rites and rituals that are deserved. Move forward, educate those who would ask “Hey why is there a monument of an elephant in a rural Australian? That doesn’t make sense.” Take donations and send them to efforts to preserve the elephants that remain. Make the memory of Toby stand for something more than just a discarded corpse in the ground. The question to ask, are you trading a big top for a mortuary? Are you using the image and the name of someone who cannot consent to do some good in the world? Isn’t that what the Brothers Wirths considered, seeing the joy on children’s faces when they laughed at how silly Toby looked. Would this decision in a hundred years’ time be considered cruel, making a mockery of Toby’s death for a hollow goal? I do not know.
At last, he suggests sending Toby home. Exhume their corpse and store it in a container with the dignity deserving of an elephant. Return them home to the land they were taken from. It is regretful that Toby will never see the land from which they came from. Though their bones can rest in its soil. Some postmortem relief could be of comfort to Toby. That they may rest in the land of their ancestors and descendants. But where is that? Toby was shipped off from Cape Town but how they were acquired is not known to us. We assume somewhere in southern Africa, what if you are wrong? Can you imagine how happy a red-blooded Queenslander would be if they were buried in New South Wales? Even if you are only a few kilometres off, it would still matter. How are we going to make sure that does not happen?
He sits for a while sipping on his chai latte. Hearing himself say it aloud has not brought him any clarity and he does not want you to decide yet. This is a big decision. Something to sit on and ponder. He tells you to check out the peanut van down the road if you need thinking food. The salted caramel ones are his favourite. He hands you his email, and asks you to think about Toby. To decide on what you would do.
And remember,
Never forget an elephant.
