In our last installment I told you how gentle and polite Jiga was, and also very shy with other elephants. Which was quite strange because he was not short on confidence and was about 40/45 years old and huge.

Amajigajiga the final chapter Part 3

In our last installment I told you how gentle and polite Jiga was, and also very shy with other elephants. Which was quite strange because he was not short on confidence and was about 40/45 years old and huge.

To illustrate this, I was once watching him in an open area from a distance. He was dozing I think, and he didn’t notice a herd of about 60 elephants approaching (like I said they can be really quiet). He only noticed them when they were really close and it was too late for him to get away.

What I witnessed was very touching. 60 elephants of all sizes moved slowly past him, stopping to touch him and smell him. He was still quite new in the reserve and I guess these elephants had not met him before. This was all done very affectionately and gently. Even tiny elephants who only reached as high as his knees were touching him with their trunks.

Jiga absolutely froze, except for slight sideways movements as if the trunks were too ticklish for him. The whole thing only lasted about 10 minutes, and the herd moved on. As the last elephant went past, Jiga took off in the opposite direction. Well Jiga never really took off about anything, but he did walk away in what was his version of fast mode.

Amajigajiga was the ultimate bachelor and I guess I had an affinity for him. NOTHING could disturb him when eating, he made great bachelor "Dagwood" sandwiches out of his food, and I reckon he would have been pretty good with a TV remote control.

I did once see him have a romance. He had seemed to charm a young female away from a herd and for a couple of days I saw them wandering around together. The herd she was from must have been miles away because I didn’t see them anywhere. So even in his romances he was very discreet.

Most male elephants are pretty irritable when in musth and can be quite aggressive, but I can honestly say I never saw this old guy aggressive, even in musth. I saw him slightly irritated with younger bulls, but this never lasted for more than a few minutes.

He did however make life quiet difficult for us in a strange way. There are rules about getting too close to elephants, it sometimes happens but is best avoided. We soon realized Jiga liked the sound of human voices, or was at least curious. And he often caught us unaware by suddenly being near us out of nowhere. We were never in any danger and he would just stand and listen to people talking on our vehicles, but he did get us into trouble with the rules sometimes.

Some guides claim Jiga chased arrogant young bulls away from us. I agree with this, but others think he was just getting rid of the youngsters anyway. But there were too many times he did this when there was a vehicle getting hassled by elephants, for it to be a coincidence.

Amajigajiga was only with us for 2 years, he was found dead from a type of meningitis which, ironically he possibly got from mouse droppings.

He made a huge impression on us and was a great help in teaching the younger guides about elephants. (I will explain this in another newsletter).

Dignity, gentleness, and kindness are usually words associated with people or at best domestic animals. But this was definitely how one could describe Jiga.

I personally still miss him…….

Patrick Van Rensburg