The tale of Papa Genk
The slaying of a mighty tusker by villagers in Indonesia's Aceh province may have become a national scandal, writes Cortlan Bennett, but it has made the predicament of elephants being squeezed out by deforestation and mining even more precarious. Pictures by Paul Hilton
Elephants mourn their dead. They are the only creatures apart from man known to ritualise death; touching, cradling, burying the deceased … sometimes crying and moaning in grief. To those who know and work with elephants, they are very much like ourselves. And, of course, they never forget. So perhaps it isn't hard to believe the legend of Papa Genk.
A mighty bull with magnificent tusks, his name meant simply "The Boss". At 22, he was a dominant beast - a giant, even among Sumatran elephants - and well known to the villagers of Ranto Sabon. The surrounding jungle, in a remote part of Indonesia's northwest Aceh province, was home to his wild herd. It was here, in July, that Papa Genk was butchered.
Frustrated by raids on their crops, some villagers had long targeted Genk. Poison didn't kill him. Traps didn't hold him. But a tripwire - attached to a giant spear log that fell from a tree and drove through his skull - finally put Genk to rest. His eyes and ivory tusks were removed, his trunk sliced off at the brow. His grey corpse was left to rot on a damp jungle trail and there, many thought, his story would end.
Soon after the killing, however, a young male appeared from the jungle. Smaller, less defined than The Boss, the bull still resembled his father. He walked into an elephant sanctuary and approached a resident female and calf.
"The male elephant lifted his trunk and whispered into the mother's ear," a young Acehnese woman recalls. "He said: 'Genk is dead,' and when she heard that, tears rolled down her face. She was Genk's wife."
The mother, Suci, is now housed in another refuge with her young calf, Rosa - fathered by Genk - near the provincial capital, Banda Aceh. They were removed for their own protection. Genk's death drove Indonesian President Dr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to call for the punishment of his killers. Few people in Indonesia have not heard the elephant's story.