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Jacqueline L. Barry
Poland
REL – 358
September 12, 2012
Depictions of Animal Consciousness in The White Bone
Barbara Gowdy’s imaginative and comprehensive account of the lives of
elephants struggling to survive in the African savannah permits an intimate
experience into the being of another creature. In the novel The White Bone, rather
than merely observing the behavior and tendencies of elephants, the author
expands upon the identities of the characters with unique names, family histories,
personalities and detailed relationships among each individual. The animals she
describes are not machines that operate strictly according to their biological makeup; they are sentient beings with a powerful sense of self-awareness and the
capacities for both reason and emotion. They have souls. They are able to devise
their own systems of morality and law within a unique society that they have
created on their own. This consciousness that the elephants display is evident
throughout the novel. The distinctive culture, the demonstrations of emotional
growth and even identity crises, which have previously been considered strictly
human notions, all provide illustrations of consciousness that may rival that of
humanity’s in her disquieting novel, The White Bone.
The cultures of elephants and other animals are described as surprisingly
vibrant and multifaceted, with an astonishing variety of traditions and rituals.
Elephant culture, including language in particular, is closely tied with mythology,
rather than science. They refer to the Earth as the “Domain,” and their sense of the
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afterlife contains places like the “Eternal Shoreless Water,” a place where dead bulls
and calves go after they die, with the exception of females with their tusks. On the
other hand, cows with their tusks join the “She” in the sky, the creator, in paradise.
The distinction between bulls and cows clearly extends beyond sexual gender. As
elephant society is divided by family groups that are led by matriarchs, the female
elephants are granted more power and, consequently, more respect. They are the
only gender with individuals that may be “visionaries,” or that may experience
visions of the distant present or future, although this fact is contested by a separate
race of elephants later in the novel. Those elephants which become “mind talkers,”
or telepaths, are also always female. In addition, newborns are harbored and
birthed by the females, a concept which appears to give more recognition to the
power of the female gender as well. The cows eat first, drink first, and are overall
more revered than the bulls. Males, on the other hands, merely “dig” the cows’
“tunnels,” which allows the newborn to grow. It’s especially interesting to compare
this society with that of human society, where women are still often misrepresented
in positions of power or authority and where in the past, women were said to play
no part, biological or otherwise, in the process of fertilization and conception.
According to elephants, humans actually owe their existence to elephants. The
mythology involves an event termed the “Descent,” where two starving elephants, a
bull and cow, killed and then consumed the body of a gazelle. According to elephant
law, however, no elephant is permitted to kill or consume another creature. To
punish those elephants, the She banished them by turning them into humans, who
eventually lost touch with the other animals and became unable to communicate
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with them. The slaughter and apparently needless killing of those animals, namely
elephants, are said to have been born from this frustration and hatred. “The Fissure”
is the mythological, underground dwelling where humans arrive after death.
Perhaps the greatest piece of mythology and religion that directs the lives of the
elephants, however, is the power of the white bone. This bone comes from the rib
cage of a slaughtered newborn elephant, which appears bleached and stark white
from prolonged exposure to the elements, and promises to guide the finder to the
“Safe Place” where there is no drought or fear of slaughter. It is this place that all the
elephants in the novel long to discover. Other traditions, such as the “Massive
Gathering” of all the elephants in the region to eat, drink, and compete for mates,
and the ritual of caring for and mourning the body of a dead elephant, are well
known in the elephant society. Such complex and colorful rituals and myths are
aspects of a culture that is unique to the elephants.
The emotional experience of the elephant is similar to that of the human
process, in that both species appear to feel a broad range of emotions which can be
detected by other individuals using voice cues and body gestures, and yet there are
some notable differences. Primarily, there are elephants that serve as a family’s
telepath, which adds another dimension to the conventional method of
communication. These “mind talkers” can also access the thoughts of other species,
so cross-species communication also becomes possible. Communication via low
rumbles in the ground is also widely used by the elephants in the novel. The
expression of sadness by crying is emulated by the elephants’ emission of a tear-like
substance from glands near the eyes, which they call “temporin.” Interestingly, this
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expression of sadness (especially in relation to death and mourning) happens to
every elephant and is not, for example, limited by gender in any way. Upon arriving
at the scene of a dead elephant, family member or complete stranger, all the
elephants will grieve in this form. It seems to be completely involuntary. Other
emotional experiences, such as fear, may be expressed in loud trumpeting by the
elephants and sudden physical movements, such as charging the offending animal or
fleeing. While positive emotions, such as joy and happiness, are more difficult to
pinpoint, they do occur in brief moments in the novel. When She-Screams discovers
what she believes to be the white bone (and what is actually the bone from a
rhinoceros), she is elated and runs back to the herd, trumpeting her excitement. The
feeling of love, however, is surprisingly rarely described; not once does one elephant
say to another that he or she loves them, except for Tall Time, a bull elephant who
appears more in tune with his emotions and with the “links,” or environmental
omens, than any of the other characters. He claims to love Mud, yet admits it to no
one. When he brings the subject up to Torrent and asks him if he loves She-Snorts,
whom he has mated with several times, he scoffs and acts as if the notion is “calflike,” or how a calf would love his mother. Nevertheless, it is evident that even the
male elephants are adept at expressing their emotions, even unpleasant ones, and
that they can communicate those feelings in a variety of ways. It is Mud who poses
the question of whether or not humans actually have the capacity to experience
emotions.
The concept of self-awareness – of understanding one’s identity in relation to
others or seeking to modify it – is also present in The White Bone. Mud, as the main
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character, probably best exemplifies this ability. As newborns, baby elephants are
given temporary names that most often describe the conditions or environment
they happen to be born into. Mud, Swamp, Hail Stones, Rain, Drought, and Bolt all
provide examples of this pattern. However, once the females are old enough to be
considered cows, have entered their estrus and been mounted, they are re-named.
These names often carry negative connotations and sometimes describe a negative
trait about that elephant. She-Scares, She-Screams, She-Bluffs, She-Snorts and SheSpurns are not necessarily names that those elephants are proud of. Rather, the
intention of naming new cows a name they don’t like is to discourage that type of
behavior or prevent them from truly “owning” that characteristic. Therefore, the
naming process tends to incite fear from the juveniles. Mud’s trepidation over her
new name causes her to encourage others to keep calling her Mud and not SheSpurns, although that is her true cow name. In fact, a large portion of the novel
contains some of Mud’s inner dialogues with herself as she struggles to accept her
new cow name and what it implies about her abilities. With a withered back leg, she
is not the strongest in the herd nor the fastest. However, her abilities both as a
visionary and as the new mind-talker appear to make up for this deficit and she
seems to respect herself a lot more because of it. Date Bed, upon falling and awaiting
her death, decides to quickly re-name herself “She-Soothes-and-Soothes” so as to
ensure her placement with the She in the afterlife. Clearly, the name of the elephant
alone plays a significant role in her identity, in life and death. In addition, leadership
roles may also determine the identity of an elephant. The matriarch, being the oldest
and largest elephant in the herd, holds many more responsibilities than other
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members and so receives the most reverence. Although the decisions that SheSnorts makes once she becomes the new matriarch are not altogether viewed as
intelligent, they are still followed and her authority is never challenged. In the
minutes that transpire during the slaughter, the identity of She-Snorts changes –
both her perception of herself, and others’ perceptions of her – from a faithful
follower of the herd who joked and laughed and seduced the males to a serious and
solemn character that even banishes one of the members from the herd. By rising up
the ranks she has become a vital member of the herd whose identity has been
completely transformed. This sense of awareness of who each elephant is and who
belongs in the herd indicates a higher level of consciousness that one would not
expect from an animal other than a human being.
The cognitive and emotional capacities of the elephants in Gowdy’s novel The
White Bone, coupled with the unique and effervescent traditions and mythologies
that comprise their culture, and the awareness of identity that each elephant
obviously experiences, speaks to a higher understanding of consciousness that we
as humans may not monopolize. According to the author, there is a chance we share
these abilities with some animal species, and that fact alone creates an incentive to
protect them from undue harm and to salvage what remains of their populations.
Discovering similarities between our lives and “animal” lives may be exactly what is
needed to incite sympathy towards them and to halt practices that are considered
cruel or exploitative. If elephant life is anything like Gowdy suggests, then the need
to save African elephants from human-caused slaughter may be even more critical.
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