Crushing by Elephant

For thousands of years countries in South and Southeast Asian employed elephants to crush and dismember prisoners and traitors. Owned by royal families and carefully trained, the elephants could make the process quick and easy, or long and painful. The sight of such occurrences were often written about by early European travelers much to the disbelief of others. Execution by elephant was a symbolic occurrence within many cultures.

In a multitude of Asian countries elephants are a symbol of royalty and the power the royal families bestow. Both Thailand and India place significant respect on elephants. Being able to tame and control an elephant was culturally considered a sign of power. The intelligence of elephants gave them considerable advantages over the wild animals such as lions and bears. The elephants were handled by what is called a driver or mahout, which could instruct the elephant in exactly what to do. A quick step on the head was reserved for the more noble of executions, whereas other less fortunate foes would be rolled around and pulled on for days before succumbing to their injuries. Sometimes the elephant would be used only for torture to extract confessions, but we can only assume this accidentally went too far more than once.

In 1681 an English sailor by the name of Robert Knox wrote about execution by elephants he witnessed while being held prisoner in Sri Lanka. Knox described the elephants as having tusks fitted with "sharp iron with a socket with three edges." The elephant wold impale the condemned with its iron covered tusks and "then tear it in pieces, and throw it limb from limb." Another traveler to Sri Lanka, James Emerson Tennent, described the elephants as stepping on the unfortunate’s body, and ripping their limbs off one-by-one. In a book about his travels, Tennent illustrates the event with a picture titled "An Execution by an Eliphant" (sic).

Indian rulers over the centuries were particularly fond of this method of execution. The Laws of Manu, written around AD 200, recommended execution by elephants for a number of offenses. The executions were often held in public squares for all to heed as a warning. Emperor Jahangir ordered a hundreds of prisoners to be “cast under the foot of an elephant” simply for his personal enjoyment. A Frenchman by the name François Bernier who witnessed some of these executions wrote about the shock he felt on seeing the enjoyment Jahangir received from these events. Emperor Akbar, ruler of Akbar for 15 years, even used his favorite elephant as a judge. He believed that his favorite elephant could know who was guilty and he put thousands of people to death this way. The influence held by the British Empire on India eventually forced elephant executions to go the way of the dodo.

The exploitation of elephants for killing was not reserved solely by South and Southeast Asian countries. Romans, Carthaginians and Macedonian Greeks all at some point used elephants for executions, and also trained war elephants. Military general Perdiccas became the head of state of Alexander the Great’s empire 323 BC after Alexanders death. Perdiccas had dissenters crushed by elephants in the city of Babylon soon after coming to power. Writer Quintus Curtius Rufus tells the story in his book, "Perdiccas saw that they [the mutineers] were paralyzed and at his mercy. He withdrew from the main body some 300 men who had followed Meleager at the time when he burst from the first meeting held after Alexander's death, and before the eyes of the entire army he threw them to the elephants. All were trampled to death beneath the feet of the beasts."

Elephants ceased being used for executions during the 19th century. The spread of European culture around the world led to crushing being replaced by more “humane” methods of execution. On average 500 people are still killed around the world every year by elephants, albeit accidentally.

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