MENNESKER OG ELEFANTER: Om tolkninger af Afrikas elefanter i Afrika og Europa

Resumé

Ingeborg Svennevig: People and elephants

- Of interpretations of African

elephants in Africa and Europe

In the article the author ventures into the different

interpretations that people have made

of the African elephant. These are then interpreted

as being founded on three distinet perception

of the relation between people and

animals: Anthropocentric, anthropomorphic

and zoomorphic. Examples are then given of

the relations between people and elephants

in accordance with the perceptions. Firstly,

as an animal meant for utilisation by people

primarily being hunted for ivory and meat.

Secondly, as an animal that people can understand

as they do each other, and therefore

hunt it in special ways that seems acceptable

for the hunter. And thirdly, as an animal that

can funetion as an exemplary to people and

the way we are living together in a natural

environment. It is concluded that animals

should only funetion as exemplary for

people, when it is stressed that the exempla-

ry is of human origin, carrying cultural and/

or social prescriptions.