WHERE ELEPHANTS COME FROM

People may associate 'Just So' stories with Kipling, but he wasn't the only one to write them.  The Kamba of Kenya had a story of elephant origins.  A poor man once asked a rich one to tell him how he too could become rich.  The rich man provided ointment and told him to rub it on his wife's teeth.  This he did and, would you believe it, the wife's teeth grew into magnificent tusks.  After a piece of dentistry, the poor man took them and sold them, becoming rather better off.  He repeated this several times until he was poor no longer.  However, the wife underwent a change: she became larger and grayer.  In fact, she became an elephant and all children she had after were elephants.  That's why elephants are intelligent.