Where did the Dundee Elephant Come From?

Dutch historian Michiel Roscam Abbing has published the results of his research into the elephant in an article in the Dutch Amstelodamum Jaarboek (2015). The article is entitled 'So Een Wunder heeft men hier nooijt gesien' - De Indische Vrouwtjesolifant (1678/80-1706) van Bartel Verhagen. The title says it all really. But for those unfamiliar with Dutch: Such a Marvel Has Never Been Seen Here Before' - The Indian female elephant (1678/80-1706) owned by Bartel Verhagen. (For more details on the journal click here)

I would ask that any citations from this web-page are made carefully! All the facts concerning the elephant's life up to 1705 have been researched and discovered by Michael Roscam Abbing, by whose permission I have reproduced them here. Please acknowledge this in any use you make of them...

An elephantine biography

Barthel Verhagen himself died in 1703, but his last will and testament stipulated that the elephant should not be sold, but rather placed into the care of his executors, among whom was his assistant Jan Jansson, who had previously accompanied the elephant on its travels. Between 1701 and 1704, Jansson's brother Gregorius rented the animal from Verhagen's executors, and assumed the responsibility as keeper of the elephant, a duty he carried out in England, to great personal profit. In 1704, care of the elephant passed to a man named Abraham Sever, who took over the rental of the beast. Reaching Edinburgh in late 1705, Sever was granted permission by the City Fathers, on 31st October, to display the beast for the gratification of the incredulous citizenry :
"The Council upon ane petitione given in by Abraham Sever Dutchman grants liberty to the petitioner to expose his elephant to all persones within the toun and suburbs upon his payment of ane gratification to the kirk thesaurer for the use of the poor."

Gardy-loo!

But to return to Abbing's Dutch evidence...
Some comments had been made in earlier years about the sad state of this elephant, its manifest thinness and under-nourishment. Clearly, Sever was not good at preserving the very basis of his wages, and the elephant's demise on the road from Broughty Ferry to Dundee was not wholly unexpected. When this unfortunate event was reported to him, the Dutch notary Hendrik de Wilde (also an executor of Verhagen's will) calculated that the elephantine revenues since the death of Verhagen were 7603 guilders - a tidy sum, if you consider that an ordinary Dutch labourer earned 200 guilders a year.
I am also grateful to Michiel for sharing with me the information that Sever was also a tightrope dancer and a musician: quite the entertainer, and one who, in later years and without an elephant, could have been a star at the Edinburgh Fringe.
(For further details, see: J.P. Vander Motten & Michiel Roscam Abbing, ‘Seventeenth-Century English Rope Dancers in the Low Countries’, in: Theatre Notebook 74 no. 1 (2020), pp. 8-31. The very title of the article should be enough to lure you in!)

Accompanying the elephant on many of its travels around the Continent had been an 'African Jungle-Donkey' - a creature of 'beautiful colours', but of uncertain species, possibly a mandrill or an aardvark - but certainly not a zebra, a tapir or an onager (in case you wondered). In Nuremberg in 1695, there was also a three-legged animal on display: we make no attempt to speculate.

Our researcher Michiel Roscam Abbing has some history with elephants: in 2006, he published an article and a book on "Rembrandt's Elephant". These related to Rembrandt's portrait (1637) of an earlier famous elephant purchased by Dutch Royalty in 1633. Acquiring elephants seemed to be something of a Dutch habit. See also https://www.elephanthansken.com

It is pleasing to note that there was a public-house in Amsterdam, De Witte Oliphant in the old Batavierstraat, which almost certainly owes its name to the elephant of (we might patriotically say) Dundee. Alas, this building and all around it were demolished in the late 1920s, so all that remains is a plaque from the original building now embedded in the wall of the new primary-school - happily named 'School De Witte Olifant'. See picture here...
and http://wikimapia.org/12836247/Primary-school-De-Witte-Olifant

The European Tour

Reproduced below, again with full acknowledgement to Michiel Roscam Abbing, is the full itinerary of our elephant:

Advertising and other allurements

'This is to give notice to all Persons of Quality, Gentlemen and others, that there is lately Arrived in this Town, from the Kingdom of Siam in the East-Indies, a great white Elephant, being 9 Foot high, weighing above 5000 Weight, Eating in 24 hours time 100 pound weight of Hay, besides Corn and Bread. This wonderful Creature (having a Head as big as a Barrel, Legs as big as a Mans middle, and Ears as big as a Shoulder of Mutton) performs several Actions as swift & nimble as his Master commands him. First he takes his Masters Hat, Salutes the Company and makes Reverence upon his Knees. His Master asking him whether he loves Queen Ann, then he points with his Trunk to his Heart, and [what] he must do for her, he Sounds for her on the Trumpet; but for the Grand Turk he will do nothing but make a dreadful Noise shaking his Head. He exercises the Musquet, and discharges the same at the word of Command like a Soldier, likewise flourishes the Colours to Admiration, Takes a piece of Money from the Ground and delivers it to his master. He Kneels down to receive People upon his Body, and bears two on his Trunk, and two on his Ears, and ten on his Back. He walks about with a Kettle on his Trunk, begging of the Company some Money to drink their Healths; then he makes his Reverence to the Company as a Testimony of Thanks: And performs abundance more of very rare and curious Actions, than can be incerted in this Paper, to the great Wonder and Admiration and S[a]tisfaction of all Spectators.'