Mahouts
A mahout is a person who drives an elephant. A mahout is assigned an elephant when he is a young boy. The boy will stay with that elephant for the elephant’s whole life. While the mahout is with the elephant, they will give the elephant baths, ride on it, give it lots of food, and work with the elephant. Some of the things that the elephant might have to do are moving huge logs, begging on the streets for food, or even taking part in religious ceremonies.
Mahouts are usually nice to their elephants, but they can often be mean. They might overuse their anlius, not give the elephant enough food, or work the elephant way too much. To guide an elephant, the mahout must use a tool called an anlius. An anlius is a short stick with a sharp hook on the end. The mahouts poke the elephant’s head with the point of the anlius. They poke the elephant in order to get the elephant to turn, go, stop, or slow down. While the mahout is poking the elephant, he must also say “by!” When an elephant feels the anlius and hears a loud “BY!” it knows that he has to start moving.
While we were in Chiang Rai, we got to ride elephants and meet the mahouts. The mahouts lived with their families next to the elephants’ stalls. Every morning, the mahouts would wake up, give the elephants a bath, give them some bananas, sugarcane, and water, and then we would ride the elephants for a few hours. Riding the elephants in Chiang Rai was really fun and I hope we do it again sometime.