Elephant Looping Ceremony
The Elephant Looping Ceremony is an ancient ceremony performed solely by order of a monarch. The Department of Elephant Affairs and the Senior Brahmins at court were responsible for this royal command ceremony which started with allowing a herd of wild elephants to stay temporarily in an area annexed to the corral before leading 40 to 50 of them into the corral. There, they would be examined for the desired characteristics and if proved unsatisfactory would be sent back to their natural habitat. The “elephant shaman”, who was responsible for elephant looping, would ride on the back of a well-trained elephant, his hand holding a wooden rod, approximately 5 metres in length, whose end had a loop, a little wider than an elephant’s foot, attached. He would fasten this loop around the hind leg of the elephant he wanted. This kind of looping required concentration, experience and strength because the wild elephants would be frightened and would be running around the corral all the time. Then he would fasten the buffalo leather “Pakum” chord around the neck of the elephant as a prelude to its training for labour.
In the reign of the present monarch, a demonstration Elephant Looping Ceremony was organized for the royal audience with King Frederic and Queen Ingrid of Denmark on January 25th, 1962. In 1997, the ceremony was revived and, ever since then, has been organized for the general public at this elephant corral in Ayutthaya Province.
Elephant Looping Ceremony
