In a small village, only a few kilometers outside of Surin Province, man, and the mighty elephant live together in perfect harmony. Remote Traklang village and the indigenous guay people boast a unique lifestyle enjoyed for generations.

Living along the Thai-Cambodian border, this ethnic group follows a cultural way of life influenced by both the Lao and Khmer nations. At the heart of this culture is a symbiotic relationship twixt man and elephant – one of the greatest proboscidean mammals to ever walk the Earth.

This symbiosis defines the guay’s way of life, including purpose-built dwellings just high enough from the ground to house a standing elephant.

A youth, aspiring to become a mahout, learns the trade from his father in much the same way as any apprentice learns from a master craftsman. First, he learns the basic commands and the primary ways for caring for an elephant. As the boy grows into a man, so his responsibilities grow with his elephant charge; for one day, he will have an elephant of his own.

Pittaya Homkrailas, of the Elephant Alliance project, says that for gruay villagers to own an elephant is similar to city people dreaming of owning a condominium or a car.

“Like a condo or a car, owning an elephant is both a responsibility and potential source of income for the owner,” explains Mr. Pittaya. “It is a relationship of great trust between the two of them, like a husband and wife.”

A mahout generally spends the entire day with his elephant working together to perform a variety of tasks like transport and logging that stand as the staple income for villagers.

“In the past, while village men and elephants were out working, women stayed behind to spin and weave silk for the family,” says Mr. Pittaya, “so the whole village worked as a self-sufficient unit.” The Elephant Alliance project, with help from government and private enterprise organizations, is determined to keep life in Trakarn much the way it has always been. A bid to keep man, his elephant, and village life intact to help villagers maintain their way of life and earn a livelihood through cultural tourism. “We don’t want them moving to cities to perform in shows. We want to support them in their chosen way of life so they may preserve their unique way of living. Where we can help is in providing the motivation to bring this about and that’s what our project is all about,” concluded Mr. Pittaya.

Did You Know…

Mahouts use hooked iron rods to control elephants, much like spurs against a horse’s flanks. It looks painful but the elephant does have a very thick hide so the iron needs to be large to get across the message.

Eating elephant meat is not considered a perverse act. Elephants are not killed for their meat; the meat is consumed after death. Just think of the burden of burying an elephant in a hilly terrain, or the thought of allowing it to decompose. The current method is a way to keep the environment in balance as well as a great source of protein for villagers, who otherwise depend largely on vegetables.

Elephants consume 200 kilograms of vegetation daily.

Forests in Thailand are no longer safe habitats for elephants because of man’s encroachment into the area to farm the land. This causes conflict, which usually ends with an elephant being killed.