Baba (elephant)

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Baba the feasting elephant (1824)

Baba (proven between 1824 and 1840 ) was an Indian elephant who was shown in animal shows and at annual fairs in Europe as éléphant gastronome , as a feasting elephant . Other trained representatives of its kind appeared in the 19th century under the same name Baba .

Life as dressage

In the first half of the 19th century a Madame Leclerf , née Padovany , from Lyon traveled with an elephant named Baba through the fairs in Europe. According to a notice that has been preserved in Vienna in 1829 , the animal was trained so that it could sit at a table, "eat" from plates and give them back to its "waiter". It also pulled corks from a bottle and picked up a fallen handkerchief, which it folded up with its trunk. The elephant collected coins thrown on the ground, let them ring in the trunk and gave them back to the "owner"; he tapped a board with a hammer and shot a pistol.

There is evidence of Baba's appearance for the first time at the Leipzig Autumn Fair in 1824. According to traditional reports, Madame Leclerf's feasting elephant was seen in Frankfurt am Main in 1827 and in Vienna in 1829.

More elephants named Baba

Baba in Cirque Franconi , Paris 1816

As early as 1816, an elephant Baba, who was advertised at the age of ten, performed his tricks in the Franconi's Cirque Olympique in Paris and, among other things, was able to perform the sensational balancing act on the stool. The fact that in the following ten years or so Madame Leclerf's Baba was always advertised as an unchanged ten-year-old male has led to the assumption that her feasting elephant could have been another of the same name.

In 1837, an appearance by Madame Leclerf and her Baba in a stage performance in Prague was noted, in which the elephant was part of a stage spectacle and had to save a small child and trumpet an end to evil robbers. The traditional review, however, speaks of a Dem. (Oiselle) Baba and a Miss Baba , so that it can be safely assumed that Madame Leclerf had acquired a new animal, this time a female, in the meantime. In 1840 the female elephant, this time called Miss Baba , can be traced back to the Vienna Prater , which in turn is described as a feasting elephant .

reception

It is unlikely that one of these animals is identical to the Miss Baba elephant , who died in Niederroßla in 1857 and whose skeleton is kept in Gotha . Similar to Jumbo , an African elephant that was successfully exhibited in America by PT Barnum in the 1880s as the king of the elephants and thereby established a term for great things, Baba was also considered a promising name for by the showmen of the early 19th century their trained elephants have been taken over. In 1931, Baba inspired the now world-famous children's book about the Histoire de Babar .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hermann Schardt (Ed.): Showmen, jugglers and artists. Showman graphics of the pre-March period . 2 volumes, Essen 1980; No. 21, No. 22
  2. ^ Ernst Kroker : Exhibition at Leipzig trade fairs [...] . In: Communications from the Society for Research on the Patriotic Language and Antiquities in Leipzig . (1883-1890); 7/8, pp. 97-137
  3. ↑ Oettermann (1982), pp. 165-167
  4. ↑ Oettermann (1982), p. 164
  5. ↑ (Hans Jörgel): The elephant Baba . In: New funny letters from Hans Jörgels von Gumboldskirchen . Vienna, year 1840, issue 8; Pp. 16-20
  6. ↑ See Wolfgang Zimmermann u. a .: Miss Baba. Adventure of an Indian elephant cow . Niederroßla o. J. [2007]; P. 15
  7. ↑ Oettermann (1982), p. 68