The elephant is the largest land animal and has no natural enemies.They live in family herds comprising of up to twenty adult females and their young under the leadership of the oldest elephant , the matriarch. The exception to this is the adult males who are solitary nomads attracted to a family group only when one of its mature adults or “cows” is ready to mate. They are found in Africa and Asia.
In this article I will restrict myself to the trunk because of its importance to the elephant.
An elephant can use its trunk to carry a tree, pick up a peanut, have a drink or take a shower.The Elephant trunk is the modified nose and upper lip lined with as many as forty plus individual muscles that allow it to bend and hold like an arm or hand. It is also so sensitive that it can pick up a single blade of grass.
The trunk of an African Elephant has two lips at the end while that of the Asian Elephant has only an upper one.
The Elephant trunk is multifunctional with six main roles, namely:
Sucking: The Elephant trunk sucks up to fourteen litres of water then blows it into its mouth or sprays its body to keep cool. It can also suck in dust and spray its body to reduce the parasite load. .
Feeding: The trunk is used to break off tree branches, pick off leaves and grass and even pluck fruits and put them into its mouth. The Elephant mouth would be useless without the trunk.
As a sense organ, the elephant trunk is its “fingure” as well as its nose. The elephant has a very well developed sense of smell. Raising the trunk up and swaying it from side to side, it can determine the location of friends, enemies, and food sources, much like a periscope. To follow a track, an elephant sweeps its trunk over the ground like a metal detector. It also uses the tip of its trunk to investigate another’s genitalia or mouth for clues about its identity, sex, age, and reproductive status.
Defence: The elephant defends itself by grasping and flinging the enemy using its trunk.
The trunk also plays a major role in social interactions such as play wrestling,caressing, during courtship and even in the mother baby relationship.
Communication: One of the many ways of communication in the rich elephant language is rumbles and trumpets.The former is low frequency infrasound while the later is audible to humans.It is the trunk that produces these sound , much like a wind instrument:

About the author:
Dr Marami has special interest in culture and wild animals. To learn more and to view various wood and stone sculptures visit :=>
http://ammarami.com

Decades of colonization does not appear to have had much effect on the culture of the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania. Over 80% still live the same way they used to before the arrival of the European.

One of the least affected aspect of their lifestyle is the way they dress. Although broadly similar, the details in the dress code bear significant differences in the 3 main age categories, namely the uninitiated boys and girls, the young adults, called Morans if male, and the elders – mature women and men.

All these details in dress code are so accurately portrayed in Maasai sculptures, thanks to the improved sculpturing tools available today, that seeing the sculptures is like meeting the real Maasai.

The Maasai sculptures and other African Carvings can now be viewed at:
Ammarami CraftAfrica
http://ammarami.com

In a continent that generally lags behind in high technology, African handicraft has come in handy as a substitute for photography. The African uses sculptures to preserve his memories. The Akamba and Kisii tribes of Kenya, for example, use wood and stone respectively. They sculpt out statues of humans and animals ,wooden face masks and virtually anything that is of interest to them. Like Photography, the quality of these sculptures has improved with availability of  better tools. They now look like real and are unique. But unlike photography they are all three dimensional.

The African sculpting talent has also helped him/her to make tools for himself/herself. For defense and hunting, he has bows, arrows, spears and shields. For cooking she has clay pots that also keep her drinking water cool. He/she has carved out musical instruments from horns and wood. From sisal her handcraft produced beautiful bags called kiondo (pronounced “chondo” in local dilect). In some African communities these tools are used in ceremonies such as circumcision celebrations.
African handicraft talent is also used for beauty. The Maasai, a nomadic Kenya tribe occupying most of the Kenyan Rift Valley are well known for their love for beauty. They thread beads in colorful patterns to produce beautiful necklaces, bangles, ear and finger rings. This handicraft also combines to  denote profile like the age group the wearer belongs to, or the number of children the lady wearer has, among other things.

About the author:
Dr Aggrey Marami has special interest in culture and wild animals. For more information visit>
http://ammarami.com