Little Trunks - Stitched Nguni Hide Wall Hanging Artwork

I have this long, weird thing hanging off my face. I have tried to shake it off me or simply throw it at one of my cousins, but nothing works. It’s most frustrating as I tend to trip over it.

And then I’m reminded, as I feel the gentle reassurance of a much bigger one of these things. It softly caresses me. This loving touch comes from her, my magnificent mother, the matriarch of my family herd.

She carried me for nearly two years, so finding my feet as it were, after birth, took an hour or so. My aunts formed a circle around my mother and me during that process giving us the assurance of care and protection.

I watch how the adults use their things – apparently called trunks. Amazing! It’s an articulation of movement that leaves me in awe as they skillfully weave their trunks through space. It’s not just the food they pluck from trees and the ground, or the water they liberally spray over themselves, but the subtleties that from afar may need a little interpretation. It’s downright affection, connection and support as their trunks explore, stroke and embrace each other.

Just as the 40 000 muscles within a trunk work together as a whole, so too do we, always looking out for one another and moving at a pace that the slowest member of our family can manage. (It took me two days to get up to speed after my birth.) That’s called compassion and we’ve been known to extend it to humans in distress too.

Many scientists have ranked our intuition and intelligence as on a par with dolphins and whales. We certainly make sounds that carry over distance – low frequency rumbles from which we calculate the distance between us and the calling elephant.

But I merely have to look at my mother for confirmation of wisdom. The way she leads us, when to move, where to go, the sense of community she instils in us. And best of all, the way she loves me.