Trophy trinkets

The Brits certainly loved to flaunt their trophies, using them innovatively 8212; tiger and panther skins carpeted the floor, deer antlers were festooned with hats, hollowed elephant legs held umbrellas and walking sticks, gaur hoofs were fashioned into ashtrays, wild pig tushes adorned the bonnets of cars and jungle fowl hackle brightened up hatbands and trout flies. Once a planter8217;s wife imaginatively stuck scores of porcupine quills in a cushion to craft a spiky likeness of the rodent, winning the first prize in a handicrafts competition. And an eccentric planter reportedly used an elephant8217;s tasselled tail as a shaving brush! As a ten-year-old, I once accompanied an uncle to a British planter8217;s bungalow where I sat on a cylindrical-shaped stool, overawed by the fearsome trophies around me. The stool turned out to be an elephant8217;s foot complete with toenails! And near by stood a doleful-looking bear holding an ashtray.

Until recently a magnificent pair of elephant tusks, each measuring over six feet, impressively flanked the fireplace in a local club before they were stolen. One of the pachyderm8217;s massive molars, however, still graces the mantelpiece. Another club displays the foot of a deer and a gaur as well as an array of wild boar tushes.

Verging on ostentation, the Brits obviously regarded shikar trophies as prized mementoes of their hunting exploits.

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