Friday, November 27, 2015

Circus Vargas #4


Vargas presented the chap at right to me and asked if I could show him how to work elephants and if I am correct he later became famous with"Joe" in Europe.

Posted by Buckles at 11/27/2015 06:15:00 AM

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi,

The "chap" is James Puydebois and he toured in Europe, notably in France and Germany, working with "Colonel Joe" a beautiful elephant which belongs, as you know better than me, to the tiny club of "giant" elephants as Siam and King Tusk. I saw Siam many times in Paris zoo before it died. Siam is now, for ever, proudly standing in the Grande Galerie de l'Evolution, "alone in its greatness", near the Louis XV asian rhinoceros, another "splendiferous" creature! The National Museum of Natural History created a model of this amazing creature, based on the taxidermist Jack Thierney sculpture. Only 20 copies have been edited and it's a wonderful testimony of this beautiful animal.
I had the privilege to design anklets, tusk ornaments and head piece for King Tusk when it was touring with RBBB... I saw this incredible animal an early morning when it was taking its bath in a small pond behind the Tampa's Arena. We were "alone" without any noise but bird songs and with the sun rise and some white aigrets, it was like a "beginning of time" scene...

29 November, 2015 09:22
Chic Silber said...

Siam is a very common name for elephants

Thailand where many of the circus & zoo

elephants came from had been called Siam

The Siam you saw in France was a male

The Siam on Ringling was a female & all

of the elephants you mentioned were Asian

29 November, 2015 20:42
Dennis said...

For the past 15 years I have been around elephant camps here in Thailand. Of those I had a chance to ask about an elephants name, never once was it Siam.
The Thais seem to never use the old Thailand name of Siam in any conversation. Maybe because the population tends to be born after the name change in the 40's.

30 November, 2015 05:00
Chic Silber said...


I'm told that Ringling had another Siam

some years before the one I mentioned

& they may have a Siam currently on Red

I saw another Siam in a zoo in Australia

30 November, 2015 08:49

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