Elephants first appeared artistically ten thousand years ago. Paintings and engravings of the mammoth and the straight-tusked elephant are found in caves and on pieces of ivory and horn.
Elephants have garnered their reputation for magic powers from a number of sources. They are large and powerful, intelligent, useful, and long-lived and so have become a symbol of strength, wisdom, happiness, and longevity. They are religious symbols in the Hindu faith. The birth of Buddha was announced by a white elephant and Ganesha is an elephant-headed god of wisdom.
The peoples of India and China share a belief that Elephants are lucky creatures although there is some dispute about which way a lucky elephant holds its trunk. The general consensus in many eastern cultures is that an elephant with the trunk pointed up "stores" luck and one with the trunk down "dispenses" it.
