Our understanding animal cognition is obviously always going to have a lot of speculation. It’s the best we can do. Judging by what standards we have available to us and placed in the context of other ritual behavior they practice, I think the most reasonable conclusion is some sort of proto-spirituality.
Remember that through most of history there was no line between the natural and the supernatural, the spiritual and the material. Requiring a strict set of criteria that demonstrate elephant belief in non-material phenomena is a very modern, western way of viewing spirituality. The vast majority of cultures would recognize this behavior in elephants as reflecting their own worldview and way of thinking to a certain extent.
We can’t objectively prove elephant spiritualism until they have complex language, but I think through observation and conjecture we can consider it a reasonable speculation.
well listen, if you think thats the most reasonable conclusion, im not in a position to tell you you’re wrong. all I can say is that given what we already know about about the moon, it’s influence on bodies of water, its appearance to the naked eye, and the behaviors in elephants it is associated with, im of a different mind.
