"The Jungle Book" Pt.6 Quiz | Authors

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. When we are introduced to Kala Nag, in the story "Toomai of the Elephants", and we are told he is nearly seventy years of age and has been in the service of the Indian Government for forty seven years. Who, or what, is Kala Nag?

Answer: Elephant

A Mahout is the person in charge of an elephant. His job is to take care of, and to drive, the elephant. Mahout is a family business which passes down from father to son.
Kala Nag is owned by Toomai's family. It is on his back that little Toomai watches the elephant dance during the night and it is Kala Nag who protects little Toomai in the elephant stockade.

2. The mother of Kala Nag, Radha Pyari, (Radha the darling) had told him that he would be hurt if he was afraid. So by the age of twenty five Kala Nag was no longer afraid. During his service for the Indian Government he was transported to a place called Magdala, in Abyssinia. At the end of the battle Kala Nag looked on the corpse of the defeated enemy leader. What was the name of the dead leader that appears in the story?

Answer: Emperor Theodore

In 1863 the Emperor Theodore, of Abyssinia, had sent a letter to Queen Victoria asking for armaments and an alliance between their two countries. Either deliberately or through carelessness or arrogance, the British did not return any acknowledgement of receiving the Emperor's letter.

This "snub" resulted in the imprisonment of the British Consul and all the Europeans within his borders. The British army, after being humiliated in Afghanistan and the Crimea, were in no mood for any provocative moves. So they began a campaign to oust Theodore with an invasion in 1867-68. (A bit of colonial regime change) With the help of Theodore's enemies the British defeated the opposition forcing Theodore to commit suicide at his mountain stronghold at Magdala. Theodore, or Tewodros II, would be classified as a nationalist nowadays.

He believed in a modern united Ethiopia and his reign, though autocratic, was the first step towards Ethiopia avoiding European colonial rule.

3. During his service Kala Nag saw many terrible things including seeing his fellow comrades dying of cold, epilepsy, sunstroke and starvation. During which colonial battle, which is named in the story of "Toomai of the Elephants", did this incident take place?

Answer: Battle of Ali Masjid

The Battle of Ali Masjid took place during the second Afghan War. The site of the battle is near the famous Khyber Pass which is the connection between Afghanistan and India. Ali Masjid was a fort which oversaw the approach to the Pass. To take the fort the invading army, of British and Indian regiments, consisted of large siege guns pulled by elephants.

The battle took place on 21st of November 1878. This war was a result of the continuing bitterness between the two imperial powers of Britain and Russia after the Crimean War.

The, so-called, Great Game resulted in a number of minor conflicts destabilising the Indian sub-continent. A similar situation happened throughout the period of what we call the Cold War.

4. The son of Black Toomai, Big Toomai, called Kala Nag by another name. What name did he call Kala Nag?

Answer: Black Snake

Kala Nag means "Black Snake". According to the "Spiritual Science Research Foundation" the "Black Serpent" is the "third in the hierarchy of ghosts" and about 10% of the population of the world is affected by them at this moment. Nag is pronounced Narg in Hindi.

5. During the story of "Toomai of the Elephants" the young Toomai is involved in a round-up of wild elephants. The elephants are corralled within an enclosure specifically designed to ensnare the elephants. What is the Hindi name that Kipling uses for this elephant stockade?

Answer: Keddah

A keddah (Khedah) is an enclosure constructed to ensnare elephants. Kedemah is the last-named son of Ishmael. Kedar is the second named son of Ishmael. Howdah (houdah) is a seat or platform, preferably with a railing and canopy, on the back of an elephant.
In Egyptian a keddah is a measurement equal to 2.0625 litres or about 1.87 U.S. dry quarts.

6. In "Toomai of the Elephants" little Toomai is chastised by his father for running amongst the wild elephants. His father tells him that the white man in charge of catching all the elephants for the Government of India has found out about little Toomai and his exploits in the elephant stockade. What name did Toomai's father call the white man in charge of the elephant round-up?

Answer: Petersen Sahib

The names of Canning, Castlereagh and Wellesley are all British Prime Ministers who were of Irish descent. Wellesley is better known as the Duke of Wellington.
Sahib is the Hindi word for master (sahab) and was a respectful address for a European man in colonial India. In Urdu it means sir.
There has been a theory put forward by the Kipling Society that "Petersen Sahib" is based on George Peress Sanderson. During his employment by the British Government in India he designed the system of rounding up the elephants and driving them into the keddahs. The system was shown, with great success, to Prince Albert, Duke of Clarence and Avondale in 1889.

7. News of the exploits of little Toomai in the stockade found their way to the head-tracker of the elephant round-up. What is the name of this minor, but influential, character?

Answer: Machua Appa

Old Buldeo and Buran Dass are characters named in the story "Tiger, Tiger". Big Toomai is the father of our little hero and is from the Indian plains. In the Korda film of this tale, "Elephant Boy" with Sabu as Toomai, Machua Appa was played by Allen Jeayes. He also appeared in "The Four Feathers" (1939) and "The Scarlet Pimpernel" (1934).

8. During the elephant drive most of the characters would have been on the backs of tame elephants. What is the name of the elephant that the white government official rides during the round-up?

Answer: Pudmini

Kaa, Mowgli and Kotick are, of course, characters from other tales from "The Jungle Book". Pudmini is a she-elephant owned by Petersen Sahib. She is described as "clever" in the tale. She, and Kala Nag, escape the camp to go to the elephant dance. The name Pudmini was used before by Kipling in the story "Letters of Marque" (1887) where she appears in chapter 10.

9. When little Toomai meets the white Government official he is very shy and frightened to be in the presence of such power. So he gets his elephant to raise him up in front of the white official's elephant. The white man is impressed with this audacious little boy and asks him if he had taught the elephant to do this trick so that Toomai could steal green corn drying on the roofs of the nearby houses. The little boy, hanging eight feet from the ground, replies that he did not steal green corn but instead that he stole something else. What are the objects that Toomai stole using the elephant trick?

Answer: Melons

When he is brought before Petersen Sahib little Toomai is very shy but he signals Kala Nag to lift him up in his trunk until he is level with the white officials elephant. Petersen is impressed by this action and asks the boy if he uses it to steal corn from the rooftops of the village. Cheekily Toomai replies that no it was not corn that he stole but melons which brought much laughter from the assembled adults.

But his father is not amused.

10. At the end of the story "Toomai of the Elephants" what was it that little Toomai had seen in the Garo hills that no other human had ever seen?

Answer: The Elephant Dance

This derives from a belief in the Chittagong Hill tracts that wild elephants assemble together and dance. According to J Lockwood Kipling, (father of Rudyard) in "Beast and man in India", he "once came with his men on a large cleared space in the forest, the floor beaten hard and smooth like that of a native hut. "This", said the men in perfect good faith, "is an elephant nautch-khana" (ballroom).
Another possible reason for the flattened area is given by J H Williams (Bandaloo) as being a place created for a female to calve. A kind of elephant maternity ward.
The Garo Hills are in the province of Meghalaya in India and is heavily forested.

Source: Author martinjudo

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"The Jungle Book" Pt.6 Trivia Quiz

This is the sixth quiz of seven based on the tales from "The Jungle Book". This quiz centres on the tale of "Toomai of the Elephants". I hope you enjoy this quiz.

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