Elsa the Lioness

"How's it coming with stuffing the dog, Frank?" I asked him, and he became immediately serious.

"Well," he said. "There are a few problems. The pose, for example, is very important. I'm still deciding on the best possible pose," he said. "The actual body has been properly treated, but the pose really worries me."

"The pose?" I said, trying to imagine what poses Sorrow ever had. He seemed to have slept and farted in a variety of casual positions.

"Well," Frank explained. "There are certain classic poses in taxidermy ... Personally, I favour the 'attack' pose."

- John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire

As Frank, the homosexual cymbalist and taxidermist in The Hotel New Hampshire, and his family discover, the "attack" pose can present problems, and probably shouldn't be applied to labradors. Similarly, I am of the view it should not be applied to lions, either. Taxidermy is disturbing at the best of times, but the attack pose doesn't help. Which brings me to the subject of Elsa the lioness, who I recently acquired with a bunch of crap crime novels. In forgiving light, Elsa looks not too bad:



But in bright light, Elsa just looks, well, half-dead, half-alive, and generally creepy:



Reactions to Elsa have been mixed; some people hate it, others really hate it. On the milder side was a relative who expressed general disaproval of having dead things in one's home. I asked him if he was getting rid of his leather couches anytime soon. At the worse end are people who look at me as if I personally shot the poor lion, then turned it into that most dodgy of artifacts, a Lion Skin Rug With Head.

OK, I know it's politically incorrect, but I hasten to point out that I certainly don't approve of the killing of lions, and that the thing is clearly at least fifty years old, probably older, and from a time when such things were perhaps less understood, and less frowned upon, than now. And I guess that's why I like it - it is, undeniably, a powerful and fascinating object.

Finding somewhere to put it has been difficult. It is designed as a rug, but I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable walking on it. The skin and paws are still attached to the head, and the whole thing is quite worn, the skin in particular. It wouldn't go well on a wall - for a start, you couldn't see the head unless you mounted it with the head pointing downwards, which is problematic. Tahlia suggested facetiously I cuddle up to it in bed. At the moment, it's on a speaker, with the skin and paws tucked behind.

In truth, I find it quite moving. The pose and process seem to modern eyes so alien and innapropriate, the pose designed to make the poor beast seem fierce, and presumably the hunter more brave. Yet it looks forced - you can easily imagine the threads used to pull the mouth back into a snarl. The idea of turning it into a rug seems so aggresively symbolic of colonialism generally. It is now in pretty poor condition - as you can see, the lower jaw is showing through, it is missing an ear, and the skin is generally ratty. Thus it is hard to form a picture of what Elsa might have been like in life. I think she was old - firstly, because she just looks old (although that could be the effects of wear and aging, rather than an expression of Elsa in life); secondly, because she is a lioness, and I suspect, or at least hope, that only elderly female lions were hunted. Perhaps she was a last minute desperation "bag" at the end of a stalk, the guide pressured by his rich tourists to find them a lion, and a maneless elderly female served as a poor substitute for a fierce male in his prime. It is impossible to say; it is a relic of history. Anyway, I find it interesting, for the moment, although I can see I may eventually find it too much. I don't know what I'll do then - whether it will go in a box, or be given back to the wild in some fashion.

I do like that aspect of this job, though - you do get the opportunity to purchase some strange things.

posted by Nicholas @ 10:08 PM