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Main Procession - The Retinew Elephants I
What was the Delhi Durbar 1903 / Jun 28th, 2017 9:00 pm     A+ | a-
Now it was time for the second (and much larger) group of elephants.

There’s no much about the Retainers elephants. They were all the elephants that each state brought to Delhi, except for the state elephants that carried the Maharajas and Rajas. The Retainer or Retinue elephants were ridden by Sardars and attendants of the Indian Chiefs. There are many pictures, but they don’t cover all the elephants at all.
If you go to the press releases, they barely covered the first few elephants of the Main Procession. They all describe the first 4 or 6, and then comment on any particular elephant that called their attention, but that’s it. Unfortunately they didn’t describe all the elephants as the first from the group. So no much expected comments about the Retinues.
The references say that they were 166 elephants marching after the Main Procession, but the listed ones don’t include a few states that were there indeed, nor the ones from the Shan States, so there were probably many more. The accounts mention about 250.

Here is a list of the quantity of elephants that each Indian state brought:
Rajputana (Major Michin leading)
Jaipur 4
Bundi 4
Kota 1
Karauli 4
Bharatpur 2
Jaisalmer 1
Alwar 9
Tonk 3
Sirohi 1
Jhalawar 2
Shahpura 2

Central India (Capt. Barnes leading)
Gwalior 15
Indore 5
Bhopal 2
Rewa 11
Orchha 8
Datia 7
Dhar 1
Samthar 6
Charkhari 5
Rajgarh 1
Narsingarh 1

Kashmir 6
Hyderabad 16

Punjab
Patiala 6
Bahawalpur 2
Nabha 6
Jind 5
Sirmur 4
Kapurthala 1
Maler Kotla 2
Faridkot 2
Kalsia 2

United Provinces
Benares 6
Bulrampur 8
Rampur 5
Sardars and attendants

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A group of Press representatives


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The Rewa Group, with the Baby Elephant in front and the Rewa Executioner in third place, on the left column


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Same group, a few minutes before (passing in front of the East side of the Jumma Masjid)


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Beau Geste's Baby Elephant from Rewa (Set 114)

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The Rewa group walking along Chadni Chawk, in front of the Town Hall. Check how tiny the baby elephant is, walking in front of the group of elephants

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Same group after the first curve around the Jumma, along the south side of the building

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A detail of the previous photo. I bought this digital copy from the British Library about 9 years ago. It's very neat, and we used the picture to make our Rewa Executioner elephant. The tigers on the sides of the howda look black, but they are yellow. If you look closely you will see the black stripes on the darkened yellow. Same happened with the Maharaja of Hyderabad's elephant. It wore all yellow and gold, and it looks black in all the photos.

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Beau Geste's Rewa Executioner Elephant (set 275)



 
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