Long employed as beasts of burden on the great sugar plantations of the Kreyinten peninsula, during the High Imperial period they became well-known throughout the empire and closely associated with "eastern" influence in the core Uzdumalian lands.  Ivory amulets, made from the tusks of the many sugar elephants that died from overwork every year on the plantations, were initially distributed by the imperial army to the most important Barons and Voivodes to celebrate the conquest of Kreyinte in 280, near the end of the long reign of Devon-Lars I.  These amulets were shaped like elephants, which in that period were strange, almost mythical beasts in the folklore of Uzda and the neighboring regions.  As a result of the popularity of elephant amulets among the higher classes, demand for ivory skyrocketed in the following years, and it soon reached such a frenzy that even the brutal working conditions on the plantations were unable to provide enough dead elephants to make all the amulets that were desired.  Some merchants in Kreyinte then hit on the idea of sending parties of slaves into the jungles at the tip of the peninsula to hunt the wild elephants there.  Although the first few such expeditions failed when the slaves, who had for some reason been sent out unaccompanied, realized that they could just stay in the jungle instead of returning to their lives of backbreaking labor, the next expeditions, sent out under the command of some of the most brutal and talented overseers in the whole province, succeeded in killing enough elephants to satisfy the demand for ivory for the next few years.  The amulets themselves were fashioned by artisans in Kreyinte, which was perhaps the most prominent artistic center in the empire.

As time went on, ivory amulets became increasingly identified with the decadent lifestyles of the upper classes, and they were increasingly criticized by many members of the clergy and organizations such as the Blackfrock Society.  Although these groups were no strangers to hedonism and sexual depravity, they objected to ivory on the basis of its being a foreign importation and a symbol of the threat they perceived to the traditional order of society in the increasing tendency to copy eastern fashions and customs.  The amulets themselves were an Uzdumalian innovation; there is no evidence for manufacture of ivory amulets prior to 280, and even afterward they were very rare in the east.  They served, however, as a flashpoint for cultural conservatives throughout the western parts of the empire, and by the Middle Imperial period ivory amulets began to go out of fashion.  They remained popular among the more eastern-oriented libertines in the major cities, but had largely vanished from society as a whole by the time of the Jacini emperors.  As a result of this decrease in demand, the great elephant hunts ceased, and elephants reverted to being valued primarily as beasts of burden in the eastern provinces.

With the rise of Targhandism in the eastern provinces, elephants began to assume a position of importance once again, this time as majestic symbols of the Word of Targhand.  Some early missionary expeditions to the west even brought elephants along as symbols of the new religion to attract the attention of people who had never seen the great beasts before, but they had a tendency to die once the expeditions reached the Tarhanian Mountains, so they were of limited success in attracting converts.  Later expeditions brought small elephant figurines instead, which were less impressive but more durable.

See also:

Blackfrock Society (The)

Great Uzdumalian Church of State

Sugar