Interesting you bring up Pygmies. It is really interesting how they used to hunt elephants (used since nowadays they have become more or less tourist attractions). The hunted Forest Elephants (which are taller and lankier than the Bush Elephant - most Elephants people see are Bush elephants, which are bigger and bulkier than their forest bethren). Anyhoo, the way they would hunt them is by tracking the herd through the forest, and once one got seperated from the rest they would go above into the trees. Then two 'runners'armed with knives would drop down and sneak behind the elephant, before breaking into a run and trying to slash the tendons in the elephants back legs. If successful the elephant would be limited in movement. Then, the bravest one of them (usually a young man who wanted to prove some point) would grab a spear (the spear looked more like an Assegai ....a very short shaft and a very large sharp blade) and charge the elephant from the front! Go under the front legs, and plunge the spear into the elephant's belly.
As you can obviously imagine Murphy's law is also effective in Africa, hence many things used to go wrong. For one they mgiht make some noise and the elephants would just disappear (elephant feet have a soft pad that can be hardened or softened, and when soft a herd of elephants can walk 5 feet to your right, through twigs and scrub, and you would never hear a sound!). OR, the 'runners' could mess up and be killed by an elephant (and getting killed by an elephant is probably one of the worst ways to die in Africa .....barring an encounter with a Hippo or a Buffalo. An encounter with a hippo or a buffalo is an automatic gate pass to heaven. St Pete would feel so sorry for what was done to your mangled body that he would just let you pass carte blanche!). Now, even if they runners were successful, the guy who was going to do the coup de gras had to charge the elephant from the front. The front of the elephant has its tusks, its trunk, and its fore feet! It is not a place you want to run toward, especially if you are a pygmy.
Anyways, those guys were brave.
Next week on the Animal Show: How Masai teens became men by hunting lions while armed with a spear and a shield. LOL.
My nuke is bigger than yours.