This notebook or journal is ideal to carry when traveling because it is lightweight and has an elastic band to keep those valued pages from becoming dogeared or soiled. Each journal is uniquely hand-painted with a traditional Potua (an itinerant community in rural West Bengal, India) figure on the cover, protected in a cotton cloth bag of traditional Indian design. The journal is made from a combination of elephant dung and handmade paper, which can make for an unusual conversation starter when at home or away.

Dimensions: 4.5” x 6.25” Weight: 3.5 oz or 100 g

The elephant poo paper is produced in India under the brand name Haathi Chaap, which means Prints of the Elephant. 4% of the total sale of Haathi Chaap products are contributed to The Elephant Welfare Project run by Help In Suffering, a registered Indian charitable trust working for the benefit of the animals of India and recognized by the Humane Society International.

If you're interested in watching a video about the elephants in Jaipur and the work of one Help in Suffering veterinarian, click here.

Information about the journals and their production:

* The approximately 250 kgs of food eaten daily by elephants can produce up to 100 kgs of dung;

* The paper is probably one of the most ecologically safe papers to make and use. Colors, if added, are comprised mostly of vegetable and natural dyes. No bleach is used. The waste water is let out onto nearby cultivated fields and works as a great fertilizer;

* The color of the paper depends entirely on what the elephant eats, which depends on the season of the year. From June to September, the paper is darker in color because the elephants eat jowar (sorghum) and bajra (pearl millet). For the rest of the year they eat sugarcane and the paper is lighter in color; and

* An elephant’s diet is primarily vegetation which combined with a rather inactive digestive system makes elephant dung one of the best with which to make paper.


The journal includes a card containing background information on the Potua so that you may better appreciate their traditions and handiwork:

The Potuas are an itinerant community of rural West Bengal, India, keeping alive an ancient tradition of storytelling through songs and painted scrolls. Although the Potuas live on the margins of Bengali society, their arrival in a village is nonetheless greeted with great enthusiasm. You could call them a folk version of “Show and Tell” – for these craftsmen roam from village to village even today, entertaining villagers with renditions of folk tales, the epics, and lately their very own take on contemporary events like the 9/11 terror attacks, HIV prevention and the tsunami.

The Potuas, locally called Chitrakaars, are multi-talented artists: painters, scriptwriters, singers and performers, all in one. Their vivid paintings and narratives reflect a unique understanding of the world, not mainstream, not Western, just purely Potua. That is perhaps why their work is now being studied in museums worldwide, though many of their own citizens remain sadly oblivious to the rich narratives of the Potuas.