Poverty Point Legends & Lore by Jon L. Gibson

Author:Jon L. Gibson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE PLAYFUL FOX

John Calhoun relates a story about the antics of the fox following the 1985 field school.

Each night, [Dennis] would spend two or three hours sitting alone in the carport, carving a hardwood atlatl and working an intricate Poverty Point design—the fox-man, a stylized human/fox pattern portrayed on magnetite plummets—from the tip to the handle. Within a week after Mitchell had been laid to rest, Dennis was joined in his late-night vigil. As he worked the wood, he suddenly had the feeling of another presence. When he looked up from the work, he saw, sitting just at the edge of the light, ears erect and staring intently at him, an adult red fox. As Dennis stared, the animal cocked its head to one side, rose and quietly disappeared into the darkness.

Dennis was not quite as surprised the following night, or the night after that, and each night, the fox seemed more at ease, moving closer, and staying longer. Within two weeks, the animal would curl up on the pavement not ten feet in front of Dennis’s chair and seemingly listen as Dennis spent his two hours carving and talking.

At the onset, Dennis had been leerier than the fox. It was a mature adult male and healthy. Its behavior was atypical but not rabid. Or maybe not atypical for Poverty Point. One night, at the time he was usually on the carport, Dennis was talking with Jon Gibson on the telephone, and there was a scratching at the window. Dennis pulled back the curtain, and in the light, pressed against the glass pane was the muzzle and right front paw of the fox.

The parking lot of the dormitory adjacent to Dennis’s house had recently been paved, and one morning, he, his wife and two small girls were playing kickball on the fresh surface, when, out of the tree line, the fox approached and sat in the open field in front of the dorm, watching. After a few minutes, it moved to the edge of the pavement and sat still. Soon, it began running back and forth along the grass next to the pavement with the girls, in much the same way a pet dog would romp with children.

Dennis became concerned and shouted the fox away. He retreated to his first position and watched the rest of the game, and when they finished playing and returned to the houses, he slipped into the woods.59

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