The Radiant Lives of Animals by Linda Hogan

Author:Linda Hogan [Hogan, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Beacon Press

I hoped the wolves would remain away from any location that would become the crosshairs of their deaths. For many, the word wolf carries a dark and heavy meaning. Four letters have made them into something other than what they are and how they resonate inside the mind of many humans. Traditional Native peoples, however, have lived with wolves and recently have even requested their return to reservations. For us, the word means cooperation, a natural connection with the lives of a forest, communication, and loyalty to others. A pack of wolves also bespeaks the health of water, trees, and survival for other animals. For millennia, observation in shared territories has taught us this; the wolf is given an earned measure of respect.

Numerous stories exist about how the wolf helped and taught First Peoples. The wolf is considered a sacred animal. A star is named for it, a constellation. For the Pawnee, its path is that of the Milky Way. For us, it was a leader and we followed the white wolf dog out from a place of conflict to one of peace. Along the way it healed the injured and sick. The beautiful white wolf took us across the river and to a home of peace.

A man named Joseph Little Coyote once told us, at an indigenous science gathering, that the wolves remembered songs for their people who, during the intensification of wars against the tribes, were being chased by the cavalry into Indian Territory. Wolves maintained songs for the people who finally returned to their homeland.

From our mythologies, beliefs, and stories, we’ve learned to admire or to hate the same beautiful animals, although the hatred and fear are rarely founded in reality. Rarely do most see the true lives of wolves. Seldom do we see the animal stretched out asleep, breathing, or at play with littermates, a mother caring for her young. And perhaps because of this, we live once again in the midst of war against wolves, even those we’ve restored to the wilderness in order to bring back health to the environment.

Because there are so many ways of envisioning the lives of these animals, for some, the word means to trap or kill. It means an animal of danger, or merely a fur. A killer doesn’t consider how quickly life can be taken but how it is never brought back. The name of an animal that cries out for solitude summons these visions not anchored in truth.

As for me, years ago I was in their north, thinking of the paths of their feet over frozen, singing lakes. The landscape where they hid so beautifully was also one they helped preserve. By keeping elk and other animals on the move, they also kept safe trees and willows that were not grazed or eaten, kept them safe for the future, for spring songbirds in the willows, for the beavers and the numerous plants and animals that survive only because of that wolf presence.

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