Canis lupus nubilus

"Lobo in the Four Traps" photo by ETS

Dear Lobo,

I am sending this out for the 120^th anniversary of your death, January 31, 1894 – January 31, 2014. Your subspecies, Canis lupus nubilus became extinct during my lifetime or perhaps somewhat earlier. The date of your birth cannot be known, but Seton suggested you were at least five years old, so perhaps this year also marks your 125^th birthday.

You first came to Seton’s attention through large tracks left in snow and mud, and then through mournful howling after the death of another member of your pack, perhaps your mate, based on your search for her after her death. You were entered into Seton’s journal as specimen number 677, photographed, and then gained immortality as the famous Lobo in the short story “The King of Currumpaw,” published about ten months after your death. As the lead character in Wild Animals I Have Known, you gained international stardom five years after your death. Your story has remained in print through the intervening decades with book sales perhaps reaching a million copies – a lot for one wolf.

Yours is a classic American story – a hero of the West matching strength and wits against all foes while demonstrating loyalty to your pack and love for your partner. You roamed the last days of the Old West, the canine version of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch, the last of a dying breed making a final heroic stand against impossible odds. And of course you lost the battle although you gained immortality.

Your cousins, Canis lupus baileyi, the Mexican wolf, have faced and still face persecution by a variety of human enemies. They are named in honor of early 20^th century biologist Vernon Bailey who advocated their extinction on the mistaken notion that game hunting would improve in the absence of wolves. Many of these wolves have also died heroically protecting their families and their way of life. The personal stories of these individuals have not been written, but they loved (and love) life as much as you, Lobo, loved yours.

Seton hoped that he would have crossed the great divide before the coyote might be exterminated from the West. They of course long survived Seton. But great predators throughout the world are endangered. I wonder if I will cross the great divide before the wild African lions or Indian tigers are gone from the wild? They too have wonderful individual stories that we cannot know. The future will be a bleak place without lions and tigers and wolves. If more people knew your story, maybe this would change.

 

Lobo, you represent all that is good and valiant about the wild. May memory of you live on forever.

Sincerely,

David

 

(There is more about Lobo in my earlier blog postings)

Animal Communication

The December 9, 2013 Time cover story – “America’s Pest Problem” – called for the mass extermination of wildlife. Apparently, wild animals are inconveniently in our way. This appallingly unconscious attitude suggests that, as pervasive as Seton’s influence is, that influence has not penetrated everywhere.

 

By contrast, Aaron Stern, founder of the Academy for the Love of Learning, sent me a link to a documentary about a South African woman who has achieved a remarkable level of empathy for our wild brethren. The film shows her using a special talent to actually communicate with animals. (http://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/11936/The-Animal-Communicator)

 

From the film promo:

“Synopsis: What if you could talk to animals and have them talk back to you?

Anna Breytenbach has dedicated her life to what she calls interspecies communication. She sends detailed messages to animals through pictures and thoughts. She then receives messages of remarkable clarity back from the animals.”

Compare this to “The Wolf and the Primal Law” in Seton’s Great Historic Animals (1937). In this story, about the accidental betrayal of a wolf by a wolf lover, Seton resurrects his alter ego “Yan.” In earlier stories, he used Yan when writing about his own adventures and abilities. It seems that Yan, like Anna Breytenbach in 2012, can directly communicate with wild animals.

“He was intensely sensitive, and had the most amazing sympathy with animals – not only sympathy, but knowledge of, and an understanding that amounted to telepathy. I have seen him walk gently up to a wild deer feeding out in the open, a deer that would have fled at speed from any one else.”

Indignant at the brutality of a zoo keeper attempting to transfer a leopard from one cage to another, Yan literally steps in, assuring the keeper that “there is no danger.”

“He talked softly to the leopard for a minute…. Yan went in, softly crooning a little purring sound in which were often heard the words: ‘Now Pussy; now, Pussy! Fear not, we are friends; we are friends.

There is no reason to suppose that the leopard understood the words; but he got the friendly emanations. His hair no longer bristled; his growling ceased; his eyes were not now flowing; his long whit whiskers like antennae took in the kind vibrations. The look of anger died away; and gently talking, Yan reached out his wand and scratched the leopard on the head. Gradually, the spotted savage head went down, the creature leaned toward the boy, and a low, deep, catlike purring was heard. It grew louder; and Yan continued making medicine with his song, and nearer came, till his hand could touch and stroke the leopard’s head.” (pg. 121-122)

We can only hope that someday the lessons of Seton, Breytenbach, and others like them will overcome the reactionary thinking of those for whom the others beings with which we share this earth are perceived only as inconveniences.

 

The Work of Ernest Thompson Seton by Nancy Bell

Here are excerpts from an article appearing in The Humane Review, an anti-animal cruelty journal, published in London, April 1903, pp. 11 – 20. A copy of the journal, from the Seton Castle Archives, is found in the Seton Gallery library at the Academy for the Love of Learning.

IN these days of eager haste to acquire knowledge at no matter what cost, and feverish haste to turn that knowledge to material account, it is refreshing to consider the work of a reverent student of nature who, from first to last, has recognized the sanctity of life given by the Great Creator, whatever form that life may assume, and has never allowed his ideal to be obscured by any pandering to expediency. With eyes trained by long discipline to observe accurately; a brain capable of computing the relative value of that which is observed; a memory schooled to retain and compare results; and, perhaps most effective of all, so far as winning converts is concerned, a poet’s power of kindling in others his own enthusiasm, Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton has indeed won the right to be called a leader in the campaign against ignorance, prejudice, and selfishness now being waged by the greatest thinkers of the day….

Many others have striven to prove the danger of upsetting the balance of nature; many eloquent men have preached the doctrines of mercy and forbearance towards those unable to plead for themselves; but it was the luminous eloquence of the great naturalist which first brought home to the hearts of the rising generation with convincing force the kinship between animals and men, and aroused a genuine healthy interest in the primal joys and woes of the wild creatures he knows so well….

That he has succeeded not only in arousing but in retaining those sympathies [towards wildlife conservation] there can be no doubt, and he may yet live to see the movement he has inaugurated spread throughout the civilised world….

Buffalo Wind and Seton

October 23, 2013, 67^th Anniversary of Seton’s Death

In his short mystical essay, The Buffalo Wind (1938), Seton considered his own passing:

The swift years have gone – the urge becomes a lash. I am going now – I am going with all my strength. So have I sought a homeland under the white Snow Peaks – where Trail meets Trail – and far away, flashing and bright, the Red Man’s River seeks the open sea.

Seton arrived at this level of understanding only after experiencing several spiritual storms during his lifetime. In each case, he gained insight about the esoteric part of nature. The main section of my book Ernest Thompson Seton, the Life and Legacy of an Artist and Conservationist concluded with a consideration of these experiences. In some cases he heard voices, but in one case he did not. He wrote:

A friend loaned me a book, The Shades of Shasta, much of good picture and much of sordid meanness in it. But always when the writer told of Shasta, it was noble. In the end, the Indians of Shasta were massacred – massacred by the Christians – all their love and dreams of the Great Mountain were forgotten. And the writer stood alone on the high shoulder, to look before leaving it all. There was no human sound – the quail whistled in the grass, and the wind moaned in the cedars and the grass, and moaned farewell. My eyes blurred. I knew that he had heard it. The book dropped from my hand, for “The Buffalo Wind is blowing!”

The account of the Shasta Indian’s tragic tale triggered a spiritual storm in Seton, an important moment of existential insight. In this case, however, Seton’s words have given rise to a literary mystery. We have not found a book with the title, The Shades of Shasta.

Intrigued by this, Seton researcher Bob Hare found a different book: Unwritten History: Life Amongst the Modocs by Joaquin Miller, published by the American Publishing Company, Hartford, Connecticut, 1874 and dedicated “To the Red Men of America.” Miller gave an account of his times among the remnant Modoc people. He titled his first chapter, “Shadows of Shasta.” Here are a couple of relevant quotes from Miller; note how close Seton came to remembering the original:

Captain Wright proposed to meet the chiefs in council, for the purpose of making a lasting and permanent treaty. The Indians consented, and the leaders came in. “Go back” said Wright, “and bring in all your people; we will have a council, and celebrate our peace.” The Indians came in great numbers, laid down their arms, and then at a sign Wright and his men fell upon them, and murdered them without mercy. Captain Wright boasted on his return that he had made a permanent treaty with at least a thousand Indians...The mountain streams went foaming down among the boulders between the leaning walls of yew and cedar trees towards Sacramento. The partridge whistled and called his flock together when the sun went down; the brown pheasants rustled as they ran in strings through the long brown grass, but nothing else was heard.

Miller finally met up with a few survivors, although none of those known to him from earlier years were still alive. He quoted one of them:

All along the shores stood deserted lodges, and the grass grew rank and tall around them. They had been depopulated for years... “Once,” [said one of the few survivors] “we were so many we could not all upon this hill; now we are all in one little cawel,”* and here he made a solemn sweep with her arm, which was very grand.

Seton likely read Life Amongst the Modocs decades before writing the Buffalo Wind essay just before his 78^th birthday. The power of the experience created by Miller’s words had not diminished. The 1874 book is in digitalized format at www.openlibrary.org.

 

*I could not find a definition for this word.

Utah Rock Vandals Should Read Woodcraft Conservation Statement

Two Boy Scout troop leaders were in the news this week and last for vandalizing a geological formation in Utah. Destruction of our natural and national heritage is of course contrary to the most basic principles of Scouting and Woodcraft. This reckless and stupid behavior was rightly denounced by BSA. One can easily imagine how appalled Seton would have been to hear that the core value of conservation was so flagrantly violated. He was no fan of ignorance. Seton did not mention ancient rocks, but no doubt would have if he could have predicted the behavior of the Utah yahoos. These jokers need a remedial class in common sense.

Here is a short Seton statement on conservation from the Birch Bark Roll (1930). I’ll put it in red so as to get the attention of the uninitiated!

“In my young days some 50 odd years ago, trees were considered the greatest plague of the settler, and every means of destroying them was employed with vigor. The man who cut down a tree on his neighbor’s land was supposed to be doing him a benefit.

Now what a change we see! Forest destruction has gone so fast and so far that we have been suddenly confronted with the probability of a woodless waste where once were the American forests famous the world over; with a desolated deliberately desolated, fatherland.

We know these things today, and wise leaders are everywhere at work inculcating the methods of true conservation.

With these leaders, the Woodcraft League co-operates, and to this end, we have in this issue of the Birch Bark Roll carefully avoided any line of activity that seems likely to lead to destruction of any of Mother Nature’s blessings.

Collections of butterflies and birds we no longer encourage, baskets made of materials where their use would be a menace to our forest resources are not now listed for honors. On the other hand, the placing of bird boxes, the planting of trees, and dissemination of wild flowers and the destruction of tent caterpillars, etc., are cited as honorable Woodcraft activities.

 

Feel free to pass on this conservation message to anyone you feel is in need of it.

Seton on Hunting with Guns and Arrows

Through an entry into his Totem Board newsletter, Ernest Thompson Seton found a way to express his ideas about hunting in a review of a book by Adolph Shane, perhaps published in the 1940s. The book: Archery Tackle, How to Make and How to Use It, Manual Arts Press, Peoria, Illinois. I believe it is important because in his published articles Seton developed from a 19^th century trapping and hunting advocate to a 20^th century trapping opponent and a qualified hunting advocate. He had two concerns: causing death and suffering to “harmless” wild animals, and fairness. That is, hunting should come closer to being a fair contest between the hunter and the hunted. I quote it here because it may be Seton’s final published word on the subject.

The review:

It is now over forty years since the present reviewer set about a revival of archery.

The modern gun which displaced the bow, is a chemical explosive, and is just as deadly if the touch be given by a baby as by a giant. The bow, on the other hand, shoots the arrow with the exact force of the archer. As guns have become more deadly and destructive, the game have begun to disappear, and the logical conclusion was, ‘Why not use poison gas, and kill it all at once if destruction is the aim?’ Alas, we came very near to this, and thoughtful men called a halt, and asked the question, ‘What are you after, sport or destruction?’ This question answers itself, and the rejoinder is evident. The bow gives a maximum of sport with a minimum of destruction. Explosive weapons, more deadly every year, will wipe out all the game in a decade.

These are the thoughts back of the bow revival. For this reason we rejoice in the practical, sensible, clear exposition of archery by an expert archer, Adolph Shane. Equipped only with this handy volume, each and every man and boy can become an archer, make his own tackle and enter a little kingdom of his own.

Ernest Thompson Seton 

The Preacher of Cedar Mountain Shows Seton as Progressive

Seton's “Preacher” novel seems unusual at first reading, but, as it turns out, more for its format than its content. Published in 1917 while Seton still had a contract with Doubleday, it was an attempt at publishing a conventional novel with a human protagonist who overcomes his adversaries by wit and by physical strength (also characteristic of his animal heroes). The preacher, Jim Hartigan, is, like Seton, almost more pagan than Christian, choosing to baptize his infant son at a Native American nature shrine rather than in a church. 

This format was not, in my view, an especially strong one for Seton. He seemed more comfortable – and was certainly more successful from a literary standpoint – in writing long stories about wildlife, e.g. Monarch, The Big Bear and Krag, the Kootenay Ram. There is here not so much narrative arc as vignettes from Jim’s lifetime, although the courtship of Belle does take center stage.

Therefore, the story is not really plot driven. And, it is only sort-of character driven: Jim is more an amalgamation of the white-hatted hero typical of 19^th and early 20^th century Western novels, Seton’s version of Owen Wister’s The Virginian. But if not plot driven and not compellingly character driven either, then what are we to make of it?

My notes on the book reminded me that it is theme-driven, that is, ideas and positions taken in Seton’s other published fiction and non-fiction works are gathered here in one grand conglomeration in the novel form. There is not much in the way of coherence, but instead is a collection of attitudes arising from the turn of the century Progressive Era of which he was such an important part – outdoor youth education and Scouting.

I was not looking for these when I first read the book and no doubt there are more to be discovered, but I can present a few examples here. First, and most evident, is Seton’s stated admiration for the values and mores of traditional Native American and First Nations peoples. Their honesty, perseverance, and dedication to the common welfare greatly appealed to Seton. He made clear his preference for Indian culture over the one he was born into – from The Book of Woodcraft to The Gospel of the Red Man. As examples of Native superiority in the novel, Indians outwit inept whites in two different horse races. Indian society represented for Seton an ideal socialism, eschewing greed in favor of resource sharing, cheerfully giving service to the community, putting others above oneself, etc. 

There is also a socialist basis in Christianity for the proper relationship of man to society. One character (while disparaging Saint Paul!), says,

“…if you take the trouble to read a publication called the Bible, and in particular the early numbers of the second volume, you’ll find that the Big Teacher taught socialism – and the real disciples did too…If this yere [sic?] government of ours was what it pretends to be and ain’t, it would arrange so every man could get enough work at least to feed him and his folks and save himself from starvation when he was sick and old…That’s my opinion; and I tell you it was that way the Big Teacher preached it in the beginning…”(247)

Feminism gets a part here as well. When Jim is asked his opinion about “Woman Suffrage,” he is not sure what to think,

“It was indeed a poser for Jim; a shock to a deep-set prejudice. Notwithstanding the fact that his mother had been a woman of power, the unquestioned and able head in a community of men, he had unconsciously clung to the old idea of woman’s mental inferiority.” (122)

Women in the harsh lands of the West had developed exceptional strength,

“There were women who boldly proclaimed that sex and mind had little bearing on each other; that women should train herself to be herself, and to stand on her own feet; that when woman had the business training of men, the widow and the unmarried woman – half of all women – would no longer be the easy prey of every kind of sharper. These new teachers were, of course, made social martyrs, but they sowed the seed and the crop was coming on. That every woman should prepare herself to stand alone in the world was the first article in their creed.” (85)

And also, for men and women, the West as Seton saw it was a place for optimism. No doubt this entered into his decision to make the move west himself. 

“One must remember that the West has always been the land of boom. It is filled with the energetic and enterprising who, by a natural process, are selected from the peoples of the East; and the stuff such booms feed on, grow on, and grow mighty on as they feed, is Hope. Every Westerner knows that the land is full of possibility, opportunity – free, equal opportunity multiplied; and he hopes that his name will be the next one called by fortune. To respond to the call at whatever cost – to be ready to respond – that is the condition that is worth while. A dozen bad defeats are passing trifles if the glad call only comes and one fail not to rise to it. So it is ever easy in a land of such undaunted souls to start a boom. Hope never dies in the West.” (254)

It goes on like this with statements against animal cruelty and for religious tolerance – although not for racial tolerance. (There is of course no way to know, but I suspect that if Seton had lived long enough to hear Dr. Martin Luther King’s arguments for economic justice for all persons, his attitudes about race might have shifted.)

Jim, like Seton’s “Gorm, Giant of the Club,” is a hulking man/boy, an innocent who gradually learns that a morally driven life – and a good wife – make it all worthwhile. While Jim preaches the Gospel, Seton seems not to have been a practicing Christian for all that he admired the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus. He occasionally refers to Jesus in his writings, although never by name.

The big difference I see in The Preacher of Cedar Mountain, differentiating it from the two earlier non-animal story titles, Two Little Savages and Rolf in the Woods, is that the earlier books were skills-oriented, while this one is message driven. It is basically "liberal" in a political sense, and by chance or not, came into being not long after political “conservatives” won the battle for control over the Boy Scouts of America, forcing Seton out.   

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Academy for the Love of Learning