This writing came out of me
after gazing into his eyes. He was in a photo, accompanying a
recent Concord Monitor Editorial opposing
a proposed bill in the legislature declaring all out war on the coyote. He was what
the sponsor of the bill called a “vicious animal.”
The coyote seemed to be speaking
directly to me, saying, “Why me? I’m a social and intelligent canine with high
family values, certainly on a par with your own family pet. Why do you hate me
so?”
If truth be told, I think
coyotes are reviled because they are smarter and more self-reliant than our Rover
sleeping by the fire. That’s something
our culture resents. It’s the same entrenched patriarchy that looks down on
smart and self-reliant women.
It’s not that I have a
problem with having a season to hunt coyotes if the aim is to manage their
numbers like we do with deer and moose – and even bear. But currently there is
no closed season on coyotes: they can be hunted down year around.
The new proposed amendment –
thankfully now withdrawn from consideration – would have only added insult to
injury by adding unlimited night hunting.
When it comes to coyotes, the
intent of our game regulations appears to be not management but extermination.
Of course, in reality, unrestricted
hunting – with some poetic justice – accomplishes the opposite of its intent, breaking
down their family structure, causing them to breed more, not less, thus increasing
the population, creating a bigger problem than formerly existed.
Conversely, when the family
structure is preserved by less hunting, only the alpha male and female mate,
reducing the number of young. The remaining, resident population can be taught
to avoid raiding the family farm under the thread of being shot or trapped by
the farmer if they try.
But I digress.
I want to get back to
discussing this patriarchal urge to punish and seek revenge against any one we
can’t control, whether smart, independent, unbowed women or like-minded animals
like coyotes.
Or course we have a long
history of doing this in our country: just look what happened to Native
Americans, who in the beginning were independent from white folks, living
sustainably and in harmony with the land.
We, of course, attacked what
we didn’t understand and, not surprisingly, the Indians fought back, hence
becoming “vicious” heathens who had to be wiped out. The cry went out, “The only good injun is a
dead injun.”
Just like what we are trying
to do now with the coyote.
Our history of imperialism
and patriarchy has cast a shadow on the soul of our nation, not only with our
crusade against women and coyotes, but against minorities in our own country
and non-western cultures around the world.
But finally, we have met our
match!
Our ultra-individualistic,
material way of life, treating the earth as just a commodity to be consumed, is
now pitting itself against Mother Nature Herself, and we are finding that
Mother Earth plays according to Her own rules, not alternative facts we
conveniently make up.
The outcome is becoming
clear: If we continue our American way of unlimited growth powered by
extracting more and more fossil fuels from the earth, we will soon trigger
uncontrolled climate change, which will lead to eliminating most humans from
the planet: Exterminating not just us but most of our innocent, fellow species.
If we are to avoid this
dismal fate, indigenous people have much to teach us. In fact, Frederick
Gustafson, a Jungian analyst, posits that
our extermination of Native Americans is a metaphor for how we deny this instinctual,
primal part of ourselves:
That primal worldview,
ingrained in our genes, provides the guidelines on how to live in harmony and interdependently within
the web of life.
For a primer on what we can
learn from indigenous people, I highly recommend Dancing with Wolves, the movie starring Kevin Costner: it is a
wonderful primer on how, in a more perfect world, we could have/and still can
learn and gain wisdom from Native Americans.
We have a long history in our
country, much to our detriment, of too often declaring: It’s either my way or
the highway. By necessity, the time has come to be more welcoming and inclusive,
to have higher aspirations for ourselves.
I will close this essay with
one such aspiration, quoting Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux Chief:
I am going to venture that the man who sat on the
ground in his tepee meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship
of all creatures, and acknowledging unity with the universe of things was
infusing into his being the true essence of civilization.”
xxx
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