LL-L "Animals" 2003.01.30 (10) [E]

Thu Jan 30 23:12:46 UTC 2003

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From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L "Folklore" 2003.01.30 (06) [E]

Ed and Ron,

I cannot believe I hear "coyotes and wolves are basically the same" from
people who pay close attention to niggling details in the differences they
perceive between different varieties of Frisian!! :-))

Since I want to stay within the limits of this forum, let me just state that
wolves and coyotes may look similar to the untrained, or rather, uncaring
eye, but so do hares and rabbits although there are worlds between them.
They have totally different behavioural and social patterns; they smell very
different (coyote aroma is very similar to that of foxes; they have a lot of
other things in common with foxes, too), have different ecological niches
and also certain anatomical differences (pointing all these things out in
detail would lead too far here). It is for very good reasons that Wolf and
Coyote have very different functions in Native American folklore.

To me, claiming that those two species are basically the same hurts even
more than it must have hurt many of you when a certain gentleman recently
asked whether we "knew that they speak Dutch in South Africa". We are
talking living species here; let us not deny them their dignity and
uniqueness.

Gabriele Kahn

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Folkore

Gabriele,

I agreed with Ed's statement "My sources say that wolves and coyotes are
very, very close relatives," which according to zoological taxonomy
(_Canis_) is the case.  I did not say or agree with "coyotes and wolves are
basically the same," which is an entirely different type of statement.
"Very closely related" does not equal "basically the same," neither in
zoology (wolves & coyotes = Canis) nor in linguistics (Dutch & Afrikaans =
Low Franconian).

Cheers,
Reinhard/Ron

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From: Friedrich-Wilhelm Neumann <Friedrich-Wilhelm.Neumann at epost.de>
Subject: LL-L "Folklore" 2003.01.30

Deer Lowlanders,

first of all: thanks to all of You having been in"w"olved in the theme.

Let me try a conclusion about what we have heard about folkloristic and
biological wolves.

As far as I have learned, the wolf is

- not the dreadful, bad animal as many of us did learn in those ancient
fairytales. All  these stories seem to originate of the middle ages, or even
later, when the wolf already was nearly eradiced in Europe, and were often
made and had to bee understood in a moralic manner.

- and was no real threat for those people, who lived with them in former
times or still do today. In special it seems not to be a threat for gouts-
neither the humanic nore the animalic ones *s*.

-able to do great harm to farmers and their herds. But- not because of its
malignity, but just for being hungry.

-not so looked upon in a degradiatual way in natural cultures, as for
example, even in our ancients ones: there are, like in the native folks of
North-America, many names beginning with "Wolf-" or Wulf-" describing some
keen or courage. Even the bad "Isegrim", as I learned, was not the
designation of the animal, but of special ridicoulus, harmful  men.

-suited and perhaps will be accepted to be a member of our european fauna
again; not everywhere, of course, but in sparseley settled areas, so,  as we
can find them in nearly every country.

Thanks, with a wolfish "Ooouuhh"

Fiete

-
(Friedrich W. Neumann)

-----
"SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES..."
"Iced Earth" (originally W.S., Macbeth)

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From: Ruud Harmsen <rh at rudhar.com>
Subject: LL-L "Folklore" 2003.01.30 (06) [E]

11:51 30-1-2003 -0800, Lowlands-L,
Ed Alexander, about wolves and coyotes vs. dogs:
>[...]  However, you'd be very hard pressed to know which one you were
>tracking, since the paw prints are virtually identical, with the unique
>"in-line" pattern distinguishing the two from wild or loose dogs,
with their
>"side-by-side" pattern.

How do Australian dingos fit into this?

I always thought they were tame dogs gone wild, but recently saw
(National Geographic Channel?, Discovery? can't remember) that the
Aboriganals were already in Australia for centuries, when the wild
dingos arrived. (Or was it the other way around? I don't think so).
Only then they were loosely domesticized, without really losing
their wild status.
--
http://rudhar.com

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From: Ruud Harmsen <rh at rudhar.com>
Subject: LL-L "Folklore" 2003.01.30 (06) [E]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Folklore
>
> By the way, coyotes can also be seen here in Seattle.  I've even seen a
> couple in the backyard.

Sometimes when I look out of the window around ten or eleven
on a Thursday night I see a fox coming down from the hill and
walking along the pavement very purposefully to scavenge from
the rubbish bags that the villagers put out for collection on
Friday mornings. It clearly knows the village quite well,
because it ignores the household rubbish and makes directly
for the center of the village where all restaurant and hotel
bags are. This always makes me wonder: how does it know it's
Thursday?

Great Britain (I don't know how it is in Ireland) abounds with
stories of wild animals that prey on sheep but are rarely seen,
such as the beast Exmoor. When I was young it was commonly
believed that their was a puma living in the wilds of East
Lothian - some people had seen it, and farmers claimed it had
been killing sheep, and then came one particularly snowy winter
when many people reported seeing its tracks in the snow. This
could all be nonsense and yet after that year the reports ceased,
so it may have been that there really was a puma and it hadn't
survived that particularly cold winter.

As for the main piece of evidence, the dead and half-eaten sheep,
I wonder if in fact this is just the work of foxes and many people
don't believe there are foxes capable of doing this. I know they
are because I've seen foxes hunting sheep myself. This has never
been in open fields but always in secluded nooks on hillsides that
sheep have wandered into - so presumably foxes know better than to
be seen killing sheep in the open.

As for actual sightings of strange wild animals - well, I've seen
one myself! About seven years ago I lived in an islolated farmhouse
on the Somerset/Dorset border and one evening (it was still broad
daylight) I was driving home along the long one-track farm road that
led to the house when suddenly this strange canine sprang from a
ditch and walked along in front of the car for some distance. It
was very thin, but with large ears and long legs, more like a fox
than a domesticated dog, but with shorter fur. When I described
this animal to the locals they said it might be a fox with mange,
which is a possibility, but as I said, I'm familiar with the sight
of foxes and I find it difficult to reconcile the two. Then a couple
of years ago I was watching a documentary about the elusive Tasmanian
tiger, and they were showing clips of films of animals that people
had sometimes mistaken for the Tasmanian tiger. One of these clips
had me shouting, "That's it, that's the animal I saw!" But
unfortunately in all the excitement, nobody managed to catch what the
experts had considered the animal to be. Strange that it was on the
other side of the planet, though! I hope they show that documentary
again sometime!

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

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