![]() ![]() Intelligence and masculinity are highly fraught in our culture. Maybe this leads to a possible answer to Harrigan’s question. But the coyote’s braincase is bigger than the wolf’s. ![]() His paws are bigger, and we all know what that means. The wolf’s body is taller and wider than the coyote’s. There is something ostensibly macho about the differing designations of value on each animal. The New Hampshire Sunday News columnist John Harrigan once asked, “Why do we profess to so love and adore and worship and seek closeness to the wolf, the supposed poster child for all that’s remote, wild and free, the mournful soul-searching stuff of poetry and song, not to mention fawning documentaries and movies, while at the same time we’re taught to despise and persecute by any means-bullet, trap, wire, poison-its close cousin and equally beautiful and rightful occupant of the wild, the coyote?” It almost sounds like a case of ethnic discrimination. I wonder, do we lie about history to absolve ourselves of guilt? Or is self-deception simply a psychological trick that enables us to live with unchecked moral pomposity and exceptionalism? Do we learn in school that he was an imperialist and a tyrant? That he spearheaded the transatlantic slave trade? That his invasions were so violent and gruesome, his governance so badly mismanaged, that he and his brothers were actually arrested in Spain when they returned from their third voyage? Growing up, I was simply made to memorize the names of his ships, and the helpful rhyme, “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” He “discovered” America, we still say. It takes brilliance and creativity to make milk toast out of bloodbaths, and Americans are especially good at doing that. Christian logic, I guess, would not allow for an animist paradigm, but it did seem to rationalize, even glorify, the theft, rape, ruin, enslavement, and imprisonment of this land and its original inhabitants. Just as soon as the imperialist European occupiers vilified the “Indians” as Satanists and witches, the coyote became a symbol of evil. He is most commonly known as the Trickster. But can you blame them? Wouldn’t you do the same?įrom a powerful creator to a hero battling supernatural enemies to a messenger of information, the coyote is a pertinent figure in indigenous folklore throughout the Americas. He can outsmart people in some legends, and in others he’s just a buffoon, or he’s a sex maniac, or he juggles his own eyeballs. They’re mean, they’re desperate, and they don’t care how much you cherish your pet pussycat. In the city, they’re treated like armed hobos, criminals. Laws soon changed to protect wildlife living in urban areas, but, socially speaking, the coyote is still in the doghouse. ![]() Thousands of coyotes were killed in retaliation. ![]() There has been only one reported human fatality from a coyote attack in the history of the United States, and that happened in 1981. As a writer, my imagination feels freer here than in my native New England.Ĭoyotes very rarely attack humans, by the way. Around every corner there’s another movie scene a fictional shimmer rises up off the city through the smog. I like living here because the illusory nature of reality is perversely obvious. A strange and dangerous paradise, L.A., and we stubborn fools insist on staying put despite earthquakes, drought, forest fires, the dwindling shoreline. They are indelible players in the theatre of the city, and frequent sightings remind us that this land itself is still a volatile and largely untamable frontier. Los Angeles coyotes live in the hills, in parks, in landfills, under highway overpasses. I followed the coyote for a while in my car, then stopped to watch it step into busy Virgil Avenue, where it dodged cars so calmly, so expertly, that it almost appeared to be controlling the flow of traffic with its mind. Or maybe what I thought I saw in his eyes was just a projection of my own state of wonder at this gorgeous creature gliding coolly across my world of concrete and palm trees, elevating my humdrum hunt for a parking spot to a moment of amazement. It limped suavely along the sidewalk at a confident clip, its mouth open in happy wonder or obscene hilarity-I couldn’t get a good read on him. The other day, I watched a wounded coyote jaunt down my street in East Hollywood. For the week of July 4th, we asked writers to describe a person, object, or experience that they think captures a distinctly American spirit. ![]()
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