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Book Review
| Vicious: Wolves and Men in America. By Jon T. Coleman. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. xv + 270 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, index. $28.00.
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| Wolves have never, as far as we know, killed a human in North America. Yet American colonists and pioneers not only slaughtered them at every chance, but devised torturous methods to do so. Vicious weaves together the "violent interactions" (p. 4) of biology, history, and folklore to find out why. |
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From New England's colonists, the Ohio Valley's settlers, and Utah's Mormon pioneers, to early 1900s federal predator control, Vicious reveals that stories about wolves were not about wolves per se, but instead used wolves for ulterior motives: to assert dominance in a new land that was frighteningly unknown and inhospitable, to force the familiar upon an unfamiliar place, to define and condone individual bravado, even to justify funding for government agencies. Colonization was chaotic and disappointing; wolf legends, community hunts, and aggressive torture were used to bring things back into human control. Euro-Americans became "a predator that imagined itself prey attacking a predator that could not imagine itself prey" (p. 230). |
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Discussing the biology of both wolf and human behavior, Vicious shows how miscommunication between two predators proved so deadly for wolves. It also reveals aspects of Native Americans' involvement—alternately being identified with wolves and using wolves to stabilize relations with the invaders. But perhaps the book's most fascinating contribution is illuminating the role of folktales. From Bible-versed New England colonists to federal trappers with last-wolf sagas, the transmission and use of folklore not only helped explain, but actually redefined, reality—underlining the power of stories to reinforce, guide, and propel humans into action. |
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It's unfortunate, though, that the book, with its confined geographic scope, attempts to include the present. It erroneously suggests only two remaining wolf stories: the "emblem-of-wilderness" held by urban Americans and the "threat-to-livestock" told by western ranchers decrying wolf reintroduction. In completely ignoring the ongoing persecution of wolves in Alaska, the author fails to see that the stories propelling colonists to not just kill, but torture, wolves as so much vermin are alive and well. What's more, Alaska reveals a perversion of the folklore in Vicious. Humans kill hundreds of wolves each year using the same justification as the beleaguered colonists and ranchers, but they are not protecting livestock and private property; they kill wolves over wild prey. They are also resolute in avoiding last-wolf stories by dismissing any value of individual wolves. Also, omitting Canada from any discussion of wolves and humans in North America misses significant differences in Canadian history and folklore of wildlife. Finally, Vicious neglects the most obvious reason why many Americans in the lower forty-eight states have changed their wolf story: scarcity. Wolves became valued when—and where— they were nearly gone. |
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However, notwithstanding this rather wide fault line, Vicious makes good use of a familiar conundrum: If the only constant is change itself, why do humans cling to a desire for sameness? While it's partly due to biological regeneration, in Vicious it's a fine springboard for an engaging discussion of what these "dreams of transcendence" (p. 230) do to the way humans move through the world, and the havoc left behind. |
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Marybeth Holleman is author of The Heart of the Sound, a work of nonfiction about Prince William Sound and the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. She teaches creative nonfiction in the Department of Creative Writing and Literary Arts at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Her essays and articles on environmental topics have appeared in numerous anthologies, journals, and magazines. www.marybethholleman.com. |
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