It is said that reality surpasses fiction. But is it always true? In the series Tales and Facts, The duty explores the real and fictional dimensions of Quebec’s legendary stories and tales. Today, second text in the series, the wolverine.
In the Innu tradition, the demon is hairy. He’s about the build of a dog, and he occasionally gives off a stench.
This being is the wolverine, a fierce and solitary beast, considered today as an endangered species, which is part of Aboriginal mythologies of the creation of the world.
“When the wolverine enters the history of the creation of the world, it is considered very, very evil,” says Innu elder Évelyne Saint-Onge, from Maliotenam, who is interested in the cultural roots of her community in collaboration with the Tshakapesh Institute. Most characters regard him as the devil. »
In real life, the wolverine is an animal that was rarely hunted by the Innu, she continues. Like the skunk, it can release an unbearable odor, and uses it abundantly.
“Even about his behavior, the Innu spoke of it in a very negative way,” says Évelyne Saint-Onge. He broke traps and could urinate on food. We made scaffolding to keep food in the forest, and he came to urinate on the equipment. »
In fact, the wolverine is an unskilled hunter and an opportunist, we read on the website of the Quebec Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks. “In winter, it mainly becomes a scavenger and eats prey killed by other carnivores or animals that died naturally or were trapped by trappers. The wolverine is not a very effective hunter, but it is endowed with great strength. It is able to drag carcasses over long distances. He has a habit of hiding his food under the snow or in various places after marking it with a smelly liquid. »
Dangerous and combative, the wolverine is also solitary and fierce. It flees human presence, and this is probably why its species is so sensitive to the destruction of its habitat.
In 2019, a research group, called Wolverine Watch and working between Vancouver and Calgary, launched an appeal for anyone who saw a wolverine to be able to track it and identify its breeding grounds. Wolverines were noted to be dependent on snow, for travel, to give birth, and to hide food.
The first names of trees
Fierce or not, the Wolverine nevertheless plays a major role in Innu mythology, where he follows Tshakapesh, the one who is considered the first human. In Évelyne Saint-Onge’s tale, Wolverine dreams of a giant who gives off a nauseating smell. When he wakes up, Wolverine, distraught, is still inhabited by this smell. To flee, he curls up on himself and tumbles down a slope, hitting trees. When he strikes first, he designates it as black spruce. The second is a red spruce, “a larch,” says Évelyne Saint-Onge. He names the third tree he hits birch, before arriving at the sea, into which he dives to free himself from its smell. “And ever since then, the water in the sea has been salty,” she says.
“All Wolverine does good is name trees,” she laughs. In Indigenous tales, she adds, the land was once populated by gigantic animals, she points out. It also discusses the themes of glaciation, then the melting of the ice and floods.
Let him be called by his Innu name kuekuatsheuor that it is called in English the tricksterin glutton French, or kavik in Inuktitut, the wolverine is an essential character in the mythology of the Aboriginal nations of Canada.
In a book first published in 1971, then republished in 2016 under the title Wolverine at the dawn of the world, written fragments of an Innu oral encyclopedia, anthropologist Rémi Savard has published several accounts of the Wolverine collected from the Innu. There is a version different from that told by Évelyne Saint-Onge, but also an astonishing narration on “the advent of ethnic groups”, transmitted by Edward Rich. According to this variant of the myth, it was after being raped by Wolverine that his wife gave birth to the Whites and the Indians. When he finds her, she tells him: “Some live in wooden houses, they are white people. There are also the Indians who still live in tents. And Wolverine addresses the whites by saying: “The Indians will never be rich, but you will soon be; you will manufacture your food while the Indians will continue to hunt, therefore to run theirs. »
recovery plan
In 2005, the then federal Department of Natural Resources and Wildlife launched a wolverine recovery plan. It was noted that in addition to human activities, the decrease in the population of wolves, which provide the wolverine with animal carcasses, could be responsible for its decline.
“The wolverine is of great interest to the general public because of its legendary or mythical value. The species occupies an important place in popular imagery in Quebec and Labrador, as evidenced by its nicknames of “glutton” or “devil’s child”. […]. Popular belief attributes to wolverine fur the property that frost does not adhere to it. In reality, frost can clump together on the guard hairs. What is unique is that this frost sweeps away easily and prevents any buildup on the lint bristles. This makes the fur attractive for making clothes, and some indigenous people use it to make coats,” says the Wolverine National Recovery Plan (Gulo gulo) [Population de l’est].
In Quebec, it is estimated that the wolverine is mainly present beyond the 49e parallel, even though it would have been observed in the Outaouais and Capitale-Nationale regions. Closer to Montreal, one can content oneself with observing the stuffed wolverine that sits in the offices of the Maison amérindienne de Saint-Hilaire.