with.
Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were the issue of an illicit union between Rhea, the daughter of the deposed king Numitor, and Mars, the god of war. The twins were condemned to be put into the Tiber by Rhea’s uncle, who had deposed Numitor. A wolf found them and suckled them. The implication in the story is that being suckled by a wolf gave the twins a wolfish nature. Raised by a shepherd, the twins returned to take revenge on their uncle, and eventually to rule the kingdom. They founded the city of Rome on the spot where the wolf had fed them. As in American Indian tales, the Roman wolf seems to be a lens through which we view the dual and conflicting nature of humans, for Romulus was fierce and suspicious, Remus deriding and jealous. Romulus forbade his brother to go past the frontiers, Remus disobeyed the order, and Romulus killed him.
When humans begin to fear their own predatory nature, wolves come in for very much darker imagery. At the festival of Lupercalia in Sabine cities, men dressed in wolf skins, slaughtered goats, and ran through the town beating whomever they met. Among the Greeks, there was a cult that imitated wolves and practiced ritual cannibalism. In Navaho society, witches were identified with wolves. Navahos believed in “skinwalkers,” men or women who dressed in wolf skins, climbed on top of a neighbor’s hogan at night, and dropped pollen or the ground-up bones of children down the smoke hole. It was said that they gathered in caves and sang songs backward to create chaos out of order, that they ate the flesh of the dead and had intercourse with corpses. They broke the boundaries between life and death, good and evil, community and selfishness.
Wolves seem to grow more fearsome as human conduct becomes more fearsome, and that may explain why Western culture takes such a dim view of wolves. European history over the past two millennia has been a progression of ever-widening wars. As the scale of battle grew, the number of dead left on the field also grew. And wolves, being scavengers, fed on the corpses. The Hundred Years’ War between the Armagnacs and Burgundians left thousands of dead on the fields. At night, wolves came to feed on them, and, having acquireda taste for human flesh, the wolves came into towns and attacked people. In 1423 and again in 1438, wolves came into Paris, seizing dogs and children. On a December day in 1439, wolves ate four Parisian women. On the following Friday, they attacked sixteen more, eleven of whom died. Wolves would continually appear in Paris until the seventeenth century; the Louvre Museum is so named because it sits on a spot once frequented by them.
This kind of scavenging did not occur in North America, where Indian battles left few corpses behind. Plains Indians, for example, carried off their battlefield dead and put the bodies on platforms to keep the wolves from getting them. Only occasionally in North America did wolves feast on human flesh. They were said to have attacked and eaten Indians of Delaware Bay who were dying of smallpox in 1781. And when cholera struck the emigrant trains heading west along the Platte River in 1849–51, hundreds of trailside graves were dug into by wolves. But in general, wolves in the Western Hemisphere did not scavenge on human corpses, and that may account for the rarity of wolf attacks on humans in North America.
In Europe, those who saw wolves scavenging on battlefield dead associated the gruesome sight with the underworld and Satan. By A.D. 500, the Germanic word
wargus
was used to refer both to the wolf and someone who desecrated the dead. In time, it would also mean “outlaw,” “evil one,” a human possessed. Throughout Europe, wolves became associates of war gods. Artemis in her capacity as destroyer of life was accompanied by wolves. The wolf Fenrir accompanied the Teutonic god of war, Odin, and according to myth it was the breaking of the chain that restrained Fenrir that set in motion
Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were the issue of an illicit union between Rhea, the daughter of the deposed king Numitor, and Mars, the god of war. The twins were condemned to be put into the Tiber by Rhea’s uncle, who had deposed Numitor. A wolf found them and suckled them. The implication in the story is that being suckled by a wolf gave the twins a wolfish nature. Raised by a shepherd, the twins returned to take revenge on their uncle, and eventually to rule the kingdom. They founded the city of Rome on the spot where the wolf had fed them. As in American Indian tales, the Roman wolf seems to be a lens through which we view the dual and conflicting nature of humans, for Romulus was fierce and suspicious, Remus deriding and jealous. Romulus forbade his brother to go past the frontiers, Remus disobeyed the order, and Romulus killed him.
When humans begin to fear their own predatory nature, wolves come in for very much darker imagery. At the festival of Lupercalia in Sabine cities, men dressed in wolf skins, slaughtered goats, and ran through the town beating whomever they met. Among the Greeks, there was a cult that imitated wolves and practiced ritual cannibalism. In Navaho society, witches were identified with wolves. Navahos believed in “skinwalkers,” men or women who dressed in wolf skins, climbed on top of a neighbor’s hogan at night, and dropped pollen or the ground-up bones of children down the smoke hole. It was said that they gathered in caves and sang songs backward to create chaos out of order, that they ate the flesh of the dead and had intercourse with corpses. They broke the boundaries between life and death, good and evil, community and selfishness.
Wolves seem to grow more fearsome as human conduct becomes more fearsome, and that may explain why Western culture takes such a dim view of wolves. European history over the past two millennia has been a progression of ever-widening wars. As the scale of battle grew, the number of dead left on the field also grew. And wolves, being scavengers, fed on the corpses. The Hundred Years’ War between the Armagnacs and Burgundians left thousands of dead on the fields. At night, wolves came to feed on them, and, having acquireda taste for human flesh, the wolves came into towns and attacked people. In 1423 and again in 1438, wolves came into Paris, seizing dogs and children. On a December day in 1439, wolves ate four Parisian women. On the following Friday, they attacked sixteen more, eleven of whom died. Wolves would continually appear in Paris until the seventeenth century; the Louvre Museum is so named because it sits on a spot once frequented by them.
This kind of scavenging did not occur in North America, where Indian battles left few corpses behind. Plains Indians, for example, carried off their battlefield dead and put the bodies on platforms to keep the wolves from getting them. Only occasionally in North America did wolves feast on human flesh. They were said to have attacked and eaten Indians of Delaware Bay who were dying of smallpox in 1781. And when cholera struck the emigrant trains heading west along the Platte River in 1849–51, hundreds of trailside graves were dug into by wolves. But in general, wolves in the Western Hemisphere did not scavenge on human corpses, and that may account for the rarity of wolf attacks on humans in North America.
In Europe, those who saw wolves scavenging on battlefield dead associated the gruesome sight with the underworld and Satan. By A.D. 500, the Germanic word
wargus
was used to refer both to the wolf and someone who desecrated the dead. In time, it would also mean “outlaw,” “evil one,” a human possessed. Throughout Europe, wolves became associates of war gods. Artemis in her capacity as destroyer of life was accompanied by wolves. The wolf Fenrir accompanied the Teutonic god of war, Odin, and according to myth it was the breaking of the chain that restrained Fenrir that set in motion
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