Most wolves that exist today fear people above all things, and if a dog, coyote, or strange wolf pops up in a pack’s territory, it is dead.
Even the wolves of Ellesmere kill interlopers in their territories, and these wolves are believed to have experienced no (or at least very little) persecution from man. These wolves do, however, live in land that is very marginal habitat, and any territory that a breeding pair can procure will be defended aggressively.
The wolves of the Great Plains in those accounts were living in a productive ecosystem with plenty of prey. These wolves were very similar to how I would imagine the ancient wolves that were able form a relationship people. They could hunt large prey on their own, but they were curious about humans. These wolves were approaching people who lived off of American bison as a prey species. I can imagine those ancient wolves approaching mammoth and mastodon kills in search of some scraps and maybe a little companionship.
(And yes, I’m fully aware that the bison hunting culture of the Great Plains was a very short-lived culture, but it is just as likely that man and wolf had a similar relationship when they were living on other species. Both Eurasia and North America possessed ecosystems that were very productive and diverse the end of the Pleistocene. Then, agriculture gave rise to large numbers of humans, who then went after most of the megafauna that survived the effects of that climate change–like the aurochs.)
That’s why I continue to say that domesticating the wolf had to have been so easy that a caveman could do it. If the wolves of yore were like these animals, domestication would have been a cinch.
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Something else was going on in the Plains: MASSIVE Indian Mortality. Massive. The apocalpyse of disease.
Prior to the arrival of the horse (and even after) the Indians used dogs as transportation and they were part of their culture. Some tribes ate dogs, some did not, but all had dogs and quite a lot of them. A village in the far west, prior to Lewis and Clark, might have 1,000 dogs (10 per tent was very common).
When tribes disappeared, their dogs did not, and many went feral, accounting for the large number of “wolves” seen in the Plains. Some of these “wolves” were wolves, and some coyotes, but many were Indian dogs gone feral after their masters died of disease.
The Indians had a broad array of dogs (including a terrier-like spitz-looking dog that went into beaver lodges), but most were large enough to pull Tipi poles on a 12-foot tent, and most looked a lot like wolves except that their tails tended to curl over their backs.
When people saw dogs hanging out with wolves, my bet is that those “wolves” were recently feral Indian dogs, and there were LOTS of them as disease wiped out millions.
Patrick
But don’t you think Lewis and Clark would have lost their Newfoundland dog, if wolves were exactly like they are now? He just wandered around. He even disappeared when the Indian dog bitches came into season. If that happened in wolf country today, he would be a dead dog. I don’t care if he had been the size of the modern Newfoundland dog. Take him to outside of Anchorage today and turn him loose. He won’t last a week.
The travois dogs were similar to wolves but were just slightly smaller than coyotes. I think they could tell the difference. Here’s Maximillian’s depiction of the Travois dogs: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Engag%C3%A9_mit_einem_indianischen_Hundeschlitten_by_Maximilian_zu_Wied-Neuwied.jpg
From my reading of the accounts, the difference was that the wolves would actually hunt bison, while the dogs would either join the people or just wait until the big hairy things were dead.
I think there were a lot of gene exchanges between these dogs and wolves. The true travois type no longer exists, because the Newfoundland dog and the Arctic husky-type wound up replacing them. I think that’s why when MtDNA analysis is performed on reservation dogs, they always come up as derived from Eurasian wolves. It’s like that they had little immunity to European dog diseases, just as their ancestors did. Arctic huskies, even those from North America, are derived from Asian wolves, and Newfoundlands are, despite their appearance today, mostly derived from a poodle-type water dog ancestor.
What we did to the wolf is the Belyaev experiment in reverse. If we can select for tameness and dociliity in silver foxes in just a few generations, you can select for paranoia and emotion reactivity in just a few generation of coming up with bizarre ways to kill wolves. And we did it for more than just a few generations.
Also, my account of the Beothuk in Newfoundland seems to suggest that they had population of docile wolves (that they didn’t feed but did mark with their knives). The Beothuk most likely had no dogs as we know them, although dogs would have been found at European settlements and those of the Mikmaq.
As for one part, there is common theory that the vast herds of wild animals that existed prior to European settlement were the result of the massive die-off the Native Americans. I certainly think that had something to do with it. (It is best discussed in Valerius Geist’s book on deer. The problem is that it is as speculative as what I’m doing here). But I read account after account of how the Indians had actually developed hunting parks for deer that were far more sophisticated than those the nobles used in England. It seems to me that they actually knew how to use the land sustainably because they actually relied upon those animals and other resources for long-term benefit.
When Europeans, especially English commoners, showed up, they had a strong antipathy toward game laws. Game laws protected the prey of the nobles, while the commoners went without. When they arrived here, they were all into land speculation (all the way down to the indentured servants) and making as much money off the natural resources as possible. Others wanted to turn North America into Europe, which had also been made depauperate of large game species.
The natives had a different economic outlook than the Europeans did, which does make a big difference to the ecology in the long run. A different land ethic means quite different outcomes in terms of human population and ecology. If you believe the natural world feeds you and that you must sustain it for the community forever, you will behave differently from someone who has deep class resentments towards the nobles in your own country who use game laws to protect animals on their vast shooting estates and who also is coming into the land to turn this country into Europe, while making as much money as possible.
I remember reading how some bands of Inuit did population control. They had voluntary death panels. When someone got old and felt like a burden, they left the village and wandered off into the wilderness to die. If a woman had two babies and one could not be fed, one was left behind in the snow. They also knew how to do their own population control.
BTW, the Bison-hunting culture that existed in the nineteenth century was really short-lived. It was very unusual.
This is is how George Catlin depicted bison hunting without horses: http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/131219/1/Hunting-Buffalo-Camouflaged-With-Wolf-Skins,-C.1832.jpg
Those aren’t dog skins they are wearing.
BTW, the little terrier-type dog of the Native American is a very interesting dog. The one that the Tahltans kept I call the Canadian bear-hunting Chihuahua, because that’s what it looked like. It was about the size of a JRT: http://www.firstnations.de/img/05-3-0-dogs.jpg
These dogs don’t exist anymore, although some people are palming off reservation dogs that are larger and look like them as Tahltan bear dogs.
***
Here’s a part of Farley Mowat’s Never Cry Wolf that isn’t a total fabrication. This is the Ihalimiut legend about why the wolf got created: http://books.google.com/books?id=eQQ0cxgL5bMC&lpg=PA125&dq=farley%20mowat%20kaila&client=firefox-a&pg=PA125#v=onepage&q=&f=false
The Ihalmiut were an inland band of Inuit that lived almost exclusively on caribou. That particular book came right after The People of the Deer, which really was a non-fiction account of these people, and if he had been a bit smarter, he would have written a book called The Ihalmiut and the Wolves, because that’s really what the book is about.
I just remembered that Alexander Henry was a fur trader, and he would have known the difference between dog and wolf pelts. Dogs have thicker skin than wolves do, and thus, he would have clearly known what was a dog and what was a wolf.
Ahhhh, someone ELSE that realizes Raymond Coppinger’s drivel is just that–DRIVEL! There are LOTS of accounts of early American Indian dogs being wolflike and/or crosses with wolves and coyotes. I have even read things as specific as saying the Indians preferred animals one quarter wolf and less, for tractability(which I can personally agree with). It is simply common sense if you think about the scenario before Europeans screwed the system up(my humble opinion there…)–lots of loose dogs around Indian villages–females in heat regularly. Lots of young male wolves wandering about–ejected from their packs, or just out trying to establish one of their own, or just horny and Alpha-dad won’t let me mate in the homme pack, so….. It would be IMPOSSIBLE for there NOT to have been crosses! As for Indians keeping pure wolves–it certainly happened sometimes–they kept ALL MANNER of wild pets–bears, cougars, buffalo calves, Pronghorn antelope, etc. etc. I read where one Indian society, named the “Kit Foxes” got it’s start from a fellow that kept one as a pet. My favorite wolf/Indian story is from James Willard Schulz’s book “Why Gone Those Times”–the chapter entitled specifically “Laugher, the Tame Wolf”–this wolf actually went on horse raids, etc. with his Blackfoot masters, and assisted them quite a bit. The story rings true to me. The Native Americans having dogs AT ALL rather blows Ray Coppinger’s theory of them developing in the Eurasian Mesolithic period around agricultural dumps, because Native Americans ALREADY HAD THEM when they came across the Bering land bridge in the frikkin’ Pleistocene(the ICE AGE—thousands of years BEFORE agriculture and settled villages!), and the first archaeological evidence of dogs in America are well before Coppinger’s dump mutts could have even been domesticated yet! AND I can verify that wolf-hybrids make VERY effective hunting/wilderness companions, because I have raised and trained 5 of them myself over the years! Uh oh, here comes the knee-jerk reactions from the ploitically correct set!…..L.B.
Check this out: http://anthropology.net/2008/10/18/a-possible-domestication-of-dogs-during-the-aurignacian-31700-years-ago/
Coppinger only makes sense if you ignore all the history, paleontology, archaeology, and antrhopology that is related to it.
Of course, not everything he writes about is crap. His analysis of livestock guardian dogs is pretty good, but a lot of them will exhibit predatory motor patterns. Ideally, they exhibit little to no predatory behavior, but they will guard. And Coppinger does a good job attacking the dog fancy, which I have quoted on here.
Okay, I misspelled “politically correct” by accident, but I kinda like the first version, and may use it in the future! On Coppinger, yes, I was referring mostly to his doggy-domestication-pitiful-attempt-at-a-theory. His Livestock Guardian stuff is accurate, because he had lots of actual experience with LSD’s. His wolf comments are way off base, and show extreme prejudice(not very scientific) and lack of knowledge–knowkedge that is readily available from many resources-so there’s no excuse for such a “researcher”. His negative comments about service dogs having miserable lives, while praising the lives of racing sled dogs(which are often brutish and short! And I’m not knocking ALL sled dog people–I AM one! But to portray the one as mostly bad–service dogs– and just ignore the abuses in the other–racing sled dogs– was inexcusable!). I am just amazed that after 10 years from the publication of his book(and numerous television appearances and lectures) that he has not been challenged MORE with the plethora of Anthropological and Archaeological evidence to the contrary! One of my greatest pet peeves, actually, and I have been encouraged by many to write MY OWN book on doggy domestication! I might just get around to that one day, IF I can quit blogging about it!…….L.B.
Do u know Kim La Flamme and his pages at
http://www.indiandogs.com/timeline.html
You can even buy The little black & white T-Bear Dogs there :)