Ahhh, that was fun. Author Ben Goldfarb and his wife Elise stopped by yesterday for the books on their way to the upcoming events in Healdsburg. They were excited because they had never Sarah Gilman’s great print and even more excited because they had never seen the hard0=cover published version of all his hard work. It was kind of delightful towatch their giddy recognition of the dawning reality: This is really happening! There were clouds of proud feelings emitting from them when they reviewed what was vitually a boxfull of Bens.
Today there is time to share a fun beaver tale and some more adorable kit photos from Rusty Cohn at the Napa Creek dam downtown. Here’s one of my favorites to get us started. The beaver nose to my mind is one of the hallmarks of beaverness and marks it distinctly from nutria, muskrat or otter, The button-nose of childhood is one of my favorite sites in all the world.
And, honestly, can you blame me?
Native Insight: A hole in the Great Beaver myth
The Pocumtuck Range is the site of the giant Pleistocene beaver and the super-human Eastern Algonquian earth-shaper or transformer figure Hobomock, who’s known by other names among various related Northeastern dialects. What’s constantly changing is the motive for killing the beast and the lesson to be learned from the act that left behind a distinctive range, which to this day from many directions resembles the carcass of the petrified giant beaver of indigenous lore. Though the genesis and 19th-century resurrection of this well-known story can be loosely tracked, it remains difficult to make sense of at times.
This popular, colonial version of the tale was retold with attribution to Field by Edward P. Pressey, author of the 1910 “History of Montague.” By this time, the Montague historian slightly embellished the tale by being more specific than either Field or Sheldon. Pressey wrote: “The great beaver preyed upon the fish of the long river. And when other food became scarce, he took to eating men out of the river villages.”
This is a particularly striking reconstruction of history and myth. When you read Ben’s book it will be very very clear to you how decimated the streams, fish and fauna were after the devastation of the fur trade. There were indeed fewer fish to catch. Not because of the beaver mind you, but definitely because of the beaver trade! Turning that around and blaming the victim is the height of atrocity and very familiar to us todayl
Now, right here and now, it must be said that beavers are not and never have been meat- or fish-eaters. They are herbivores, eating tree bark and plants, not pond critters such as fish, frogs, snakes, salamanders, ducklings or any other wetland creatures. They are plant-eaters, plain and simple, and so, according to cursory online research, were their giant Pleistocene beaver cousins.
I find it odd that I have never seen this potential myth-dispelling fact stated anywhere in print associated with the Great Beaver Tale. And to be honest, me myself, an outdoor columnist for nearly 40 years and an outdoorsman, hunter and fisherman for even longer, wasn’t sure of that fact and never checked until my naturalist brother-in-law from Maine raised the issue over the weekend. Just one simple query by him really got my wheels spinning. Told the details of the tale, the professor emeritus suggested that it made no sense because, “I don’t think beavers eat meat or fish, and the Indians surely would have known that.” Though quite sure, even he, an astute observer and nature lover for almost all of his 73 years, didn’t know that beavers ate no fish or meat.
People are always surprised when they learn that they’ve been told lies about beavers. It happens all the time and should surprise no one anymore. This article did make me curious about the Pocmutuck Range. Does it really look like a giant sleeping beaver? Maybe a little.
One last photo from Rusty Cohn’s adventure downtown last night in Napa. The kit is getting brave enough to come out on his own. I love to see those clear eyes looking so healthy and alert.
