So Coyote Walks into an Internet Cafe…

Wren, I can’t log in.

Me neither. Can you re-send the link?

For the first time in this Great On-line Outer Court Experiment, I’m having honest-to-god tech problems.

We’re using WebEx because it provides end-to-end video encryption(1) which will be extra important once the OC starts working skyclad, probably in the next few months. I’d just revised some of the security settings to assure screen recordings and several other features were disabled. Sure, it doesn’t stop someone from doing a screen capture – but that’s where the ‘perfect love and perfect trust’ comes in. And that’s why we’re taking our good sweet time with things.

But right now, all this is moot, because nobody can log into WebEx at all. My WhatsApp is blowing up as I’m frantically trying to ID the problem. Yet the Great Veil of Technology continues to present the same ancient riddle: Is it you? Or is it me?

We go through several rounds of trying to comply with WebEx’s weird and arcane demands (and refusals to send promised security codes) before I give up and make the Zoom meeting instead. It’s fine. We’re not working skyclad yet. And we’re all still struggling to know each other in this screen mediated space, so the bar is kind of low.

There are a few more minor tech hiccups, and then we’re finally all there, looking at each other across vast distances, somewhat shell-shocked. My adrenaline is up and I realize all that work I did prior to ritual to ‘get in the right headspace’ just went out the window. The glory of technology. But I remind myself, tech is just tech. We’d have the same shocked expressions if my hair caught on fire from a candle or something. Tech is tech.

Then it hits me like a cosmic clue-by-four, and I can’t roll my eyes back in my head far enough. I’m an impulsive idiot, and I’m getting exactly what I asked for. I slump my shoulders.

“Ugh. I’m so sorry, you guys. (2) This is actually all my fault.” I touch my coyote-tooth earrings fondly but grimace. “I totally brought coyote into the circle. And, well — yeah. This seems like a coyote thing. That or all of WebEx is down. (3) Anyway, guess that’s how we’re rolling tonight. Sorry.”

The OC looks back at me blankly.

So I take a few moments to explain. My hyper-rational brain is very judgey about most ‘woo’ things, and it honestly gets in the way. But I’m also grateful for it — it keeps me honest and my discernment sharp. But telling ‘woo stories’ tempers my over-rational-brain. In this instance, it allows me to re-find my way into the liminal, magical mindset that I’m slowly getting better at crafting in a screen-mediated ritual space.

Storytelling is a hypertext, in the truest sense.

Working with Canids

When I was in Foxfire’s Outer Court there was, well, a lot of canid energy going around. Inspired by my fellow OC members, ‘coyote-energy’ quickly became a part of my personal practice, and I associate it very fondly with my Outer Court years.

I had – and if I’m honest, still have — reservations about having coyote in my personal practice. Some of this is highly practical (tricksters are tricksters) and some of this is more historical and ethical. But the Southeastern Coyote and I are both trespassing on this land renamed North Carolinian, and there are few easy answers.

There’s a problematic history of contemporary Pagans, Witches, and New Agers appropriating Native American mythology, practices, and symbols. ‘Working with Coyote’ (or Wolf or Bear or Pick Your Large Majestic North American Mammal) is a phrase that makes me cringe, although I try to keep my mind open long enough to hear that person out. There are, after all, many frameworks for working with animals in a totemic way, and it’s possible to do this in a non-appropriative way. For me, research has been integral to this. And for this reason, I try not to say “I honor Coyote” but prefer to specify that “Southereastern Coyote is part of my magical practice.” The distinction is important.

(Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure the Southeastern Coyote is laughing his ass off at me. Huh. And I just got a little ‘ping’ that I should just refer to him as the SEC for the rest of this essay, because college football is another weird and uneasy part of my magical practice, and that’s hilarious. Sure, okay. Whatever.)

I’ve learned a lot from being The Fool and falling off cliffs, even when it sucks. I’ve learned a ton from the SEC, and I’m grateful for it, but it’s hardly been smooth sailing.

Fleet Foxes and Snacky-Snacks

I moved to Charlotte in the early 2000s, and one of our neighbors was a pair of foxes. Once in a while, they’d come right up to the porch at 3 am(usually around 3am) and start doing their spooky-as-fuck fox scream. I’d run down, and then wake up the rest of the neighborhood, yelling at them to shut the fuck up, because I have to get up at six, and can’t they do this someplace else?

Fox is a trickster, both in a mythological sense, as well as an animal behavior sense. They’re opportunistic, clever, and wily. Around the world, different myths about Fox overlap in fascinating ways, and I like to believe that biology informs mythology (and maybe vice versa). When we humans pay attention to what’s happening in our immediate biomes, we can understand what’s being said. But biomes and their species can change just as fast as human developments. And many of the world’s myths are very old, but new myths come to our minds and lips all the time.

Around the time I joined Foxfire’s Outer Court, coyotes moved into the neighborhood. It’s well known that coyotes will displace foxes – often killing them – when they move into the territory. Similarly, wolves will do the same to the coyotes. It’s unclear to me if this is territorialism over resources, or if foxes are simply one more prey animal to the coyote — in either case, it’s a thing. If you have coyotes, you probably won’t have foxes for much longer. Long and short, I haven’t heard a fox or seen fox scat in about five or six years. I think their days in this neighborhood or done, at least as long as the SEC is here.

We started noticing the coyote howls in the late Winter months when the juveniles typically leave their parents to forge their own paths in life. Over the years, we’ve heard them much more often, and periodically see them crossing the street or loping through the woods. Thanks to a cheap wildlife cam in the woods behind our house, we now know that there’s a mated pair of coyotes doing very well in our neighborhood (thank you very much) and they’ve reared two or more pups most years since settled in here.

I remember when my son was about three or four years old, he was sitting on the back porch on a nice fall evening, having dinner. I was going in and out of the house, putting away dishes, getting seconds – normal mom things. At one point, when I was in the house, I could hear coyote calls, and Quinn shouted excitedly, “Mommy, coyotes!”

I ran out, thrilled to hear them so close to our house — but they stopped immediately. Weird. Oh well.

So I went back inside to finish what I was doing, and not a minute later, they started howling again. I ran back outside, but they stopped again.

When this happened a third time, my son looked at me nervously and asked, “Mommy, doesn’t it seem kind of funny that they start howling as soon as your gone — and I’m out here alone?”

The same exact thought had crossed my mind, but I shook it off. Surely coyotes wouldn’t go for a four-year-old, even a scrumptious, mac-n-cheese filled one. But I couldn’t quite shake the idea. I really think Quinn would have been perfectly fine – but I’m not one to tempt fate either, so I gave up on dishes and stayed outside with him until he was done with supper.

Data, Myths, and Legacies

Urban and suburban coyotes have drawn increased media and government attention over the last few decades. And there’s new research on the behavior and health of coyote populations living in surprisingly close proximity to humans. Groups like the Urban Coyote Initiative are bringing together photographers, canid-enthusiasts, researchers, and wildlife control officials to understand what it means to live next to these opportunistic and highly adaptive animals. Much of this research is aimed at educating the public in order to protect both coyotes, people, and their pets.

Many Plains and Southwestern Native American tribes have rich (and varied) stories about coyotes, both as gods, spirits, and animals. My dad (who studied the Eastern Ojibwe language) loved wild canids and loved stories about wolves and coyotes from the Algonquin to the Navajo, and I inherited several books of these stories from him over the years. There’s a ton of variation in the coyote stories among the different Native American tribes, and there’s no one ‘Big-C Coyote’ that’s universal to all the diverse indigenous cultures of North America.

But there are some over-arching themes. Coyote (either as a god, spirit, or animal) is generally living by his wits. He often gets away with all kinds of trickery through his cleverness as well. And like tricksters of other cultures, sometimes his cleverness gets him into hilariously hot water, with many stories quite risque (by whit colonialist standards anyway). One of my favorite coyote stories is when he detaches his penis in order to accomplish a sexual escapade. And coyote isn’t always a ‘he’ either. Sometimes coyote’s gender is extremely flexible, and certainly fluid. (4)

But like trickster figures in other cultures, coyote is often a friend and aid to humankind. He’s known to help humans get the sweet end of a trick, often at the expense of other gods and spirits. Coyote (and tricksters in general) are profoundly liminal in this way: They serve the gods, themselves, and humans, and often have no problem pursuing activities where the respective interests are actively conflicting. Coyote is inherently fluid and transgressive, and a special hero to the marginal for these reasons.

Nevertheless, I am white, the descendent of mostly white colonizers, and a beneficiary of racist and colonialist institutions that continue to perpetrate genocidal acts against Native Americans. I realize that sounds like a lot of ‘signaling rhetoric’, but it’s important to be objective about the challenges faced by Native American communities. It often gets overlooked (even by well-meaning progressives) that Native Americans are experiencing many layers of pandemics: police violence, COVID-19, chronic poverty, lack of equitable healthcare, and lack of educational opportunity. At the same time, (well-meaning) progressives are often guilty of perpetuating the myths about how ‘Native Americans were all killed off by colonizers’ or ‘their culture was destroyed’ when, in fact, a vast diversity of Native American cultures are alive, well, and vibrant – but highly isolated from the dominant media and larger social discourse due to on-going racist and colonialist structures and attitudes.

It’s up to each non-indigenous American (myself included) to educate themselves. And it won’t be easy. The information is often hidden, and misinformation abounds. But the work is worth it. My goal is that my son’s children will know as much about the history of the different Native American nations as they’ll know about any other national or cultural history. This is definitely an achievable goal, one we can create immediately within our own families and smaller communities.

Red Wolves

Anyway, I’ll step off my soapbox and get back to the SEC.

The coyote is a very new species to the Southeastern United States and only started showing up in North Carolina in the 1980s. (With North Carolina’s last gray wolf spotted in the 1880s, it’s more surprising to me why it took them 100 years to get here.)

North Carolina still has a very small population of red-wolves along the coast. They are the remnants of a wild breeding program which was wonderfully successful at first. At one point, North Carolina’s wild population of red wolves was up to 130 individuals. But pretty-much-incomprehensible politics from the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) effectively killed the wild breeding program. And this population of red-wolves — one of the most endangered species on the planet — has since plummeted to about 20 individuals over the last decade, a victim of both the USWFS itself, private landowners — and coyotes.

The red-wolf is a much smaller and lankier canid than its cousin the gray wolf, and can easily be confused with the coyote. Since North Carolina has open season on coyotes (which is technically a non-native species), farmers and landowners have killed red-wolves claiming they thought they were shooting coyotes. This could well be true but speaks more to the broader historic tensions between farmers of small livestock and local predator species.

And there are coyotes in the same areas as the red wolves. Coyotes are almost certainly competing with the red wolves for resources, and with the radical decline of red-wolves, the two species have been interbreeding. Different parties opposed to the red-wolf wild breeding program have argued that the wolves are now genetically so hybridized that they can’t be considered the same endangered species anymore. State and federal agencies used this DNA purity concern (and yes, it’s as gross as it sounds, IMHO) to argue that the wild-breeding population should be abandoned. Which is effectively what’s happened.

The SEC

In their eastward trek, coyotes have been interbreeding with both wolves and domestic dogs all across North America. Coydogs and Coywolves as they’re sometimes called (although these terms are problematic) are new enough to the scene, that it’s too early to say how they’ll impact other species, including humans.

One thing that’s unique about Eastern coyotes from their Western cousins, is that they are more likely to form small packs. There’s some speculation that this is the result of DNA from wolves and dogs which are pack-forming canids. But it’s hard to say if it’s genetics, or simply the very different ecology of the Eastern half of the United States. There’s a lot more we don’t know about the Eastern coyote than we do.

I’ve loved wolves my whole life. Right from when I was a baby, my parents took us camping in Canada every other summer. We’d howl to the wolves, and they’d howl back. And when I was about twelve, my friends and I feverishly wrote to our New Jersey representatives asking them to re-introduce wolves into the Pine Barrens. (Yeah, they’ve been dragging their feet on that, I guess. How is that not a great idea?)

But I never thought much about the coyote. And that all changed within a few years as I got my dad’s old trickster books; the foxes in my neighborhood were replaced by coyotes; and I suddenly started thinking about the SEC as I joined Foxfire’s Outer Court.

So far, I haven’t found any myths or lore about the SEC from the local Catawba, Waxhaw, and North Carolina Cherokee peoples – and this makes sense since the coyote has only been here since the 1980s. Still, these are communities with living, vibrant cultures, and stories are living things as well. I’m hoping I’ll stumble on brand new, coyote stories from both local Native American communities, but also Charlotte’s diverse urban and suburban communities as well. Every community creates new myths and legends all the time, and I’m sure the SEC loves a good story. And I have to acknowledge that I’m a part of the SEC’s story now too, as uncomfortable as that sometimes make me.

My research into the coyote’s biology, behavior, and evolution continually point to the same thing: that the Southeastern coyote is not the same animal as the Southwestern coyote. Sure, the genes may be very similar (and increasingly not), and they’re both opportunistic, clever, and highly adaptive. But they’re fundamentally different in several ways: Southeastern coyotes sometimes form small packs; they tend to be bigger than Southwestern coyotes; and their diet is extremely different – they eat white and red oak acorns, and other local plants and animals that simply don’t exist in the Southwest. And there’s a lot to the adage “you are what you eat.” The Southeastern and Southwestern coyotes are siblings, yes. But they’re not twins. And anybody with a brother or sister knows just how different siblings can be.

This practical research into the SEC’s biology and overarching coyote mythology certainly shaped my magical investigations. It didn’t feed me answers, but it helped me frame my questions better. I did some meditations on the SEC, and then narrowed it down to the coyotes of North Carolina, the coyotes of Charlotte. I tried to pinpoint a connection between myself, the land that is occupied by me and my family, and the SEC.

The SEC revealed himself to be, well, surprisingly Anubis-like, if that makes sense. He’s still definitely a trickster, but he’s also a guardian of boundaries, and a door open to liminal spaces. He offers guidance for the Unseen, into the Unseeable. But even more than that, I associate the SEC with scales, with justice. This is a little hard to explain because the SEC is both reverent and irreverent about justice. He is monumental, he wreaks justice upon the entire land almost dispassionately. And it’s mostly a punitive justice. But on a more personal level, the SEC’s justice is often a short smack upside the head when you least expect it. It’s the moment when you realize just how badly you’ve been fucking up and now you’ve gotta clean up your mess.

Moreover, it’s the justice of rebalancing. You’ve killed the apex predator, the gray wolf and the red wolf. Fine. Here’s a new one: the SEC. And he’s gonna populate 20% of his diet with your outdoor cats. Suck it up, buttercup, bring ‘em inside if you don’t like it. This is justice.

This is just my UPG of the SEC, so take all of it with the requisite grains of salt. And I won’t lie: it’s not the method of justice and rebalancing I’d prefer. I prefer wisdom through learning, and then making practical, systematic changes from a place of compassionate love. But then, I’m also Wiccan, and this ethos has been a big part of my UPG of the Lady. But the SEC is, for better or worse, a big part of my life, as well as my personal practice.

Trickster Makes this World

The Southeastern coyote is still definitely a trickster. He’s still out for a good time and, by god, he’s gonna drag you to all the bars until you learn something. I feel like there’s some Mystery between this Good-Times-SEC and the Punitive-Justice-SEC, but that unpacking will take more time.

And this takes me to aspecting deities and spirit possession. This is a giant topic and I don’t feel particularly qualified to write about it. Nor am I personally ‘good’ at aspecting deities. It’s just not one of my natural gifts, though I’m getting better at it with old fashioned elbow grease. And I’m fairly certain I’ve never had a full-on possession experience — I just don’t think I’m capable of it. (And really, since reading Drawing Down the Spirits by Filan and Kaldera, I think this is ultimately a good thing in my case.)

So with this in mind, I’ll share a story about the SEC.

A few years ago, I was getting dressed for a party and trying to decide what jewelry to wear. For some reason, I kept getting pulled to a pair of coyote-tooth earrings made by one of my coven sisters. I really only wore them for select rituals, or if I was building up to shapeshifting (whole other story) and I hadn’t worn them in months. I kept waiting for the Little Voice to say, “No, not these are earrings. These are for ritual. Keep them sacred and away from profane spaces.”

But I never heard the Little Voice.

Instead, I kept getting the Slightly Louder Voice of the SEC: Put ‘em on. Come oooooon. Wear ‘em. Doooo iiiiit!

Oh well, I thought. And I put them on.

As I did, I had a very clear and almost viscerally awareness that I was actively deciding to take the SEC to the party with me, and we were gonna have a good time. I didn’t have any particular cautionary thoughts about it, just a clear awareness of the decision I was making, that this was a concensual decision. And I leaned into it, almost unthinking. I even put on some BPAL Coyote perfume oil. What the hell. Go big or go home, right? I mean, spirit work was really hard for me, and this wasn’t a ritual space, it was just a party. It’s not like I was aspecting the SEC or anything, I was just getting a pretty big (for me) nudge. What could possibly happen?

[Knowing face-palms among select pockets of the audience.]

Long story short, I woke up the next day with a roaring hangover and a vague memory of having a really fucking good time.

Mind you, I almost never drink in excess. I really don’t like the feeling of being drunk and hate hangovers even more. I’m in my forties with a job and a kid — it’s just not my jam. And for all I could remember, I hadn’t drunk that much. So I spent the day forcing down water and crackers, and wondering if I was maybe just getting sick.

About a week later, I ran into my friend who hosted the party. She laughed at me about how I was ‘in rare form’ that night, and how she couldn’t believe I’d asked her to make me a double Manhattan. I was stunned. My friend makes a really good Manhattan, and I remembered her asking me if I wanted one, and I remembered saying yes. But in all the years she’s made me Manhattans, I’ve always had a single. And I had absolutely no memory of asking her for a double – why would I even do that? And this was when we first got to the party so I was stone-cold sober.

I was gradually uncovering more questions than answers. I remembered the night was fun and I’d felt rowdy, but I really don’t remember any specifics. Not a one. Not who I talked to, what was said, what we did – just that it was fucking really fun.

I’m fascinated with deity possessions. When I read descriptions of them, I can almost imagine what it might feel like. But I read about deity possessions in order to improve my skills in aspecting and my discernment, not to achieve full-on, in-the-trunk, possession. Frankly, it scares me as much as I marvel at (and yes, admire) it, and I think that’s not an unreasonable reaction. But my experience with the SEC at the party gave me pause. Blanking out, forgetting events, and losing time are common post-possession symptoms. But it’s also a common symptom of just drinking too much. And this is the challenge of deity work — sometimes, you just have to figure it out on your own.

Reflecting on that time, I’m 99% sure I didn’t have a possession experience. But I do think the SEC nudged me that night in a heavier handed way than I typically experience with spirits. I definitely had a clear sense of a mutual agreement: I’m goin’ out with you tonight, SEC, and we’re gonna have a fucking good time. And while I don’t remember details, I do remember having a fucking good time! Fortunately, from what my husband and friends told me about the night later, nothing out of hand happened – I was apparently just goofier, funnier, crasser, sharper, and rowdier than usual. But social mores were maintained and the only hurt was my hangover. If I had been possessed by Coyote, I don’t think I would have gotten away so easily. But then, the SEC just isn’t quite the same as Coyote. So who can say?

Bullshit Boundaries

I don’t get the sense that the SEC fucks with me for no reason. I have a thick skull at times (rational brain and all), and it’s just the SEC’s way of getting a point across. In this case, I think part of the lesson was about calling bullshit on the artificiality of boundaries.

Boundaries are things we construct to make our experience of the world more orderly. But most boundaries just don’t really exist: they’re social, legal, or political constructs. And even physical boundaries can be permeated – sometimes quite easily – once we figure out how.

Coyotes are gifted boundary crosses. They transgress the man-made boundaries of ‘wild’ and ‘urban’ in a seamless flow of padded feet and fur. I admired that. And yet I, as a witch, constructed careful boundaries to separate my magical practice from the profane world — but to what end? Why?

Creating sacred space is an important skill and key to many magical practices. But there are times when a sacred needs to be created right here, right now, and it can’t wait, and sorry there’s nothing we can do about the neighbor’s leaf blower, or the football game in the other room blaring through the whole house. Sometimes you’re on a crowded bus and the shielding isn’t cutting it, you need that sacred space right now. Sometimes you don’t have a private space you can set aside, not ever. Sometimes all your sacred spaces are smack dab in the middle of the mundane, with your eyes open, and the computer on.

I realized that part of the SEC’s magic is a push-pull of sacred into the profane, even into the crass. It’s not sexy work, but I realized after that party, it was work I had been avoiding.

In looking back at my journals from that time, our woods were full of coyotes, with photos on the wildlife cam nearly every night. A few days after that party, one photo struck my like a thunderbolt – a handsome coyote came up and sat down right in front of the camera, looked it squarely in the lens, and I swear to god it smiled. The SEC stepped right through the technology of the wildlife camera, right through the distinction between ‘wildlife’ and ‘civilization’ and just laughed and laughed and laughed at me.

And reminded me to laugh at myself. Who was I to separate the sacred space of magic ritual from the equally sacred space of parties with friends?

Now, eight months into a pandemic, eight months since I’ve hugged those friends or shared a Manhattan, I’m appreciating the sacredness of secular parties more than ever.

Breaking Shit for Fun and Profit

When I put on those coyote-tooth earrings before the Hawkfire OC, it was due to another nudge, but I definitely hesitated this time. I really don’t like getting drunk and as much as I love the SEC, well, I don’t totally trust him either. (No offense, big buddy.)

But the SEC was a big part of my magical life during my own OC experience, and it felt a little like bringing a familiar friend home after a long absence. Besides, 2020 has certainly been a year of shining spotlights on long-standing historic inequities. If I was getting a nudge to bring out the SEC, and it was a justice-related thing, well… as much as it made me nervous, I probably also needed to hear whatever it might be.

Tricksters can be mercurial, by definition in some cases. And true to the long history of tricksters, otherworld transgressors, and gods of communication, it didn’t surprise me in the least that coyote would go fucking with the internet. Not what I expected. But not surprising. It took me the rest of the night to pick apart what was going on, why the SEC was even there and wanted to come out. But the tech problems forced some issues to the surface.

I’d been struggling to find a more comfortable, casual way to just get to know each other, before, during, or after the OC ritual. Informal conversations and chit-chat are just so critical to building the egregore, but I couldn’t seem to figure out how to facilitate that space in this weird online context. After we got on Zoom, the ritual went well and without problems, but towards the end, my computer’s battery suddenly and mysteriously died. (SEC!) I found a back-up device, got everyone back online, and we finished up.

But after a night of tech craziness, I ended up just sitting at a table with my phone in front of me, drinking my surprisingly shitty wine (SEC!) and I could see that the rest of the OC folx were likewise now on couches, beds, desks, all relaxing after the stress of trying to do magic on-line while a coyote is busy chewing on the power strips and pissing on the keyboards. And I finally just shut up and drank my shitty wine, and enjoyed listening to the OC chit-chat.

I often find myself running my mouth too much when the OC is together and I’m constantly trying to get myself to shut up, to let them talk, to give them space to just get to know each other. And, thanks to the SEC, that finally happened. We talked for quite a while longer, and it was just really relaxing. It was – great. It felt like, well, balance. (SEC!)

The SEC is opportunistic and adaptable, and I think he pricked his ears the minute I decided to try and make an on-line Outer Court in the middle of a global pandemic. This is totally his jam. This whole OC is exactly the kind of bizarro and risky re-balancing of scales I think really tickles his fancy. And as much as he makes me nervous, and I wish I had an easier time connecting with, well, easier spirits, it’s intensely comforting to know he’s around and helping in, um, his own, special, coyote way.

(1) Zoom has end-to-end encryption now as well.

(2) I’m trying to train myself out of saying “guys” when referring to a group of people. I have good days and bad – this was a bad day, and I just want to be honest about that.

(3) I checked with WebEx the next day. It wasn’t.

(4) I realize most readers won’t have access to JSTOR — I recommend contacting the author Franchot Ballinger to see if he might be able to share his article with you, or check out his book Living Sideways: Tricksters in American Indian Oral Traditions.)

Recommended/Referenced Books

Living Sideways: Tricksters in American Indian Oral Traditions (Franchot Ballinger)

The Secret World of Red Wolves: The Fight to Save North America’s Other Wolf (T. DeLene Beeland)

Coyote Stories (Mourning Dove)

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz)

Drawing Down the Spirits: The Traditions and Techniques of Spirit Possession (Kenaz Filan and Raven Kaldera)

Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History (Dan Flores)

Understanding Coyotes: The Comprehensive Guide for Hunters, Photographers and Wildlife Observers (Michael Huff)

Trickster Makes this World: Mischief, Myth, and Art (Lewis Hyde)

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (Robin Wall Kimmerer)

Fang and Fur, Blood and Bone: A Primal Guide to Animal Magic (Lupa)

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (Charles C. Mann)

Nez Perce Coyote Tales: The Myth Cycle (Deward E. Walker)