Wolf

There is so much written about Wolf as an agent of evil in Indo-European cultures. And much is written in defense of wolves as an important keystone species of wilderness and wildlands and as a sentient creature with as much right to exist as any other. I happen to have always been an advocate and/or supporter of wolves in the wild and have always been attracted to Wolf as cultural and spiritual archetype.

This morning, I was curious about the difference between the Mirandese version of the word for wolf, "lhobo" compared to that of Portuguese and Spanish, "lobo." So, I looked it up on Wiktionary and found fascinating story of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) herders' cultural views towards Wolf. 

The English word, "wolf", along with the words in the Romance languages, Greek, Sanskrit/Prakrit, and other linguistic decendents of PIE, all come from the same PIE root *wĺ̥kʷos.

From Wiktionary:

The word *wĺ̥kʷos is a thematic accented zero-grade noun perhaps derived from the adjective *wl̥kʷós (“dangerous”); compare Hittite 𒉿𒀠𒆪𒉿𒀸 (walkuwa-, “something negative”), Old Irish olc (“evil”), Sanskrit अवृक (avṛká, “safe”, literally “not wild”), वृकतात् (vṛká-tāt, “savagery”). Stress shift onto the zero-grade is consistent with nominalized adjectives: compare Sanskrit कृष्ण (kṛ́ṣṇa, “black antelope”) from कृष्ण (kṛṣṇá, “black”). Alternatively, the word may be a derivative of the verbal root *welh₂- (“to tear up”). In either case, the word's formation closely resembles that of *h₂ŕ̥tḱos (“bear”), another thematic accented zero-grade noun whose referent is an animal subject to cultural taboos.

So, our European ancestors have been using a word that essentially means "danger" or "evil" to refer to wolves for millenia. This ties in precisely with the PIE creation story of Manu and Yemo, in which Yemo is sacrificed in order to bring Chaos to and end and create the world of order. Remember that PIE speakers were likely of the Yamnaya herding culture. Wolves represented not only a danger to the herds and flocks, but were a reminder of the days when the ancestors of the Yamnaya lived like wolves, i.e. hunting and gathering. 

It's no wonder that the Italian version of Yemo, i.e., Remus, lives among wolves. It's no wonder that this ancient pastoralist view of wolves was adopted by Christianity, reimagining them as messengers of the Devil. This arrives in the 20th Century as the "wargs" of J.R.R. Tokien. 

More from Wiktionary:

The Latin and Greek reflexes are unexpected (vs. expected Lat. *vulquus, Gk. *álpos, according to the regular progression PIE *l̥ > Lat. ol (later o changes to u in some places) , Gk. al). The Latin reflex is a borrowing from Osco-Umbrian (where PIE */kʷ/ regularly gave /p/), and both the Italic and Greek reflexes underwent metathesis pointing to an alternative reconstruction *lúkʷos, possibly as a taboo deformation meant to offset the fear usually associated with the animal. A deformation would explain the metathesis of */w/ and */l/, which also occurred in Greek (*wĺ̥kʷos → *lúkʷos → λύκος (lúkos)), and also explains the presence of delabialized /k/ per the boukólos rule (regardless of whether it is Proto-Indo-European already or only Proto-Greek). In both cases, the expected forms are so close to the word for “fox” – compare Latin vulpēs, ἀλώπηξ (alṓpēx) – that avoiding conflation of the two words for “wolf” and “fox” may have motivated either alteration or borrowing...

Armenian and Celtic have replaced the word with Proto-Indo-European *waylos (“howler”) due to taboo; compare Old Armenian գայլ (gayl), Middle Irish fáel.[4] In Celtic, *kū (“hound, dog”) is also used to designate the wolf.

Taboo. Don't say its name or it will come and tear you to shreds!

When we walked up to the revelry of Entrudo Chocolheiro, the first non-Careto character we encountered was Wolf, playing a heavy metal riff on a bazouki to the beat of two drums played by Raven and Goat. It was otherworldly and also perfectly placed for the Portuguese version of Carnaval. By the way, the next afternoon, the last continuous tradition of burning the wickerman took place.  

Wolf is not uncommon at Carnaval. And perhaps Carnaval is Southern Europe's way of reclaiming Wolf as an ancient spirit ally, albeit for only a few days out of the year. 

 

Chaos or Wildness?

Reflecting on the European pastoral traditions expressed by at least Western Europe as well as the cowboys of the Western U.S., the motifs of that cultural economy provide lifestyle texture and give context to the story of Manu and Yemo. The livestock bells, the wolf, the herd calls...

Going way back, from what set of conditions was the Yamnaya culture born? The theory is that the ancestors of the Proto-Indo-European speaking Yamnaya people came from Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers and Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers. And the basic creation myth, that of Manu and Yemo, is essentially that there was chaos and then the twin brothers, Manu and Yemo decided to bring order to the world through Manu's sacrifice of Yemo, whose body parts became the world of order, including the land, mountains, sea, and air. This allowed the people to keep and protect their herds from the forces of chaos. And the ritual sacrifice was held presumably every year to keep chaos at bay.

Was Chaos just a description of the hunter-gatherer existence? When we now use the word "chaos" are we referring to the raw wildness of nature? Wolves are like devils in folk stories and songs. And the European Christian inheritors of the Pastoral tradition have equated wildness with the Devil and evil. In Carnaval celebrations of southwestern Europe, devils dance with wolves and stags. 

It is easy to lament European culture's departure from wildness and romanticize hunter-gatherer cultures as being in some way pure, like the original inhabitants of the Garden of Eden - at least as long as we have a warm house with a comfortable armchair and soft bed to return to after our pontificating hike. Most of us have no idea how hard it is to live that way. We hardly understand how hard it is to live as a bonafide pastoralist. 

My point is that when we consider transitioning away from the techno-industrial lifestyle toward a more Earth-centered one, we can have compassion for the ancestors' choices and their unintended consequences. We still have much to learn from our pastoral ancestors, our farming ancestors, and our hunter-gatherer ancestors. 

While the Yamnaya might have been referring to hunting and gathering in a wilderness as Chaos, we know that the contemporary unfolding of creating a culture of order and control is easily as chaotic - or even more so. Therefore, let's continue to hold this ritual of sacrifice to banish the chaos in our lives, borne not by the wild hunt and pesky scavengers, but by greed, hatred, and delusion propagated through modern forms of media.