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Wolverine

Gulo gulo

Status: Conservation groups are attempting to get wolverines on the endangered list but struggle against lawmakers. Wolverines are widespread and have a worldwide population, however there are concerns that the currently stable populations will begin to decrease as climate change endangers and diminishes the necessary habitat of boreal forests, alpine and subarctic tundra.

The Innu know Wolverine as Kuekuatsheu, a mischievous trickster whose pranks are sometimes inappropriate but conducted with humor.

In one story it is told that Kuekuatsheu created the world. Long ago, before our world, he built a great boat. All the world was water. He brought two of each animal aboard while a torrential rain poured across the land.

It rained and rained, and when this had continued and all the old was flooded, he instructed Mink to swim down to the bottom and fetch some of the muck and rocks. Mink did so, diving deep and coming back first with some moss, then with some mud in his paws. From this sticky ooze, Kuekuatsheu fashioned an island, and this then became mountains, trees, rivers.

 

References:
I Dreamed the Animals: Kaneuketat: The Life of an Innu Hunter. (n.d.). (n.p.): Berghahn Books pp 225-226.

Armitage, P. (1991). The Innu (the Montagnais-Naskapi). United States: Chelsea House Publishers.

Native Languages: Kuekuatsheu (Carcajou) http://www.native-languages.org/kuekuatsheu.htm