Thoughts On Humans

"Humans? ...Is that what they're called?" begged Tuketu. "We call them 'Native man'. They live down toward the south of here. If you go through the remainder of the redwood forests and cross the river at the edge, you should find yourself in a field of grassy plains. Keeping going straight down from where you came from and you should be able to run into them sooner or later. They live in strange little mounds that they can pick up and move easily, but they don't seem to move very much in general."

"We interact with them, the Pride of Wikimak does, anyway. They have a lot of things to offer us and we have a lot to offer them, so we tend to trade once in a while. If we caught something particularly large, too large for the pride to eat after eating something already, or just have leftovers, we bring them over there and they take whatever we bring them, basically. It means less hunting for them... and they can't hunt too well. They don't have claws or fur... it makes me wonder how they stay warm, without little to no fur at all."

"Anyway, they give us other strange things in return... sometimes its meat, or trinkets that our tamatama can use, or herbs that us tolorolla can use, too... but in the dry season, they tend to offer us treats that we all know and love; pumpkin and squash. It is at those times of year, after we know that such treats have been harvested, that we trade much more. Most of the pride of Wikimak love pumpkin and squash. It is a delicacy that one can never find in the wild, only the native man know how to cultivate it and make it grow. So we trade them the most then... because pumpkins!" Tuketu looks like he's just about drooling already, just thinking about them.

"The man can be scared sometimes, especially the little man cubs, but we have been allies for many years. There is never any hostility between the native man and the pride members of Wikimak. They usually aren't afraid of us at this point, anyway."

"If one tried to trap one of us? That would not go over well. We probably would stop all trading with them and keep away from their mounds and their territory. We know they would not do that, though. We send protection down there once in a while, just in case they do need it. After all, they are rather weak things, and they do appreciate what we do for them, just as much as we appreciate what they offer to us. If one did trap one of us, though, we would not return... and we would know better than to try and get close next time. We do not need what happened with the silverpelts to happen again. They trapped and killed some of our own long ago, too... we hope that the native man won't follow in their pawsteps."