Dave Foreman

Who Speaks for Wolf?

"...The ancestors of the Oneida People once grew in population so much, that some of them had to go look for a new place to live. They found a wonderful place, and the people moved there. After moving, they found that they had 'chosen the Center Place for a great community of Wolf.' But the people did not wish to leave. After a while, the people decided that there was not room enough in this place for both them and Wolf. They held a council and decided that they could hunt all the wolves down so there would be no more. But when they thought of what kind of people they would then be, 'it did not seem to them that they wanted to become such a people.'

So the people devised a way of limiting their impact: In all of their decisions, they would ask, 'Who speaks for Wolf?' and the interests of the non-human world would be considered."

The final verses of the ancient poem:

And so it was
 that the People devised among themselves
  a way of asking each other questions
   whenever a decision was to be made
    on a New Place or a New Way
We sought to perceive the flow of energy
 through each new possibility
  and how much was enough
   and how much was too much
Until at last
 someone would rise
  and ask the old, old question
   to remind us of things
    we do not yet see clearly enough to remember

"TELL ME NOW MY BROTHERS
    TELL ME NOW MY SISTERS
      WHO SPEAKS FOR WOLF?"

Reprinted from Confessions of an Eco-Warrior by Dave Foreman. NY: Harmony Books, 1991:48-9. Originally recounted in Paula Underwood Spencer’s Who Speaks for Wolf. Austin: Tribe of Two Press, 1983.)