Poem: "Souls in the Mist"
Feb. 17th, 2022 07:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
This poem came out of the February 15, 2022 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from
ng_moonmoth and See_Also_Friend. It also fills the "Do What You Love" square in my 2-15-22 card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by
ng_moonmoth. It belongs to the series Eloquent Souls.
WARNING: This poem contains intense and controversial topics that some readers may find disturbing. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes interspecies soulmarks, poaching, murder of multiple sapient persons, political wrangles, and other challenges. The intimate platonic interspecies relationship is historically accurate aside from the addition of soulmarks and Eloquent-Earth's more respectful treatment of great apes subsequently. This was sufficiently well-known to make it into at least one television show about them, which portrayed someone moving the rocks to create a single circle around both graves, a local sign of soul union. Some people find this disturbing, but I have chosen to honor the relationship given its importance to those involved; and it isn't really anyone else's business. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before deciding whether this is something you wish to read.
"Souls in the Mist"
[1967-1985]
It wasn't the first time
such a thing had happened,
but it was among the most famous.
Dian Fossey went to Rwanda
to do what she loved the most:
studying the mountain gorillas.
There she met a young male
whom she named Digit for
his damaged finger, likely
due to a poacher's trap.
Only after they had
known each other for
some time did she notice
that he had the same mark --
a hand curled as if beckoning --
that she had on her own skin.
She called him her beloved Digit,
and he enjoyed her company
as much as she enjoyed his.
When Digit was murdered
by poachers in 1977
Dian was devastated.
In his memory, she started
the Digit Fund to help raise
funds for gorilla protection.
Dian also lobbied for gorillas
and other great apes to be
recognized as persons,
due to their ability to form
soulbonds with humans.
She never lived to see it.
Dian too was murdered in
1985, likely also by poachers.
She was buried in the forest
beside her beloved Digit,
their headstones bearing
a replica of their soulmarks.
In 1989, the efforts of
the surviving Trimates
Jane Goodall and
Biruté Galdikas won
the recognition that
Dian had so desired.
They were protected
against poaching or
imprisonment, and
their territories were
made into sanctuaries.
It was the last great legacy
of the souls in the mist.
* * *
Notes:
Dian Fossey was a famous primatologist specializing in mountain gorillas. She was one of the Trimates, along with Jane Goodall (chimpanzees) and Biruté Galdikas (orangutans). After Digit's murder, Dian continued to agitate for gorilla protection until her own murder. She founded the Digit Fund, later renamed the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. Visit their donation page to the support the protection of our gorilla relatives.
Gorilla communication is complex, and while most humans choose to discuss gorillas who have learned human sign languages, gorilla culture already includes a set of meaningful gestures. I chose a soulmark based on Digit's native language. Dian was known to mimic gorilla body language as a way of interacting peacefully with their culture, so that the gorillas would accept her presence rather than flee or attack. It would certainly have distinguished her dramatically from all the other humans they had encountered.
First contact appears in anthropology and in science fiction. I consider Dian's work to qualify because, while humans and gorillas have coexisted throughout history, they have rarely if ever made efforts to interact or understand each other. Both of these branches make popular literary topics. They are frequently tragedies, as many writers have an awareness of human history. What happened to Dian and Digit was, alas, typical of what happens to people in first contact relationships. Dian knew that what she was doing was dangerous and gave zero fucks. As Digit was a silverback gorilla it is reasonable to extrapolate that he felt the same. They knew it was risky, believed it was worth it, and did it anyway. They changed the world -- some iterations of it more than others.
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WARNING: This poem contains intense and controversial topics that some readers may find disturbing. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes interspecies soulmarks, poaching, murder of multiple sapient persons, political wrangles, and other challenges. The intimate platonic interspecies relationship is historically accurate aside from the addition of soulmarks and Eloquent-Earth's more respectful treatment of great apes subsequently. This was sufficiently well-known to make it into at least one television show about them, which portrayed someone moving the rocks to create a single circle around both graves, a local sign of soul union. Some people find this disturbing, but I have chosen to honor the relationship given its importance to those involved; and it isn't really anyone else's business. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before deciding whether this is something you wish to read.
"Souls in the Mist"
[1967-1985]
It wasn't the first time
such a thing had happened,
but it was among the most famous.
Dian Fossey went to Rwanda
to do what she loved the most:
studying the mountain gorillas.
There she met a young male
whom she named Digit for
his damaged finger, likely
due to a poacher's trap.
Only after they had
known each other for
some time did she notice
that he had the same mark --
a hand curled as if beckoning --
that she had on her own skin.
She called him her beloved Digit,
and he enjoyed her company
as much as she enjoyed his.
When Digit was murdered
by poachers in 1977
Dian was devastated.
In his memory, she started
the Digit Fund to help raise
funds for gorilla protection.
Dian also lobbied for gorillas
and other great apes to be
recognized as persons,
due to their ability to form
soulbonds with humans.
She never lived to see it.
Dian too was murdered in
1985, likely also by poachers.
She was buried in the forest
beside her beloved Digit,
their headstones bearing
a replica of their soulmarks.
In 1989, the efforts of
the surviving Trimates
Jane Goodall and
Biruté Galdikas won
the recognition that
Dian had so desired.
They were protected
against poaching or
imprisonment, and
their territories were
made into sanctuaries.
It was the last great legacy
of the souls in the mist.
* * *
Notes:
Dian Fossey was a famous primatologist specializing in mountain gorillas. She was one of the Trimates, along with Jane Goodall (chimpanzees) and Biruté Galdikas (orangutans). After Digit's murder, Dian continued to agitate for gorilla protection until her own murder. She founded the Digit Fund, later renamed the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. Visit their donation page to the support the protection of our gorilla relatives.
Gorilla communication is complex, and while most humans choose to discuss gorillas who have learned human sign languages, gorilla culture already includes a set of meaningful gestures. I chose a soulmark based on Digit's native language. Dian was known to mimic gorilla body language as a way of interacting peacefully with their culture, so that the gorillas would accept her presence rather than flee or attack. It would certainly have distinguished her dramatically from all the other humans they had encountered.
First contact appears in anthropology and in science fiction. I consider Dian's work to qualify because, while humans and gorillas have coexisted throughout history, they have rarely if ever made efforts to interact or understand each other. Both of these branches make popular literary topics. They are frequently tragedies, as many writers have an awareness of human history. What happened to Dian and Digit was, alas, typical of what happens to people in first contact relationships. Dian knew that what she was doing was dangerous and gave zero fucks. As Digit was a silverback gorilla it is reasonable to extrapolate that he felt the same. They knew it was risky, believed it was worth it, and did it anyway. They changed the world -- some iterations of it more than others.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-02-18 03:34 am (UTC)Of course, I guess I could have gotten overwhelmed by the number of women in that decade who were murdered for daring to say "the world could be better".
Thoughts
Date: 2022-02-18 03:51 am (UTC)While the crime was never fully solved and had competing theories, it is widely believed that she was murdered by poachers (or someone working on their behalf) for waging a war against them and seriously cramping their style.
https://gorillafund.org/who-we-are/dian-fossey/dian-fossey-bio/
>> Of course, I guess I could have gotten overwhelmed by the number of women in that decade who were murdered for daring to say "the world could be better". <<
Yyyyyeah. Certainly she was killed for being an uppity bitch who gave zero fucks about overly entitled men in her way. Nothing upsets men like a women who isn't afraid them. Seriously? She wasn't afraid of silverbacks. Next to that, human men just aren't very scary.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-02-18 04:35 am (UTC)I am endlessly fascinated by the contrast between people who want to be badass and people who actually are badasses.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-02-18 04:52 am (UTC)I run into similar problems because I'm small and curvy and it fools even most trained people into mistaking me for feminine and harmless. As I explained to one person, "When you're my size, you can either choose to be afraid of everything or choose to be afraid of nothing. Guess which I picked." What I usually don't mention is that I have ulterior resources. I've seen wars, I've seen monsters, I've seen planets and galaxies torn apart, and hell I currently keep an eye on X-risks and S-risks even here where I don't have much influence to do anything about them. One human might be a concern but honestly isn't even a blip on my oh-shit-O-meter. This confuses people.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-02-18 05:24 am (UTC)I am reminded of the retirement strategies of male baboons:
1) be mean to everyone, then duck out and keep a low profile in a different troop for your twilight years
2) be mean to the other males, but nice to the females and help out with the babies. Then stay in your troop, and watch anyone messing with you get mobbed by every single female in range.
...we need more stories with powerful women, nurturing men, and everyone being totally awesome.
>>I've seen wars, I've seen monsters, I've seen planets and galaxies torn apart, and hell I currently keep an eye on X-risks and S-risks even here where I don't have much influence to do anything about them. One human might be a concern but honestly isn't even a blip on my oh-shit-O-meter. This confuses people.<<
Someone today communicated to me "Oh, I'm so sorry you have to deal with that!" about a problem, and I'm like "???"
Sure, problem is annoying and inconvenient, but someone's gotta do it, better sooner than later, and I did volunteer for Overarching Task Encompassing Problem (and I had Reasons for volunteering, too). Plus it's far better than the last time I had a similar problem.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-02-18 11:17 am (UTC)1) be mean to everyone, then duck out and keep a low profile in a different troop for your twilight years
2) be mean to the other males, but nice to the females and help out with the babies. Then stay in your troop, and watch anyone messing with you get mobbed by every single female in range.
...we need more stories with powerful women, nurturing men, and everyone being totally awesome.
I love the 2nd strategy.
Though a common trope is "get picked on by the males, be friends with the females, and the female group(s) make it *very* clear that the males will quit messing with you or else".
(no subject)
Date: 2022-02-18 05:34 am (UTC)Why does no-one ever seem to think of inventing conlangs for interspecies communincation? Or, alternately, setting up a multispecies language crèche*?
*Not sure if there's an official term for this, but, like the Deaf schools that spawned sign languages, or something like the Interfaces in the Native Tongue Trilogy, only with children (and possibly adults) of both species?
>>Dian was known to mimic gorilla body language as a way of interacting peacefully with their culture, so that the gorillas would accept her presence rather than flee or attack.<<
A good philosophy for cross-culture and cross-species interactions. Heck, mirroring is a confirmed boding technique in human-to-human dyads.
If we have cross-cultural crash courses, why not a cross-species one? (What a scifi that would make...!)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Linguistics/soulmarks thoughts:
I imagine a dolphin soulmark might show up to human eyes as a sonographic image, based on an article I read (but could not find again) about dolphin language being partially 3d sonic images.
Birds...is it possible that birds might have a Heartsong, instead? Many species I'd each other by their voices, and I think ravens actually mimic each other's voices as 'names.'
Thoughts
Date: 2022-02-18 06:11 pm (UTC)Those things actually have been done. Usually the constructed languages have been sign languages or symbol systems. More than one researcher, particularly with primates, has raised another species in a home with human children -- it's one reason we have such close correlations in development rate, because people tracked it.
>> *Not sure if there's an official term for this, but, like the Deaf schools that spawned sign languages, or something like the Interfaces in the Native Tongue Trilogy, only with children (and possibly adults) of both species? <<
That does illustrate some of the risks.
>> A good philosophy for cross-culture and cross-species interactions. Heck, mirroring is a confirmed boding technique in human-to-human dyads.<<
True.
>> If we have cross-cultural crash courses, why not a cross-species one? (What a scifi that would make...!) <<
There are a few. The whole of Native American horsemanship is basically how to become herdmates with your horse. It's how they achieve such impressive results.
>> I imagine a dolphin soulmark might show up to human eyes as a sonographic image, based on an article I read (but could not find again) about dolphin language being partially 3d sonic images.<<
Possible. And yes, dolphin language is highly representational. That's one reason they struggle to communicate with humans, and why the successes tend to rely on pantomime and concrete objects. Dolphins don't understand abstracts very well because their language means they don't need to much. They can speak pictures.
>> Birds...is it possible that birds might have a Heartsong, instead? Many species I'd each other by their voices, and I think ravens actually mimic each other's voices as 'names.' <<
Possible.
I haven't seen much with soulbonds outside of humans. Animals have souls, but they're different from sapient souls, or more precisely, the sapience is in a different place. Think of individual nonsapient animals like extensions of a sapient spirit. But the more developed the animal, the more individual the soul. So I'd look for occasional soulmarks among the more developed species that also have either monogamous mating or some other very strong connection.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-02-20 08:53 pm (UTC)I've heard of those buttons for dogs and cats. (I had a kitty that would have loved to 'talk' - but by the time they came along he had the staff well-trained already!)
Sign languages...are you thinking hand signals? Or something else?
>>There are a few. The whole of Native American horsemanship is basically how to become herdmates with your horse. It's how they achieve such impressive results.<<
Hmmm...now that I think of it, My Cat From Hell is a cat-human version. I suspect the other one, with dogs would count too. And I've seen people make YouTube videos for body language for common pets - parrots, rats, mice, etc.
I suppose someone could do a bunch of self-study by watching YouTube videos on their given species' body language, with an experienced human narrator.
For some reason, I find the videos more helpful than reading about gestures in isolation. For example, does 'ears back' mean 'listening,' 'angry,' 'scared,' or 'my ear itches'? Check the rest of the body language!
...actually, it occurs to me now...a lot of animal communication, and even human body language is like Chinese writing. You have several small components with individual meanings that get combined into an overall meaningful 'symbol.' And you need to see all the parts before you make a conclusion.
>>Possible. And yes, dolphin language is highly representational. That's one reason they struggle to communicate with humans, and why the successes tend to rely on pantomime and concrete objects. Dolphins don't understand abstracts very well because their language means they don't need to much. They can speak pictures.<<
So... try speaking with a sign language or some kind of sculpture? This is made more complicated by the fact that most humans cannot directly perceive sonar images [echolocation], and I don't recall hearing of humans producing sonar images, like, ever. (Plus, I think our range of hearing is very limited compared to theirs...)
>>I haven't seen much with soulbonds outside of humans. Animals have souls, but they're different from sapient souls, or more precisely, the sapience is in a different place. Think of individual nonsapient animals like extensions of a sapient spirit. But the more developed the animal, the more individual the soul. So I'd look for occasional soulmarks among the more developed species that also have either monogamous mating or some other very strong connection.<<
1) I'm assuming in this 'verse, soulbonds are a marker of personhood - their talk-and-build-a-fire rule, if you will. We know humans, gorillas, and chimpanzees are 'eligible,' and other species may be. I wouldn't expect dogs, cats, or mice to 'bond - but inteeligent lifeforms that are capable of symbolic thought, quite possibly.
2) I suspect greater similarity* ups the chances, so humans are most likely to bond with other humans, then other great apes. The next most likely (I suspect) would be dolphins, as they are rather psychologically similar to humans. Probably next would be elephants, then some birds (corvids and parrots).
*On a species level, think the distinction between human and nonhumanoid languages in the Native Tongue Trilogy, but as applied to xenopsychology and social bonding rather than linguistics.
Last would possibly be cephalopods - and yes, they are far more humanlike psychologically than people would think, though I am not sure if social-bonding patterns would be a close enough match to human ones.
On an individual level, you might be able to buff up similarity by:
- co-rasing young of the two species together,
- via long association, [cofishing with dolphins in Brazil, elephants treated as a member of the family]
- by sharing a Fire-Forged-Friends situation, [helping save a life]
- by having a case where one soulmate is a poor fit for their birth situation, but better off in their soulmate's world [i.e. that story about the dolphin with a prosthetic fin]
(Note: In this 'verse, is it possible to know someone before soulbonding, i.e. you aren't ready/compatible to bond until you've known each other awhile?)
I would also expect most humans with cross-species soulbonds to have at least a hint of 'otherness' about them - bog-standard humans will happily interact with other humans, and ditto for many other species. Things like Interspecies Adoption or Interspecies-Odd Friendships, while adorable, often indicate that something, somewhere, glitched. You imprinted on wading boots, or lost your family, or were raised by a different species, which causes trouble with courtship later on...
3) Proximity. It would need to occur in a way that the two could realistically meet - so look for marine biologists in the field, park rangers, etc.
I would especially suggest looking closely at elephants (who occasionally grieve to death when their bonded humans die) and parrots (who will often pair bond with humans). Both species are intelligent, capable of symbolic thinking, and likely to be around humans a lot.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-02-20 04:24 pm (UTC)And what about Margaret Howe Lovatt, the woman who lived with several dolphins under the tutelage of Dr. John Lilly. She's still alive, and probably has quite a few stories left to tell.