The Animal Wife (44 page)

Few if any of the above bibliographical sources list the tiger as present in central Siberia during the Anthropogene. Siberia's version of the sabertooth, the homotherium, is another matter, but that animal was long gone by the time my story takes place. I include a tiger for three reasons. First, in a countryside so vast yet so lightly touched by paleozoology, the fact that no tiger's bones have been discovered doesn't necessarily mean that tigers weren't there. Second, the bones of a tiger, if found, could have been mistaken for bones of a cave lion, since the ubiquitous cave lions were very similar in size and build to the massive northern race of tiger, the fluffy
Panthera tigris altaica,
also known as
P. t. longipilis.
Third, I see no reason that the range of these magnificent animals could not have extended almost any distance along the forested hills and river valleys. Until quite recently the east-west spread of the tiger was extensive, from the Caucasus Mountains to the Sikhote-Alin Mountains, due north of Japan, where a few insufficiently protected wild tigers still cling to life today. A line drawn between these places would cross the site of my imaginary landscape. In this novel February, the Storm Moon, is also called the Moon of Roaring, after the tigers' rut season.

I took a liberty with the mention of a bobcat, since the bobcat is, strictly speaking, a New World creature. I used its name in place of another cat, the European wildcat, since for obvious reasons the words "European" and "wild" would not fit in this novel. After all, a bobcat can almost be called a thicket-dwelling, bird-hunting version of the lynx, which is found throughout the Holarctic region.

I did not take a liberty with the animal called tai tibi, except that its name is, so to speak, a translation into the imaginary Ilasi language of what in English is a household word. This familiar animal, which has inhabited Asia since the Upper Miocene, was domesticated long ago and today is found in every barnyard. Even so, it never inhabited tundra or cold savannas but preferred broadleaf forests and slightly milder climates to the fictional climate imagined here. Therefore, the only fictional thing about this remarkable creature is the name.

Many of the winter scenes in this novel derive from a midwinter visit to one of the most beautiful and interesting places in Europe, the ancient forest of Varrio above the Arctic Circle in northern Finland. Through the kindness of the Finnish publishers of
Reindeer Moon
I was able to travel to Varrio. For this I would like to thank Olli Arrakoski and Sirkka Kurki-Suonio of Helsinki, and Kaarlo Koskinen, Merja Saariniemi, Markku Kuusiniemi, and Juha Nie-mela of the Varrio Subarctic Research Station of the University of Helsinki. I am also very grateful to Björn Kurten for much insight into the animal life of Paleolithic times—life that in a number of ways was possibly very different from that of today.

For her critical reading of this manuscript, I would like to thank Sy Montgomery. For the time of quiet concentration in which I was able to complete this novel, I would like to thank Myra Sklarew and the Yaddo Corporation.

 

Peterborough, N.H.
January 1990

One of the most widely read American anthropologists, E
LIZABETH
M
ARSHALL
T
HOMAS
has observed dogs, cats, and elephants during her half-century-long career. Her many books include
The Social Lives of Dogs, The Tribe of Tiger,
and
The Hidden Life of Deer.
She lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire.