The Spirit Wolves of Tengger: The Wild Wisdom of the Divine Enemy-Teacher

Beginning to carve Wolf Totem from a block of artist's linoleum

Deep in the heart of the Mongolian grasslands lives the spirit of an ancient and intimate kinship between humans and wolves beautifully described in the semi-autobiographical novel Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong*, based on his own personal experience living eleven years with nomadic sheep herders at the height of China's Cultural Revolution. Rong gifts us with insight into the traditional and indigenous Mongolian nomadic herder world view where wolves are regarded as enemies as well as divine teachers who model strategies of survival and adaptability in an unforgiving formidable landscape. . .a mythos that grassland people believe is the source of their survival and thriving for thousands of years.

I love how this nomadic grasslander world view of wolves gives us an appreciation for how a relationship can serve two opposite, yet equally important purposes: enemy and teacher. Often we are lead to believe enemies can only be evil, that challenging relationships can only be bad, and that the best way to deal with an enemy is to eradicate them or leave the relationship altogether. However, Rong’s experience living in the Mongolian grasslands offers us so much insight into wolf behavior that challenges assumptions that wolves can only be enemies of sheep herders, drawing our attention to their wisdom and value.

The carved block of artist's linoleum covered in black ink.

Even though wolves are a constant threat to the nomadic herder’s sheep population, and at many points in the story the herders must kill wolves to defend themselves and their sheep, we also learn the many ways the sheep herders incorporated wolf behaviors into their own culture as a source of survival, collective cohesion and spiritual strength. Wolves show a deep sense of responsibility to hunt in such a way that provides sustenance for members of the pack who were unable to fend for themselves like their elders and their young. Wolves use calculated tactics to hunt as a coherent pack increasing their chances of catching their prey, and have the foresight to save the remains of their hunts to last them throughout the winter months when food is scarce. Various scenes in the book show wolves sacrificing themselves for the greater good of the larger pack, fostering a powerful message about loyalty, harmony and communal care - all of which are values the sheep herders uphold and practice in their own lives. To the nomadic sheep herders, this wisdom is translated into a wolf totem that is invoked for its special powers and source of survival skills, serving as their guardian or protector when facing adversity.

This concept that a wolf is both enemy and divine teacher is weaved into Mongolian mythology where wolves are considered to be the ancestors of the grassland people and take on ethereal qualities in their imagination. These wolf spirit animals are capable of flight and are thought to belong in the celestial or heavenly realm, also known as Tengger. Traditional Mongolian nomadic funeral rites involve offering up the bodies of their dead to the wolves who then usher human souls up to Tengger. . . .a profound way humans and wolves are mythically and spiritually woven together in this world and the next.

Perhaps even more resonant with contemporary scientific understandings of wolves and their role in the ecosystem, Rong shows us how the nomadic herders’ reverence for wolves and their willingness to learn from and live in harmony with wolves rather than eradicating them, is what enabled the grassland landscape itself to thrive - a landscape nomadic grasslanders refer to as their great mother and the source of all life. He shares how grassland sheep herders had, for centuries, passed down traditional knowledge of wolves that includes a recognition of how wolves play a vital role in the thriving of the grassland ecosystem. He observes and is also told that wolves keep the population of gazelles and marmots in check preventing over grazing, allowing for tall grasses to grow which in turn provide shelter for mice and other rodents that feed other animals. The tall grass also provides food for the sheep whose lives support the nomadic herders themselves. I found this to be particularly poignant because it shows how the mythos surrounding the enemy-teacher-wolf was an ancient folkloric way the Mongolian nomadic grasslanders made sense of, explained and appreciated the important role wolves played as warrior protectors of the grassland ecosystem - an idea Western scientists have begun to understand and appreciate through the more recent recognition of the ecosystem benefits of the apex predator. Often we put science and folklore on opposite sides of a spectrum, when in fact what Rong’s story shows is how both are saying the same thing in different ways.

This tells me there is wisdom about how to live in harmony with the wild tenderly preserved in myth and folklore that we have yet to discover and appreciate. It suggests that in this contemporary moment, perhaps one way to tend to the current ecological crisis is to look to the past - to ancient folktales and mythology - for insight into how to live more harmoniously with the wild, and as a way to restory ourselves psychologically and mythologically back into a more intimate relationship with the wild.

Rong’s book ends with his tragic account of how the Mongolian grasslands, referred to lovingly by the sheep herders as the Olonbulag, eventually became a desert after the Chinese Communist party decided to exterminate the native wolf population of the region. The novel reflects deeply on the consequences of this devastating loss which includes not only the loss of a species and the loss of an entire landscape, but how, in the end, with no more grass left for their sheep, the entire nomadic herding culture also disappeared including the reverence for and spiritual belief in the wolf totem. . . a devastating and heartbreaking loss that is difficult to comprehend.

What I find so important is how the story of the Mongolian wolves parallels similar stories of wolf extermination and cultural genocide experienced by indigenous peoples around the world most notably in Europe and North America over the last several centuries. Though Rong’s story of wolves is brutal, heartbreaking and challenging to accept, Rong opens our eyes up to the dark side of humanity and all we have sought to tame, conquer or destroy in the name of “civilization”. By the end of his novel he has drawn us into grief over such a tragic loss - a grief that is so vitally needed before we, as a human race, can ever hope to move forward in a different way.

A handmade linocut inspired by the folktale of flying wolves that Rong describes in this book. . .with the hope that remembering the mythos of these Mongolian wolves might reignite and enliven our human connection with these beautiful wild creatures.

Journeying alongside Jiang Rong as he slowly finds himself becoming deeply attached to the nomadic sheep herders and the wolves of the beloved Olonbulag, we learn the profound way practical survival and mythology worked in tandem to weave together wolves and humans enabling them to thrive for centuries together in their shared home in the Mongolian grasslands. In the end we are as heartbroken as he is as he witnesses the disappearance of the wolves, the grasslands becoming desert, and comes face-to-face with a younger generation of nomadic people who have disconnected from their elders and do not remember that wolves can fly. Rong’s novel shows us what happens when humans succumb to the pervasive pressure to become tame, and how our freedom resides in our willingness to recognize how the divine-enemy-teacher plays out for us both personally, and at a collective level.

Like the Yin and Yang symbol, Rong’s tragic story of Mongolian wolves and nomadic sheep herders is a spiritual one about finding a way to live in harmony with our greatest fear, or our greatest enemy. He shows us how it is precisely this dance of opposites - wolves and sheep (and their herders) - that has enabled the thriving of the grassland landscape itself. Perhaps most profound is how Rong, in the end, draws our attention to the place where the enemy resides inside him. . .a developing consciousness that inspires his own inner transformation by the end of the novel. Rong’s story forewarns us what can happen when we try to repress or hide from ourselves our own shadow, instead of appreciating, respecting and learning what this divine-enemy-teacher can teach us. . . .a profound wisdom, and the heart and soul of Wolf Totem.

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More than a decade after its publication, Wolf Totem is reportedly the best-selling contemporary Chinese novel, having sold more than five million copies in China and has attracted millions more readers via pirated editions. It has also received more than 10 literary prizes including the First Man Asian Literary Prize 2007.

Note* Jiang Rong is a pseudonym for Lu Jiamin who is a Chinese author and activist. As a college student, he spent eleven years in Inner Mongolia as a volunteer. A longtime political activist and advocate for a freer China, he was arrested at the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and remains an active political and cultural critic in modern China.

References:

Rong, Jiang. (2009) Wolf Totem. Penguin Books.

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