Originally posted on the Nonhuman National Park forums, [8/16/2022]
Here's an essay I started back in June. Many thanks to Othercon 2022 for spurring the writing spirit again. It's long, sorry, and I can't figure out how to make the images smaller, so we'll take what we can get. (Note for Neocities: I'll just be putting the image descriptions for now. Maybe eventually I'll get around to posting the images.)
Recently, my partner showed me that he had a subscription to CuriosityStream, which as far as I can tell is Netflix for documentaries of all kinds. The subscription was going to run out soon, and did I want to watch anything before it did? My partner is fully supportive of my therianthropy, and pointed out the series The Secret Lives of Big Cats. There was an episode on pumas, so there was no way I was passing that up.
It’s only within the past year or so that I’ve been confident in puma as my theriotype. Exactly how I came to realize this is a write-up for a different post, but mainly it was a lot of searching for what felt right, and importantly, involved a lot of little “coincidences” clicking into place. There-- that’s the walking pattern that feels right, those are the trills and squeaks I’ve also made all my life, coming out of this big cat on the screen. In a way it’s surreal to watch a wild animal mimic many of your own mannerisms, knowing you’ve had at the absolute most only a possible subconscious connection to it.
So I expected to have a good time going into this documentary episode. That’s been the case for all the other documentaries and short clips and YouTube videos I’ve watched. Like I’m looking in a mirror to what was, or what could have been. I define my therianthropy as mostly psychological because I’ve never had strong past life memories that would indicate it as spiritual, but I’ve also never ruled out the possibility. I tend to go back and forth on the language I use, saying “I remember this thing” as shorthand because it conveys the correct emotion, if not the exact logical scenario. Who knows what I’ve been before?
What I do have, is that noemata, those strong feelings and inclinations towards what is right for me-as-cat. And this single episode ended up slotting into place a feeling of rightness I didn’t even know was missing. See, all the other research and videos I’ve watched have focused on pumas (cougars, mountain lions, whatever name they’re using) in North America. This didn’t feel wrong, necessarily. I have a strong interest and love for the American Southwest. I thought, okay, California, Montana, the desert mountains. California can look like any other place on Earth, apparently. Makes sense.
You see, a lot of my personal noemata is focused on place. One of my strongest feelings is a sense of running, of pushing and leaping off rocks, but it’s always been coupled with a specific type of environment. Over the years, I’ve unintentionally documented what this environment is through my Tumblr blog, just casually reblogging images and videos that make me feel something. That specific tag extends back to around 2014-- so when I myself was 15-- but I can vaguely remember being drawn to this environment for a couple years previous to that.
I can describe this “hearthome” in words, but I’ll also post images directly from my blog. In short: cold, misty, dark green rocky mountains, not very long grass, broad stretches of land uninterrupted by trees. Sloping peaks. Waterfalls. Sense of vastness, but also, generally, height. One with an interesting tag:
[Tumblr screenshot. Photo of a dramatically rounded green hill with short scrub-grass, against a blue sky. Tags say “kin tag” and “my perch.” Dated Sep 2015]
And some others. I’ve tried to pick the most representative, but there are literally dozens:
[Tumblr screenshot. Photo of dark green hills with dramatic plateaus, and a cloudy gray sky. Dated Dec 2014]
[Tumblr screenshot. Photo of peaked but not high green hills covered in scrub-grass, in strong golden hour lighting. The sky is misty gray. Dated Jul 13, 2015]
[Tumblr screenshot. Photo of two dark green rocky banks in a misty landscape, with a rapid white river flowing through them. Dated Nov 28, 2015]
[Tumblr screenshot. Photo of a greenish-brown meadow, with short grass, and much taller sloping rocky mountains in the background. Dated Feb 15, 2016]
[Tumblr screenshot. Photo of a dark green, rocky cliff, with a white waterfall in the center. A larger, darker and mound-shaped mountain is in the background. The sky is white. Dated Feb 17, 2018]
[Tumblr screenshot. Photo of green dramatic hills, with blurred wildflowers at the front and jagged mountain peaks in the back. The sky is white-blue. Dated Aug 19, 2018]
The many others in that tag (with only two exceptions, which I’ll get to) all follow the same general visages: green hills, mountains, thick grass, scrub-brush fields. I definitely favored dramatic elevation changes, gentle hills like the folds of a blanket, rugged terrain, exposed rocks, water and waterfalls. Some other interesting tags were “(romps)” and “this is where i live.” The conclusion I remember coming to was Iceland. It made the most sense with the description I had, all things considered. During the years I identified as a theriomythic classical chimera, I thought, maybe there’s a possibility that I come from some weird alternate Iceland timeline. That would have been cool as f*ck even if I no longer think it’s the case.
So, with this in mind, you can imagine my confusion and then mild shock when the documentary switched to Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park and these were the views: (Photos by Alisha Bube, taken from this site: www.travelchannel.com/destinations/chile/patagonia/photos/backpacking-patagonia-torres-del-paine-national-park-chile)
[Photo of a greenish-brown meadow, with blurred wildflowers at the front and rolling hills in the back. In the distance, there are tall gray jagged mountains with some snow patches. The sky is cloudy.]
[Photo of a green and brown rocky landscape of hills. A wide but not very tall waterfall cuts through the landscape, with white rapids at the bottom.]
[Photo of a greenish-brown landscape of hills and scrub-grass, with one large mound-shaped darker green hill at the back.]
Immediately I felt, well, at home. There was a sense of awe-- a piece of the puzzle I didn’t even know was missing fell into place. The scrub grass, the varied colors of green from desaturated to dark, the gentle slopes to the hills, the wide-open sky… and so on. Re-scrolling through my kin tag now, I can’t emphasize enough how much this place resembles the patchwork of photos I’ve collected over the years. Even the different parts of the landscape, from the jagged peaks to the rolling meadows to the green color of the slopes, it’s all represented. There’s even a screenshot from Skyrim showing snowy mountains that are remarkably similar to Torres del Paine’s mountain range, which didn’t even feature in the documentary.
Even more string-pulling was watching the footage of pumas lounging, running, hunting on this landscape. I could feel it. I was there. I used to be there.
However, as I mentioned, there were only two photos in my tag that didn’t follow the pattern. Not of green mountains, but of water and desert.
[Tumblr screenshot. Photo of low white sand dunes cut through with a winding aqua river, against a pale blue sky. Tags say “i remember this place also wtf” and “kin tag.” Dated Dec 2014]
[Tumblr screenshot. Two side-by-side photos of white sand dunes with pools of blue standing water in them. Caption says “Brasil: Lençois Maranhenses.” Tags say “sand” and “WHY DO I REMEMBER THIS PLACE IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH EVERYTHING ELSE” and “KIN TAG.” Dated Aug 2016]
Note the caption of Brazil: Lençois Maranhenses, a different, more northern national park, and hopefully you’ll see immediately what also clicked for me once I finished the documentary. Although puma population range is over the entirety of Brazil (and nearly all of South America), with the unique environment, I haven’t been able to find any information on whether pumas would actually live in or visit this particular national park. It’s probably unlikely. But I do still think it’s interesting that a place from South America pinged so strongly to me even before this recent discovery. Maybe the word “memory” here is actually correct, or maybe my subconscious, or otherwise, was just trying to tell me something.
In addition to place, the pumas shown in the episode are closer than I’ve ever seen to my self-image. I don’t have any scientific studies or data to back this up, but going purely on looks, South American versus North American pumas are visually different. The South American pumas shown in the documentary are a little longer-furred (or shaggier), more golden than tan, and have less distinctive black facial markings around the muzzle. They’re a little more similar to the classical picture of a lion, that is, an actual African lion. And this is more blatantly conjecture, but if my searching is right their eye colors on average tend to be more golden than blue. For pretty much every ‘sona or self-insert I’ve ever made, I always have to insist on orange eyes. Blue just isn’t right. This isn’t across the board, of course, there was a lot of coat and marking coloration diversity even in the episode and other documentary clips on South American pumas I’ve watched since. But it was the first time I’d seen a puma in motion who looked more like myself.
This pings so much more me:
[Photo of a puma from a Patagonian tourist website. Its fur color is a warm gold-brown that fades to white around its underparts and chest.]
Than this:
[Photo of a puma from a Nebraska news site. Its fur color is a dun brown, and it appears leaner and more haggard than the Patagonian puma.]
I would be interested to know if there’s any actual scientific difference here, or if it’s all conjecture. I know the lineage of North versus South American pumas diverged a long time ago, but that’s about it.
Something else the documentary touched on was the surprising social life of the pumas. It’s generally accepted that pumas are solitary animals that rarely have contact with other pumas, much less prides. But there has been some stir on this, such as these articles: www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/11/557191886/pumas-are-not-such-loners-after-all / www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/pumas-mountain-lions-cougars-society-social-cats-animals / www.ucdavis.edu/news/pumas-are-more-social-previously-thought
The documentary episode made a point to note how surprising it was that the pumas were, relatively peacefully, sharing a kill and interacting with each other. The narrator speculated that perhaps they were related, or even just knew each other. Paraphrasing: “There’s still a lot to learn about these animal’s social habits.” I have long felt that I don’t fit the typical mold of antisocial big cat, being an outgoing introvert that highly enjoys interacting with others daily and building community. In fact, that was one of the reasons I initially lingered on African lions, as they’re the only widely-accepted “social” type of big cat. This is all to say that watching the documentary pumas be so civil with each other felt in its own way revelatory, a finally deep in my heart, of how “we” should be portrayed.
Which all leads me to now: feeling quite secure in the idea that I am, in fact, a Patagonian puma. I don’t like getting more certain than I have to with my identity, I’m too attached to all the what-ifs. But this is my hearthome. And I’m so happy I’ve found it.
In conclusion, take the most recent post in my kin tag, dated June 4th 2022, the same day I watched the documentary: “bro it was f*cking chile this whole time. south america or some sh*t. crazy”