I've been unrepentantly obsessed with indigenous Kattigan since this moment in the e5 cold open, before I even knew Robbie was indigenous himself or realized his weapon was an atlatl. Before this I was a little held back about it and trying to not be like "oh I can project my trauma onto the character" about it, but I very much have been on my bullshit in dms with my friend for ages.
"He knows this feeling, and it's the feeling of a hunt. And he's starting to feel good. And excited. And excited is rare and strange for him. And as he rides a little bit harder off to the left, a little rush in the bush, and a quail sort of comes out of the bush and- Wulferic just jumps out of the bush, snatches it, runs alongside him. Shakes it, and almost like a little smile, the way a dog can smile only after it's killed something. Back off in the brush. And for a moment he's really excited because this is where he wants to be and he didn't know."
To get into this, one must first know about clan totems. Clan totems are generally where the idea of spirit animals comes from, kinda spliced with vision quests. Clan totems are not discovered after going into the woods and having them revealed in a fever dream, they are the family you're born into or marry into. When I say my family, I mean my indigenous family that I have met, not my clan because I do not have one because neither of my parents did when I was born and I have not been adopted or married into a clan. My grandmother, as far as I know, would be Bear clan if she has one, but neither of my grandfathers are indigenous. My great grandfather's sisters were adopted into Turtle clan when their dad was murdered, and my great grandfather into Bear clan after he qualified for status again.(or so I was told about 8 years ago when I asked if we had a doodem) Doodems got tied to status because of the legislation controlling band registration which is required for official clan registration (or at least in my band is)
Ode means heart, and Doodem, as it's spelled in Ojibwemowin, means expression of the heart. A clan doodem is supposed to represent who you are in your heart and your calling within the band, and your family is supposed to share their wisdom centric to the values and duties represented by the animal guide of the clan.
In the Anishnaabeg tradition, the Wolf clan is part of the Bear Clan group of clans, associated with defense and healing, sometimes referred to as the "tender group." So if Wulferic were to be his "spirit animal" or his animal guide as my family would say, in our tradition it would represent that Kattigan's heart and family has been dedicated to protection and healing. This is especially painful considering his relationship with drinking and being unable to protect his family, and I'm keeping it in mind despite it being a Ojibwe/Anishnaabeg tradition specifically because the Wolf Clan are not only traditionally warriors with a specific association with defense and healing over offense, they are specifically indigenous through the father but not originally of the Anishnaabeg Nation and Robbie is not Anishnaabe. Robbie's heritage is Apache through his father.
Now I'm gonna bring it back to when Wulferic was first introduced. "[Wulferic] is armored himself. It mirrors Kattigan's armor. On his side is an empty quiver. He even wears a tattered cowl." Wulferic has never seemed to be some sort of aspirational sort of guide like the doodeman based spirit animals and more like a loyal companion. A reflection of Kattigan, and that's made a little on the nose by the fact that Kattigan dresses Wulferic like himself and got a tattoo to match Wulferic's scar. Even Wulferic's missing paw feels like a metaphor for the loss Kattigan feels. And Wulferic is his hunting companion and only remaining family. They keep counsel with each other. Kattigan's most broken moments happen with Wulferic and no one else. Wulferic, if related to the doodem, isn't The Spirit Animal, Wulferic is another member of the clan and he is a wolf. And maybe there's wisdom to be sought in Wulferic but even when Wulferic does his sneezing when Kattigan lies, it really exemplifies to me the difference in the way indigenous people interpret the animal guides, because the animal guides are not deities, they are the guides because in our traditional stories, mankind had our understanding of the world erased and animals didn't and these animal guides are the animals we chose to become family with in order to learn the ways of the world once again.
I don't have the personal history to speak on this aspect as thoroughly, but I would be remiss if I didn't say that it's also very much Apache tradition to associate wolves with hunting and family. As far as I'm aware most of the traditional details are passed down in sweat lodges and ceremonies not to be shared outside of the nation but there is a traditional pre war/pre hunt "chant" that gets referred to as the Wolf Song, and the only translated fragment of that I found is about being a reflection of/like a wolf, and yet wolf conservation on Apache reserves is incredibly controversial even within the band because many bands rely on the tourism income from trophy hunters that would be disappointed with the smaller game available on the reserve because of the restored ecological balance, and they risk losing the income from being hired to guide the trophy hunters.
And with that said, because I recognize I'm analyzing him from the point of view largely of what his character creation choices would mean in a tradition he's "not actually of," I'll also note that if an indigenous person has an doodem like clan with an animal that corresponds to an existing Anishnaabeg clan, we consider them to be part of that Anishnaabeg clan as well for things like knowledge sharing but also social perception of incest, and again this is about coding being there to be interpreted and demonstrating the depth that is there, not about determining Robbie’s intention, and my tradition dictates that *I* specifically *should* consider this symbolism from this perspective on *specifically this point* and that's why *I'm* doing so.
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