Bf " Counting Coup "

[Guest Boolywooger]

Has anyone gotten any photos or video of these BF "counting coup"? Nope, I thought not.

Here ya go Rockape. I believe night time road crossings are a form of counting coup. 

 

[Rockape]

No, no, when they step in front of a moving vehicle, they are trying to scare away an evil spirit that is pursuing them. It's an old, well know method of doing so.

[Guest DWA]

I tend to go more with the answer to "why did the chicken cross the road."

Darrell's right.  For an animal to have traits that might be - to us - "uncomfortably" close to ours does not make that animal human, at all.  It is part of the make-ourselves-comfortable mechanism he is talking about to align animals with us because we're uncomfortable not being the only creatures possessing the traits we see.

[JDL]

Before I knew what they were called, based on the behaviors and activities I observed, I perceived them to be people.  Strange, hair-covered, feral people, but people nonetheless.

 

Their behaviors made sense to me within the context of human behavior, and they clearly understood my behavior and that of the other people with me on occasion. 

 

I cannot, based on direct experience perceive them as animals.

[JanV]

My point is that because humans are animals, the point between what constitutes some human behaviors and some animal behaviors becomes vanishingly small.

We are all guilty of anthropormorphizing animal behaviors - even our own.

As to BF, there is sufficient anecdotal evidence to suggest that it may be some form of homo, close enough to us on the family tree to have a culture and primitive speech and behaviors we recognize as human.

[LeafTalker]

Thank you, JDL!

 

DWA, I love how your mind works, and you have a huge heart. Many of us haven't had the up-close and personal experiences that JDL has had (and that Branco and others here have had), so we have limited information about who these guys are. But those up-close experiences can be real eye-openers. I hope we all get to have those eye-opening experiences at some point. It's fun to find out how little we really know! 

 

P.S. Just saw your post, JanV. I think it's spot on. 

[Guest]

To both of the dog joke posters, what breed of dogs?

 

Mine was female dalmation/irish sheepdog with the white forpaws, etc.

 

I was playing with her with a rolled up newspaper, like starwars jedi thing, and she would get tired of it soon and walk away. Out of the blue, I said " oh, your just a WIMP" a word she'd never even heard before, and she would get pee'd off and come back for more 'fight' get tired of it soon, walk away ' WIMP!'  - do it all over again. Never had that type of situation that she would even have any type of pattern for this. Never really played rough with her like that.Never nothing, brother had her before we got her, no thing of that nature in the past. So dogs can be 'insulted' also. I say this because with other dogs I think this could be repeatable behavior. She was not a very friendly dog-dog type, like a 'normal' dog ether.

Edited January 12, 2014 by Wag

[Guest LarryP]

Wag, her name was Dixie and she was half Alaskan Husky and half German Shepherd.

 

She was the runt of the litter and only weighed around 50 lbs. But she was an extremely intelligent dog.

[Guest DWA]

Hey LT, I love how your mind works too, and from appearances your heart is bigger than mine.  :-)

 

For me it's all about holding open possibilities; not ruling anything out; and not jumping to conclusions until I know more. 

[LeafTalker]

For me it's all about holding open possibilities; not ruling anything out; and not jumping to conclusions until I know more. 

Words to live by!  

[Guest Coonbo]

In a recent post Coonbo mentions observing a BF "counting coup" by touching a companion of his who was running for the safety of his vehicle.

Counting coup was considered an act of bravery by many Indian tribes who actually kept count of this on a "coup stick".

I have read other references to this practice that also associated BF with this, speculating that this was part of being considered an adult.

This activity could only be associated with a sentient, tribal being, IMHO. One who has culture and at the minimum a proto language.

What do you know or think about this?

I hope Coonbo will join this thread to tell us more.

 

First, I'm sorry that it's taken me this long to respond to this thread.  My life is very busy and I don't get to spend as much time online as I'd like.

 

In 35 or more years of active researching and observation of BF in the field, numerous times I've personally witnessed/experienced juvenile and/or subordinate BF sneaking up and/or hiding in very close proximity to us - sometimes close enough that they could touch us if they so wanted.  A few of these times, the booger crawled up under the edge of our truck, and when someone happened to walk around to that side of the truck, the booger jumped up, sometimes growled, and ran off bipedally, very fast.  Other times the booger, or boogers, would hide in or behind a bush, or behind a tree very close to or in amongst us.  We’ve even had them ease up in amongst us, in the open, but depend on the cover of darkness for concealment, and it worked!  Someone would eventually get too close to one of these sneaky boogers (within VERY few feet), or turn on a light, and the booger would sometimes growl, and always run away.  On two very memorable occasions, I personally observed a booger suddenly lean out of a bush, and take a swipe at a fellow researcher as he went by the booger, not knowing it was there.

 

In one of those occasions the booger's hand appeared to just barely graze the researcher's hair and collar at the back of his head.  The researcher, my friend Bear, later said he heard and felt the booger's hand whiff past the back of his head.  The booger let out a loud roar, and we were already piling into my truck to get the heck out of there, so I don't know where it went after that.  In the other incident, the booger very clearly swiped the researcher across the shoulder blades, it then growled and ran away.

 

An interesting aspect to these incidents is that in almost 100% of them, there was some BF activity going on further away that was intended to hold our attention while the sneaky boogers used that as cover to infiltrate our area.  These are quite effective diversionary tactics, and often succeeded even when we KNEW that was what was going on and we were trying to be extra observant.

 

Now, whether or not boogers learned this "counting coup" game from Native Americans generations ago or it’s a game that THEY invented and the Native Americans copied and formalized, OR it’s totally coincidental that this “sneaky booger game†just happens to closely resemble counting coup, doesn’t matter to me.   The fact is that it’s something that BF do – usually done by subordinates and juveniles –  and some groups do it quite consistently, and it APPEARS to be a game to them.  It COULD be a standard part of their behavior that’s purpose is actually to keep track of intruders in their territory (or some other purpose) and we just interpret it as a game.

 

Another thing to be noted about this behavior – it is almost always done by BF that know you and/or do not perceive you as a threat.   The very first time that I make contact with BF in an area where they haven’t been messed with by other researchers, the alpha male often responds (and sometimes VERY memorably, to say the least) and sometimes the alpha female can be heard calling and leading the juveniles and young ones out of the area.  Once he’s checked me out (and sometimes has chased me out of the area) and determined that I’m more an annoyance than a threat, the next time I come into his territory, and the troop is within earshot, he generally leaves me alone and/or keeps his distance, and that’s when the subordinates and juveniles start their games.

 

I know of researchers that return to the same area over and over again and "play" this game with the local boogers repeatedly. 

 

I'm still learning about this behavior, but, I do know that this is a fairly common thing that BF over a large part of the country do once they get to know you and feel relatively safe around you.

Edited January 13, 2014 by Coonbo

[JanV]

Thanks Coonbo, for the additional info. A question came to me when I read your message: can you guesstimate how many BF were in these groups? It sounds like quite a few. Any idea of their composition?

[Guest Coonbo]

JanV:  In one area that I used to frequent (where Ken got swatted across the shoulder blades and I spun around and bumped into one), the troop there is large.  I had eight of them surround and approach me across open fields the first time I went there, and I was alone, except for my dog, Bo.  After that time, when we got any response at all, there's always been at least four that messed with us - two or more in the woods making racket and trying to keep our attention and at least two that tried to sneak up on us.  The last time I was there, we had a very good thermal camera with us and we watched as three BF eased out of the woods to the north of us and moved from hay roll to hay roll working their ways towards us.  There were limb snaps and vocalizations coming from at least two locations back in the woods.  One of them belly crawled into a big patch of honeysuckle and crawled to where it could watch us easily.  We approached it and when we were within 30 feet or so from it, it started hissing at us.  In the meantime, another one that we didn't see, crawled up under one of our trucks, and took off running when we went to leave later.  So, that time there were at least six in the immediate area.  From the size that we could see on the thermal, compared to the size of those of us in the field of view at the same time, my best guess is they.were subordinate or young adults and older juveniles, 6 ft to 7 1/2 ft tall,

 

Another area where they've "counted coup" on us several times, they've done it with as few as two, that we knew of - one that make racket in the woods and one that belly crawled up to the truck.  There could have been more, but we never saw or heard evidence of them.

 

In another of my favorite areas, in Gen II night vision on more than one occasion we saw two smaller ones approach us and we got glimpses of one very large one (8 to 10 ft) stay well back in the woods, watching.  When that happened there, we always had the feeling that we were in very serious danger, so we didn't stick around to see what would have played out.  Another time there, I'm pretty sure we had at least six to eight of them around us, and we felt no danger.

 

The most I've ever encountered in one location that approached us and tried to count coup on us was in East Texas, in the Big Thicket, and there were at least 18.........  I know.... I know......  That number sounds absolutely ridiculous, but there were several of us there and the boogers came from quite a distance from several different directions and they were making a hell of a racket the whole way in.  Some of us in the group, me included, were trying very hard to differentiate the different voices and calls and we were using multiple bionic ears, with fairly narrow acceptance angles, so that helped isolate individuals and small groups.  Plus we were using a thermal device that had a fairly narrow field of view.  During all the astounding vocalizations coming from almost all the way around us, there were still two boogers that tried to sneak in the back door, but we caught them on the thermal.  At one point, when they were very close to us, in a split second the calls turned very threatening and several of them showed themselves to us, and as we were trying to get folks loaded up, the largest one took a swipe at Bear and nicked him across the back of his head and collar.  We hauled butt outta there, but only moved about a half mile away and I was able to call several of them to us again.  They were much less belligerent when they got to us that time, and didn't come in really close.  I've never had an incident like that before or since.

 

I believe that it's more usual to have three to six subordinate or young adults or older juveniles in a group that's going to mess with or count coup on humans. 

 

One interesting investigation that I did was at the Cade's Cove campground in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park in east Tennessee.  I don't know if you'd classify this as counting coup, but it's definitely in the "making mischief" category.  There had been a number of sightings in and around the campground for years, but one summer the BF took to running wide open right through the middle of the campground in the middle of the night, and banging garbage cans and slapping things to make noise as they went.  I heard about this from a Sheriff's deputy in the area that I knew, and once there, got to talk to a female park ranger who he knew.  She gave me a fair amount of info on various sightings they'd had recently, including the campground "streaks".  I stayed there for four or five nights and never saw or heard a thing in the campground, but I'm sure I stumbled into one of their home areas up in a deep "holler" in the side of a mountain not too far from the campground.  In talking to them further, they both made allusions to some kind of action that had been taken to remove BF from around another camping area east-northeast of there, past Gatlinburg.  I went and checked out that area and found absolutely nothing, so their efforts might have been successful, if there were really any there in the first place.  But, I still get a chuckle thinking about teenaged boogers daring each other to streak the campground.  "Hey Moog, you ain't got a hair on yo ass if ya don't run through there an' knock over that rack of garbage cans an' slap the side of that big ol' Prevost motor coach."  "All right Bork, if I do that, then YOU gotta run through there and knock over th' other garbage cans, slap th' side of that travel trailer, an' chunk this big rock up on th' roof of th' shower house."

[Guest]

Coonbo I am curious about where you mentioned that you saw an 8-10 footer back in the trees as the two smaller ones came closer. You said that you felt like you all were in serious danger what exactly do you mean by that, if you don't mind me asking. Thanks.

[Guest Coonbo]

KY Woodsman: This happened in a remote part of a wildlife management area that's along the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway in northeast Mississippi.  I don't know why we felt we were in danger at those times.  Maybe the BF were hitting us with infrasound - I don't know.  I had been in there numerous times with no problems and the other researcher had been there several times with no problems.  When it first started, we got into the truck.  But the feelings of extreme danger were so pervasive and strong that I just couldn't sit there and continue to watch those boogers.  The clincher for me to get out of there was when my dog, Bo, started cowering and whining and crawled down into the floorboard under our feet.  Those were the only times he ever crawled onto the floorboard. 

 

This was at the location where THIS took place: