“I do not understand this. How can you live without them? It is impossible. Inside me, my animals are in a circle all around me. All of the animals and the fishes and the birds and insects. And the plants in a circle all around us. You can see each one. Each one is mine and I am theirs. The wolf, the giraffe (I love the giraffe), the lion, the beaver, the mouse, the weasel, the opossum, all of them! All of the trees and the flowers and little green ones! They were my friends when I became born! I cannot live without them. If even one of them went away, I would die. They are my soul! I live inside their hearts, they carry me with them. And I carry them. They are in the world, too, but no one can see them. We are always together, and almost any small child I meet understands this immediately. We don’t even have to talk about it because our animals talk to each other. But I cannot talk about it with your adults! They have no idea about what I am talking about and I can see them and their animals are gone! I do not understand!”

— an anonymous informant