Talk:Two Wolves

Origin
An anonymous edit was made 2016-05-03 disputing the Indian origins of "Two Wolves", and instead claiming it is a Christian parable, citing a single source. I've moved the edited portion here for discussion purposes:  The story of the Two Wolves is a popular Christian parable often mis-attributed to the Cherokee or other indigenous tribes that is also known as "Which one do you feed", "Grandfather Tells", and "Tale Of Two Wolves".

...

problematic apihtawikosisan source
The single source (apihtawikosisan) reads a bit like a conspiracy theory with multiple problems: There are additional problems with the single source, I have documented these explicitly since this source has been cited twice anonymously and once by User:Dibamdor (an account which as of this writing has only been used to edit this article). The above should be sufficient to question the source and its reasoning as being insufficient (as noted above, more like conspiracy theory reasoning) for an encyclopedic reference to questioning origins. - Tantek (talk) 03:45, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Not a direct source. apihtawikosisan itself is only passing along analysis from another source.
 * Cites a dead link. That other source: http://alunasa.tumblr.com/post/17650658915/the-history-of-the-two-wolves-two-dogs-story is a dead link.
 * Supposed quotes are a stretch. The dead cited link is quoted as mentioning an "ESKIMO FISHERMAN" (caps in original), a "black dog" and a "white dog". Fisherman to grandfather is a stretch, as is black & white dogs to wolves. Such stretches of reasoning/analogies are one variant of typical conspiracy-theory style reasoning.
 * Leaps to an uncited strawman alteration apihtawikosisan explicitly leaps (exaggerates?) from "white" and "black" to "good" and "evil" (which none of the cited versions of "Two Wolves" use)
 * Uses that strawman good/evil dichotomy to argue against Cherokee (or other "Indian" or "native") origins.

Notice

 * It took me some time, but I finally found that dead link's current, "migrated" link right here. Furthermore, it cites a version from 1965, and it seems that Billy Graham may not have actually said the black dog was evil, but someone may have changed it based on the following passage in one of his (Graham's) books, The Holy Spirit: Activating God's Power in Your Life. Shāntián Tàiláng (talk) 23:47, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
 * And here's that version from 1965 (reprinted in 2005), The Power of Positive Praying by John R. Bisagno. Notice that it mentions a Mohave convert.Shāntián Tàiláng (talk) 01:12, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

comparing of
Weighing one questionable source provided by an anonymous edit vs. numerous Native American sources (many of which are also cited on other Wikipedia Native American related articles), I am restoring the page accordingly, yet leaving the disputed origin source reference and edit here on the Talk page for further discussion in cases others are able to find additional sources or merit to this origin dispute.

Tantek (talk) 18:09, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Second Anonymous Edit With Same Source
Another anonymous edit was made 2016-07-05 disputing the Cherokee origins of "Two Wolves", and this time claiming it was published by a Christian Minister, citing the same problematic "apihtawikosisan" source as above and a Tumblr post with dubious research claims (itself disputed by another Tumblr post). I've moved the edited portion here for discussion purposes:  The story of the Two Wolves is a popular story first published in 1978 when a early form of it was written by the Evangelical Christian Minister Billy Graham in his book, “The Holy Spirit: Activating God’s Power in Your Life.” It is incorrectly claimed by many as being a Cherokee legend and having it attributed as such is generally considered culturally insensitive, misleads many about Native American traditional values, and is even considered by many to be harmful to Native American culture.

 Though vaguely similar in description, the "early form" claim is dubious, with stark differences of language and use of "Eskimo" and "dogs" (not Apache, nor wolves, which all other sources cite in the article).

The remainder of the edit is written with unfounded Weasel wording: "It is incorrectly claimed…", "… as such is generally considered …", "… is even considered by many …" which tends to also discredit the overall edit and change.

The cited "research" only claims there are similar stories in other modern texts. None of it disputes the article citations from accepted Native American sources (sources which are cited in many other Wikipedia articles on Native American cultural aspects).

Thus again I have undone this similar edit since it cites conspiracy theory like sources, and does not dispute the existing accepted sources in the article.

Again, if other editors feel the existence (and editing) of this disputed source is itself worth documenting, we can add a "Disputed Origin" section to the article to recognize that, along with the above-noted flaws in the claims.

Another alternative is if other editors deem the "similar" stories notable enough, we can add a "Similar Parables" section that cites the other versions and their primary sources (rather than Tumblr claims of research).

Until then, documentation on this Talk page seems sufficient.

Tantek (talk) 08:32, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Third similar attempt with hearsay from Quora
I am archiving here a third time that the origins of this story have been claimed to be attributed to Billy Graham, without a credible source, while leaving the specific citation intact as a variant (as already noted above: "Eskimo" and "dogs" not Apache, nor wolves)

Origin
There are many reasons to doubt that the story originates from a Native American myth—a point that Mickey Barrett explains. It seems to derive from a story (one whose attribution changed over the years) first told by the Reverend Billy Graham in his book The Holy Spirit: Activating God's Power in Your Life (W Publishing Group 1978) about an Eskimo with a black dog and a white dog. Later, Graham changed the attribution to Cherokee. As Barrett points out, there is no place in Cherokee and other American Indian mythologies for an inner struggle between good and evil as natural human tendencies.

Taking the claims in this edit one at a time:

"There are many reasons to doubt" - nothing actually cited, mere assertions / hypotheses without evidence.

"Mickey Barrett explains" - Who? What authority? A random Quora post is no better (worse?) than a random Tumblr as above. Could even be the same person.

"first told by" - How is "first" established by any evidence?

"about an Eskimo with a black dog and a white dog" - see above. Very different from what all other cited sources document about the Two Wolves story.

"Later, Graham changed the attribution to Cherokee" - citation needed more than just hearsay from a Quora post.

"As Barrett points out, there is no place in Cherokee and other American Indian mythologies for an inner struggle between good and evil as natural human tendencies." - again, no citation for claim beyond a Quora post, which somehow conflates conscious weighing of choices (good/evil) by self-aware free will with concepts of original sin in infants - a conflation that makes no sense.

Since a specific book (with page number) citation was provided for the variant Eskimo story, I'm leaving that in as a Possible Variant, and up to other editors to choose to verify (check the source if findable).

If there's a way to tag a citation of a physical source (such as a book) as needing to be checked, I would add that tag/template to the article accordingly. I'm not familiar enough with all the different Wikipedia "citation needed / verification needed" templates to know which (if there even exists one) to use.

Tantek (talk) 03:13, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Shouldn't the article at least mention that Billy Graham's version exists?
I just wanted to say, the story mentioned in that bad source actually was published by Billy Graham? You can find the book that was cited (The Holy Spirit: Activating God’s Power in Your Life, indeed published in 1978) on Amazon and Google Books, and through Google Books' sample function I was able to preview the specific chapter it was supposed to be from. The story is actually there (though it isn't capitalized the way the quoted version on the blog is, I guess that was just for stylistic purposes?)

Now for something that's arguably opinion, arguably ignorance: I don't see why it's so different as to be considered only "vaguely" similar? Mind, I've never edited a wiki page before and acknowledge that the others here probably know a lot more about how these are categorized than I do, so I'm sorry if this is stupid of me, but I really would like to know. As far as I can tell, aside from changing the characters in the story, the main difference between Billy Graham's version and the version attributed to the Cherokee is that Billy Graham places the origin for the metaphor on an actual real-world event that supposedly took place, before turning it into a metaphor, whereas the popularized Native American version of the story is just straight up metaphor from start to finish. The basic premise is exactly the same: two animals are fighting, the one that is fed grows stronger and wins. This is a metaphor for the struggle that goes on inside people.

Out of curiousity, has anyone found any publication of the Native American version of the story that predates Billy Graham's publication? If nothing else, the Billy Graham publication could very well be included on the page somewhere for being extremely similar and the earliest known published version of the story. If Graham didn't come up with the story himself, I'd be willing to bet that he took the Native American version and modified it for his own purposes.

Also of note: this will probably also come across as conspiracy theory, but I did find a still-working reblog of the original blog post from tumblr user alunasa. I would not ask to use this as a source of course, however it also cites another published book from 1997 which describes a version of the Native American story where the elder telling the story describes that there are dogs fighting inside him, rather than saying there are wolves. I confirmed the book ("Experiencing the Soul: Before Birth, During Life, After Death" by Eliot Rosen) does exist, found it also on both Amazon and Google Books, and searched through the scanned pages that were available online until I found the story in question in order to confirm its existence and that it was quoted accurately. If also cited in the article, it at least shows a progression in the published versions of the story--first from Eskimo fisherman to Native American Elder, then much more recently, from dogs to wolves.

I dunno man, I just think that as long as we're citing every random webpage that mentions the Two Wolves story, it can't hurt to include the actual published books that also have nearly the exact same story in them, too? Especially when the books actually predate many of the webpages? (NativeLanguages.org published their version in 1998, sapphyr.net in 2002, nanticokeindians.org is from 2011; salisburypost.com's, postindependent.com's, and huffingtonpost.com's articles are all from 2015/2016. Nativeamericanembassy.net's site is dated 1991, which predates the Eliot Rosen book though not Billy Graham's, but I'm not sure if that's the date the published the story online or just the date they first made their website so it might not predate either book after all. I couldn't find dates for FirstPeople.us website or the oneyoufeed.net podcast, and I didn't bother dating the last three which refer to the Tomorrowland movie since those would all be from 2015 or later anyway.)

But yeah, sorry for rambling so long like this, I've overdue for some sleep. Apologies if I'm just wasting your time.

Lizardtails (talk) 15:08, 9 November 2016 (UTC)


 * No problem about the length of comment - appreciate your thoughtful write-up! Especially thank you for checking the primary materials mentioned directly (books). Perhaps one encyclopedic approach would be to add a "Similar Stories" section, with a list of one sentence summaries of each of the similar stories with their literal details included whether fisherman or dog etc., citing the primary materials (books) for them (instead of the conspiracy theory Tumblr post), with the specific page numbers (and even quotations used for the summaries). The assertions of "same story" or "nearly the exact same story" don't stand up to scrutiny (see "quotes are a stretch" and "strawman" above) and thus are either or both original research and non-NPOV.  It's like saying all stories are variants of the hero's journey. In addition, there's no evidence for whether one story influenced another, or whether they were independently invented. Absent such evidence it's better to just provide direct documentation of variants, and leave such questions up to the reader and other researchers to pursue. Tantek (talk) 00:29, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Follow-up to LizardTails: Since a recent edit added a specific citation of the Billy Graham story, I have left it as a Possible Variant. If you are able to verify the physical book citation, perhaps you can confirm and update the description accordingly. Thanks, Tantek (talk) 03:17, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

There is an issue with the argument of finding "any publication of the Native American version of the story that predates Billy Graham's publication", namely that this story, like many Amerindian stories, are passed through oral tradition. Medoli900 (talk) 04:49, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Why no older attributions?
The Billy Graham story may turn out to be be a (more subtle) precurser, but in any case, why are there (not yet) any other attributions to this story that pre-date the 21st Century, despite a rich literature of Native American (and other cultures') legends, tales, and parables that dates back well over a hundred years? Suspicious, to say the least. Mukogodo (talk) 05:13, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Many (most?) of the Native American references provided were already in use / cited / verified by other Native American related Wikipedia pages, hence it is reasonable to accept them here also. If you'd like to find more Native American references perhaps check the project links at the top of this Talk page and see where you can help out! Tantek (talk) 18:39, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes, but none predate the last 40-50 years. A bad sign. If you can find a pre-1970 mention of this tale, that would be fantastic! Mukogodo (talk) 16:34, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Not really a "bad sign" uniquely for this article, since those references are used to substantiate plenty of other Native American articles on Wikipedia. Tantek (talk) 00:25, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Precedent is not a valid excuse for a lack of primary citations. If you can find a citation to this story as Native American from before 1970, please give it. Otherwise, I think it is time to add a qualification to the article to that effect. Mukogodo (talk) 06:27, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Like I said on the other topic, oral tradition. Amerindian usually don't write their stories. Medoli900 (talk) 04:53, 23 May 2019 (UTC)


 * This website says it was also quoted by Bernard Shaw, which would make it older. ;
 * -- Farang Rak Tham   (Talk) 17:27, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Attribution to Bernard Shaw is unsourced. It hardly sounds like him! Indeed, you won't find a reference to a "Native American elder" in this sense before the 1970's--two decades after Shaw's death. JFLohr (talk) 15:32, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

I note that none of the myriad attributions of this to Shaw on the web gives an actual citation/source for the quote. Again, very suspicious. And for Mendoli900: literally thousands of Native American stories and quotes have been written down, most before 1978. If this truly memorable story is truly of older Native American provenance, it borders on inconceivable that no one recorded it before the 1970s.Mukogodo (talk) 04:06, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , yes, you are right. But there are many websites that trace quotes to their original sources. If we dig enough, maybe we can find someone who wrote where it comes from.-- Farang Rak Tham   (Talk) 13:15, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Good luckMukogodo (talk) 23:49, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * -- Farang Rak Tham   (Talk) 17:11, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

To highlight that it is attributed to particular sources (Cherokee or Lenobe) almost suggests/implies that its attribution more generally to Indigenous sources is clear and one’s arguing over the details. I’d suggest removing that sentence whole. ELSchissel (talk) 01:16, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

1970s Christian books' tale is like modern tale
I've added three new sources from 1969 to 1975, and in addition to the source from 1965, these bear a strong resemblance to the modern story:


 * The earliest known variation of this story was published by the Baptist pastor John R. Bisagno in the book The Power of Positive Praying (Xulon Press, 1965). In this version, a missionary is told by a Mohave Indian convert named Joe that he has a black dog and a white dog always fighting inside him, and that the dog which Joe feeds the most will win.


 * In I'm a Good Man, but… (1969), Fritz Ridenour writes: "A supposedly true story from the mission field pretty well sums it up. The missionary was talking to the old Indian about what it was like to be a Christian and the Indian said that being a Christian was like having two dogs inside of him fighting. There was the bad dog (sin) and the good dog (righteousness). 'Which is winning?' asked the missionary. 'The one I feed the most.'"


 * In How to Win Souls and Influence People for Heaven (1973), George Godfrey recounts a tale where an Indian convert says that in his chest he has a white dog that wants to do good, and a black dog that wants to do bad, which are always fighting with each other. After the missionary asks which one wins, he says that the one that he feeds wins.


 * In The Presbyterian Journal, Volume 34 (1975), George Aiken Taylor writes: "[…] two dogs fighting in the soul. 'Which one will win?' asked the convert. 'The one you feed the most,' answered the missionary."

In the 1969 source, we have an old Indian man with two dogs fighting inside him, one of which is good and one of which is bad, saying that the one he feeds will win. Compared to this, the only changes that the modern version of the legend makes is that it replaces the dogs with wolves, and de-Christianizes the characters by replacing the missionary with the Indian man's grandchild. I think we could safely say that these stories are not merely similar but part of the history of the modern story, although saying so in the article may be considered original research. —Enervation (talk) 21:08, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

New version of the tale (bears) in The New Mutants film
A major theme/story throughout the movie involves "a Native American folktale involving two bears" - it concludes the same way (the one you feed being the one that wins) and the story is woven from start to conclusion of the film. Anyway, seems like this should be mentioned somewhere in the base article. I'm not certain where the best place to put it is, since it is a pop culture reference to the original tale but is also altered by focusing on two bears instead of wolves. Thanks for your time. 154.3.250.17 (talk) 05:51, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Fake
The storu of two wolves is fake..., admitted by its creator Billy Graham.

Check the sources before publishing content. 93.176.129.182 (talk) 21:10, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Oh dear
I'm going over the sources now. The ones called "Native American" by users above don't look to be so at all. This needs an overhaul. It's not a Native story. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 02:30, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

The Chelsea Vowel citation that was cut... I think it still makes some valuable points, so I'm putting it back as an external link. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 03:21, 17 January 2023 (UTC)