The Mesquakies—popularly known as the Fox, or Sac and Fox, Indians—were a large and powerful people in the Great Lakes region in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Now they live on approximately 3,000 acres of communal property near Tama, Iowa, surrounded by white middle-class farmers.
Wolf That I Am is the story of a young white academic’s encounter with the Mesquakies whom he got to know while collecting folklore for his dissertation. Fred McTaggart had expected to find a dying oral culture. Instead, he found a thriving way of life based on families and clans, linking the present-day Mesquakie Indians with previous generations, including ancestors who lived before the world was created in its present form. This encounter with a people who live ideas instead of thinking them inspired McTaggart to unlock secrets within himself.