School of Living Creatures

The School of Living Creatures is the Academy of Deeper Learning’s expansive center for studying animals and conducting animal experiments. Its grounds and the conditions of its inhabitants set it apart from the more prestigious School of Medicine, while the wider story’s detailed account of pyuika husbandry shows how knowledge of living creatures also rests on close observation, long practice, and respect for animals’ needs.

Purpose and Place at the Academy

The school is devoted to every facet of the study of living creatures. Its grounds are the most extensive at the Academy of Deeper Learning: they include three ponds, wetlands, a riding track, a beast stable, and a tower housing the scholars. This combination of habitats, facilities, and academic quarters makes animal study part of the institution’s physical landscape rather than an abstraction confined to books or lectures.

The school also performs work for the Academy’s most respected field. Many animal experiments required for admission to the School of Medicine are conducted there. Some of its students consequently refer to their institution sarcastically as the Other School of Medicine, but the school’s director, Tomasolle, has no interest in that comparison. The nickname registers a hierarchy within the academy; it does not define the director’s view of his work.

The Director’s Animal Room

The school’s research is given a particularly concrete setting in a room that serves as Tomasolle’s stronghold and reflects his personality. The needs of the creatures kept there take priority over human comfort. Most of the room is dimly lit so sick beasts can rest, and Hohsalle must pick his way carefully to avoid bumping into things. The space’s arrangement makes care, not convenience, its governing principle.

At the back, an incandescent gas lantern illuminates a bright work area. There Tomasolle bends over a large basin, while cages and baskets line the room and mice and birds keep up a constant rustle. A wolf in a large cage raises its head and growls at Hohsalle but does not stand, either because it is ill or because his scent is familiar. The room thus holds research and illness together: its animals are subjects of study, but their condition and comfort remain immediately present.

Knowledge of Animals Beyond the Academy

The novel’s account of pyuika husbandry offers a revealing contrast to the academy’s organized facilities. Pyuika are affectionate and loyal once bonded: a fawn accustomed to a person will remember that person and come at a whistle, while separation can leave the animal lonely. Their bonds and habits are not incidental details to their handling; they determine how people can work with them without forcing them into unsuitable forms of confinement.

Mohoki, a lichen growing on old trees, can be braided into ropes and placed around a fence to keep pyuika from crossing it. Yet this control has limits. Pyuika are grazers better left to roam by day, and if a fence prevents escape they can decline. Their broad, loosely defined herds, habitual migration routes, and strong individual bonds require herders to understand behavior as well as devise practical controls. Van’s sadness on learning that Yoki had never heard of mohoki underscores the cost of sellers withholding knowledge that could help others care for the animals.

Seasonal care presents a different challenge. In spring, Van argues that pyuika should be allowed to roam freely, since they are wilder than reindeer and resist restraint; the more dependable method is to acclimate them to people and cultivate a personal bond. In the Toga Mountains, boys learn by accompanying adults and observing the herd, gaining enough familiarity to anticipate where animals may be. That knowledge also rests on the pyuika’s relatively narrow range, compared with the long distances deer travel in deep snow.

The timing of breeding and migration can make sound husbandry a matter of coordination among families. The reindeer’s move to summer pasture coincides with the pyuika calving season, while keeping reindeer in winter grounds would expose them to swarms of horseflies and mosquitoes and sparse grass. After last year’s pyuika produced no young, Ohma says the animals had simply been hitched to a rope and led along; Van suspects the unnatural strain of that schedule contributed to their failure to breed. The families therefore arrange for three of Kiya’s nephews to stay and learn pyuika raising while the others take the reindeer to summer pasture.

Winter brings another specialized task. Van gathers ashimi, a green lichen that remains fresh under frost, and places a bundle before Tsupi during mating season, when pyuika eat a great deal of it and seem to crave it while bearing young. Finding the lichen by smell makes the difficult work of digging it out of deep snow easier. Its odor also stirs Van’s memories of the night the rochai came, tying practical animal care to an experience that remains emotionally charged.

A Different Measure of Study

The academy’s animal experiments and its carefully provisioned grounds represent one organized form of inquiry; the herders’ accumulated knowledge represents another. In the pyuika episodes, reliable care depends on reading signs, seasons, scent, bonding, and movement, then adjusting human plans to animal behavior. The juxtaposition gives the School of Living Creatures a wider significance: the study of animals is not only an institutional discipline but a practical relationship in which understanding the creature’s needs can determine whether husbandry succeeds.