Three Types of Shuman
This is from another class essay. English buffs might recognize my inspiration from Miner's "Body Ritual among the Nacirema" (https://www.msu.edu/~jdowell/miner.html). I wrote this while I was working with the Monterey Bay Aquarium's river otters.
My journey here has ended. The Shuman Examiner has had his way with me and soon the Overseers will take me away. Where? Probably to a different facility with new surroundings and new Overseers. It doesn't matter. I have been chosen, along with three of my brethren, to be ambassadors to the Shuman people. I have been living amidst them for over two years now, and any change would be welcome. Overall, every Shuman shares the same basic form; they are tall in stature, bipedal, flat-faced, lack any sort of tail or webbing in-between their digits, and are furless except for on the very top of their heads. They cover their shameful nakedness in "false furs" of elaborately decorated fabrics and pieces of metal and stone. From my observations, I can classify the Shuman I have encountered into three groups: Overseers, Examiners, and Spectators.
The few Shuman who interact with us most often are the Overseers. Their native language is incredibly complex and noisy, so they interact with us in simple hand gestures and short vocalizations. They are the ones who provide us with food, maintain our living areas and oversee our overall status. Every day they ask us to come in from our living area to a playroom. There they offer us fresh fish, meat, and vegetables from metal containers. While we dine, the Overseers enter our living area and set to work sterilizing it thereby undoing all our efforts of making it a more pleasant home for ourselves to live in. They change our beds around, wash the floors, clean our scent off the walls, and even remove all traces of our bathroom area! We've always been a bit bothered by the sanitary way the Shuman kept everything. The Overseers may be the ones who give us food, but they also meddle in our affairs. After they are through with their business and we are allowed back into our living area, it's always an eerily unfamiliar place that awaits us. At least they leave us some kibble to munch on while we restore our scents and re-establish a bathroom.
Even more rare and disturbing are the Examiners. I am fortunate to have only encountered one so far. They are akin to some sort of mad-scientist/doctor. Well respected among other Shuman, even the Overseers defer to him. He poked and prodded me and made me sleep so that he could perform further indignities upon my body. One time I woke up to find that he had plucked out a few of my whiskers. One time I felt a small wound on the back of my head and felt the presence of a foreign body inside. It seems that the Examiner is always trying to take things out, or put things inside of me. Visiting the Examiner is always a humiliating, if not painful experience.
The other type of Shuman are the Spectators. They are innumerable and come in all ages and sizes. From little youngsters riding around in chairs with wheels, to middle sized ones walking on two feet, to big fat ones riding around in chairs with wheels. The Spectators appear happy to simply walk by, looking into our living area, waving, and pointing their "flashers" at us. The soundproof glass separating us from the Spectators pretty much limits our interaction to observing each other from either side.
It's hard to believe it's been thirty months already. I'm practically an expert on the Shuman. But now I'm going to be moving on to another place. A place full of excitement that will have different Overseers, different Spectators, and maybe even another Examiner.