Kusari rufus

Actually called *Mazama americana*, a 2006 study showed that this deer is more closely related to Odocoileus than it is to Mazama. While the deer has been labelled in pictures and websites as a close relative to this branch, it has not been renamed. Instead Mazama has been acknowledged as a broken taxon without any actual fixes. So I'm fixing it here.

Originally I wanted to name it after an Indigenous Trinidad word for the deer, as that's a more "authentic" way of naming it and promoting an endangered language. As it currently lives in South America with various other brockets and is only found in Trinidad, this would be even better (and easier to find linguistically). However it seems that Yaio and Shebayo, the two indigenous languages found in Trinidad, are extinct. Through trying to figure those out I landed on Suriname/French Guinian Carib, which does have an available online dictionary. The Red Brocket there is called "kusari". It also has a mythology associated with it, though its mostly about its bones. After much thinking I eventually decided on rufus to add a red into it's name. I'm a little less happy with that than another word, but I can't find other good, verifiable sources for indigenous South American names or words for it. It also plays into my work here on this website, what with Canis rufus and other wolves.

Since no scientist has bothered to fix it, I've gone ahead and done it. They've had 16 years to fix it. They don't want to do it? They don't actually care? I'll do it instead.

## Other names

In Spanish they may be called corzuela. In Trinibagan Creole they can be called guazoupita, which can confuse it with *Mazama* *gouazoubira,* which does not live on Trinidad. They may also be called biche. There is another term for them which was traditionally thought of as a seperate species which is "corne couvert", which is when its antlers are in velvet.

## Mythology

**Suriname:** An unnamed Carib man and a spirit/fairfolk/"bushman" given the name of a god in a different nation's folklore (Kurupi) find themselves to be friends who hang out together all the time. One day the fairfolk asks the man if he could have the same haircut as him. The man agrees, but scalps him instead, despite his protests. He admonishes him during the process for crying out in pain, and plants a pepper seed on top of his head. Later the pepper grows on to his head. When the plant is fully grown and carrying mature and immature fruits, the spirit happens upon the man again. He asks if he is the same guy, and he says something like 'no, but those are the bones of that man' and points to the skull-less remains of a red brocket. Eventually the two dance with the bones, and the spirit insists that he is the man, and then the guy pushes him off the cliff. His brains splatter and become a southern species of dove, and he finally dies. This story of betrayal is the only mythology of the red brocket that I can find.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1055790306000698?via%3Dihub
2. ↑ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Languages\_of\_the\_Caribbean.png
3. ↑ https://www.google.com/books/edition/A\_Carib\_Grammar\_and\_Dictionary/SY6Exu40z8QC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA162
4. ↑ https://en.glosbe.com/en/car/deer
5. ↑ https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/corzuela
6. ↑ https://www.google.com/books/edition/Dictionary\_of\_the\_English\_Creole\_of\_Trin/\_n82hsbDJBMC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA409
7. ↑ https://www.google.com/books/edition/Dictionary\_of\_the\_English\_Creole\_of\_Trin/\_n82hsbDJBMC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA78
8. ↑ https://www.google.com/books/edition/Dictionary\_of\_the\_English\_Creole\_of\_Trin/\_n82hsbDJBMC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA250
9. ↑ https://www.google.com/books/edition/A\_Carib\_Grammar\_and\_Dictionary/SY6Exu40z8QC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA147