ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ontological premises of wilderness and civilization in creation narratives. These ontological explanations of genesis inform our understanding of relatedness — or its lack — to other living and non-living beings. While Milne's opening demonstrates the author's preoccupation with proper identification, domestication, and knowledge, the unrealness of the characters renders the question of subsistence obsolete. According to palaeobiological evidence, the genesis of life owes to an electrochemical gradient between alkali and acid in the sea water, which provided the basis for the living cell: acetyl phosphate and pyrophosphate. In wilderness, where human and nonhuman children exist for their own sake, it makes no difference whether they know multiplication tables or not, the assumption being that if they need to, they'll learn. Speciesism becomes apparent already at the level of the original cause that generated the first transformation in Sunny City.
