Update
I drew the Animal of Nature again this morning, the second time in two or three days. Obviously the tarot is trying to tell me something. So, loking at the Animal of Nature, the chimpanzee, didn't tell me anything I hadn't already seen.
In frustration I visited the ATA tarot site to review all of the knights to see if the attitude of the chimpanzee (honestly, you wouldn't call this animal a chimp) matched any of the descriptions that I read of any of the knights. In frustration I broke out all the Animals to have another look at them. What I noticed, and what I never noticed before, was that there's a person in each of the Animal cards. My new interpretation of the Animal cards in this deck is that they are spirit guides, or animal guides, the kind that shamans look for in their spiritual journeys. Each of the men pictured with the animals are encountering or seeking to encounter their spirit guides. In the case of the of Animal of Nature I believe that there is a harmony between the young shaman and his spirit guide. The two are aware of one another, and working together in harmony.
Thus, the Animal cards in the Tarot of Origins are certainly about people, but also about relationship. The Animal of Nature is a person who is in good relationship with their spirit guide. Perhaps they wouldn't call it that, but instead intuition. For the Animal of Jewels, a boy with a bird perched on his head, the relationship is young and likely flighty, without weight or real understanding; one whose vision is true, but not consistent. The man pursuing the rhino in the Animal of Soul seems at odds with his intuition. He carries a spear across his chest, and the animal escapes him. There is a journey ahead of his man, and much learning before he puts down his spear. The man in the Animal of Blood is in a worse position, he's caught his spirit guide, but his guide has become giant a bear, rearing on his hind legs to be three times as tall as the man pursuing him. The man in the Animal of Blood has a powerful ally, if he can learn to work with it.