American Indian Trickster Tales (Myths and Legends) (3 page)

Yehl, the Raven, is the supreme Trickster and hero of the Pacific Northwest coast tribes. He plays a prominent part in the legends of the Haida, Tlingit, Kwakiutl, Tsimshian, and Quileute tribes. He appeared out of the chaos, after the deluge. In the words of writer Marius Barbeau,

Among the Raven stories are found some of the most abstract and bizarrely plotted of all Native American legends. They seem to unfold in a realm of fantasy, totally divorced from the so-called real world.

The fact that almost all of these Tricksters are animal characters underscores the Native Americans’ close identification with nature. Howard Norman perfectly describes this reorientation in the relation between humans and the natural world: “these tales enlighten an audience about the sacredness of life. In the naturalness of their form, they turn away from forced conclusions, they animate and enact, they shape and reshape the world.”

All Lakota ceremonies end with the words
“Mitakuye Oyasin,
” meaning “All my relatives,” which includes every human being on this earth, every animal down to the tiniest insect, and every living plant. During a television panel show a Christian priest once posed this challenge to Lame Deer, a Lakota holy man from the Rosebud Sioux reservation: “Chief, your religion and mine are the same. The Cross and the Sacred Pipe mean the same thing; so do the suffering of Christ and the suffering your people undergo at the Sun Dance. It is all the same—just the language, the words are different.”

“Father,” Lame Deer replied, after a long pause, “in your religion, do animals have a soul?”

“You got me there,” answered the priest.

Christianity teaches that only humans have souls. Indians believe that even a stone, a tree, or a lake has a soul, a spirit, and there are strict systems of beliefs about the effects of telling certain stories in certain ways or at specific times. Even Trickster stories told principally for entertainment must still be told strictly according to tradition. It used to be that in some tribes, stories were told only in winter. Bad things would happen to the person who told them in summer; he or she might be bitten by a rattlesnake or become sick. In some places, stories could not be told in the daytime because that would make the teller go bald. In some tribes the narrator is forbidden to change or omit a single word in a legend, while others permit free embellishment and modification. Some stories are “owned” by a certain family or even a particular person, and cannot be retold by outsiders. Others wander from tribe to tribe. For instance, the story “Iktomi and the Wild Ducks,” in which the Trickster induces his victims to dance with their eyes closed so that he can kill them one by one, occurs in at least a dozen versions among as many tribes. Narrators who could act out a story and mimic the voices of different animals have always been in great demand.

Time and place are evoked “Indian Way.” What happens in them is not measured in miles or hours in any conventional European way. A place can be “a hundred sleeps away,” or “a thousand paces afar.” A story does not begin with “Once upon a time,” but with “Sunday is coming along,” or “Coyote is walking about.” The events in the story have just happened, or are even still going on. In this way the world of Indian legend is more “real” than that of white men’s fairy tales.

Tales told in broad, even slapstick comic style sometimes ripen into dramas, too. Sioux Heyoka, sacred clowns sometimes called Thunder-dreamers, must act out their dreams publicly, no matter how embarrassing that might be for them. Sacred clowns often take the guise of familiar tribal Tricksters during their dances.

Indian Tricksters are undeniably amorous. Some of the tales are explicit and erotic, but never what white Americans would call pornographic. An earthy innocence surrounds these kinds of stories. Women and children enjoy them as well as men. As Lame Deer used to say, “We are not Christian missionaries. We think differently.”

In the book
Stories of Maasaw, a Hopi God
, coauthor Ekkehart Malotki comments,

The authors of this book can bear witness to this fact. We have often seen the sacred clowns—Kosa, Koshare, Koyemshi, Chiffonetti—doing things that upset the occasional missionary or make an elderly lady tourist blush. These antics are all part of old traditions. In many tribes, during certain dances, modest old grandmothers will say things they would never dare to utter on any other day. It should be noted, too, that there are no “dirty” words in Indian languages. A penis is a penis, not a “dick” or “peter,” and a vulva is just that, never a “twat” or “snatch.”

Says Howard Norman of the Trickster, “His presence demands, cries out for, compassion and generosity toward existence itself. Trickster is a celebrator of life, a celebration of life, because by rallying against him a community discovers its own resilience and protective skills.”

John Fire Lame Deer, traditional Sioux holy man, used to say, “Coyote, Iktomi, and all their kind are sacred. A people that have so much to weep about as we Indians also need their laughter to survive.” So take these tales—heroic, tragic, humorous, or erotic—in the spirit of a Lakota, a Hopi, or a Haida: Enjoy!

{Yokuts} I

Everything was water except a small piece of ground. On this were Eagle and Coyote. Then the turtle swam to them. They sent it to dive for the earth at the bottom of the water. The turtle barely succeeded in reaching the bottom and touching it with its foot. When it came up again, all the earth seemed washed out. Coyote looked closely at its nails. At last he found a grain of earth. Then he and the eagle took this and laid it down. From it they made the earth as large as it is. From the earth they also made six men and six women. They sent these out in pairs in different directions and the people separated. After a time the eagle sent Coyote to see what the people were doing. Coyote came back and said: “They are doing something bad. They are eating the earth. One side is already gone.” The eagle said: “That is bad. Let us make something for them to eat. Let us send the dove to find something.” The dove went out. It found a single grain of meal. The eagle and Coyote put this down on the ground. Then the earth became covered with seeds and fruit. Now they told the people to eat these. When the seeds were dry and ripe the people gathered them. Then the people increased and spread all over. But the water is still under the world.

{Zuni}

 

Coyote and Eagle were hunting. Eagle caught rabbits. Coyote caught nothing but grasshoppers. Coyote said: “Friend Eagle, my chief, we make a great hunting pair.”

“Good, let us stay together,” said Eagle.

They went toward the west. They came to a deep canyon. “Let us fly over it,” said Eagle.

“My chief, I cannot fly,” said Coyote. “You must carry me across.”

“Yes, I see that I have to,” said Eagle. He took Coyote on his back and flew across the canyon. They came to a river. “Well,” said Eagle, “you cannot fly, but you certainly can swim. This time I do not have to carry you.”

Eagle flew over the stream, and Coyote swam across. He was a bad swimmer. He almost drowned. He coughed up a lot of water. “My chief,” he said, “when we come to another river, you must carry me.” Eagle regretted to have Coyote for a companion.

They came to Kachina Pueblo. The Kachinas were dancing. Now, at this time, the earth was still soft and new. There was as yet no sun and no moon. Eagle and Coyote sat down and watched the dance. They saw that the Kachinas had a square box. In it they kept the sun and the moon. Whenever they wanted light they opened the lid and let the sun peek out. Then it was day. When they wanted less light, they opened the box just a little for the moon to look out.

“This is something wonderful,” Coyote whispered to Eagle.

“This must be the sun and the moon they are keeping in that box,” said Eagle. “I have heard about these two wonderful beings.”