“I think that the men should order the women about,” said Old Man Coyote, “and that the women should obey them.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Coyote Woman. “I think that the men should pretend to be in charge and that the women should pretend to obey, but that in reality it should be the other way around.”
“I can’t agree to this,” said Old Man Coyote.
“Why quarrel?” said Coyote Woman. “Let’s just wait and see how it will work out.”
“All right, let’s wait and see. How should the men live?”
“The men should hunt, kill buffalo and bears, and bring the meat to the women. They should protect the women at all times.”
“Well, that could be dangerous for the men,” said Old Man Coyote.
“A buffalo bull or a bear could kill a man. Is it fair to put the men in such danger? What should the women do in return?”
“Why, let the women do the work,” said Coyote Woman. “Let them cook, and fetch water, and scrape and tan hides with buffalo brains. Let them do all these things while the men take a rest from hunting.”
“Well, then we agree upon everything,” said Old Man Coyote. “Then it’s settled.”
“Yes,” said Coyote Woman. “And why don’t you stick that funny thing of yours between my legs again?”
COYOTE AND FOX DRESS UP
{Nez Percé}
Coyote and Fox were wandering. They were hungry. Coyote said: “I am too lazy to hunt for myself. Let somebody else provide food for me.”
“You mean for us,” said Fox.
“Well, all right, for us.”
“How do we do this?” Fox asked.
“You take after your father,” said Coyote. “He was slow-witted, and so are you. I take after my father, who was wise; therefore I am very clever. Let us marry some men who are good hunters and will provide for us.”
“How can we marry men when we ourselves are men?”
“We will disguise ourselves by putting on women’s clothes. They won’t know that we are men.”
“They will find out when they want to cohabit with us. They will want to right away.”
“Don’t worry,” Coyote assured him. “Leave it all to me.”
Coyote and Fox put on women’s clothes. They went to a place where two Wolf Brothers lived. Coyote had heard that these Wolves were mighty hunters. They arrived at the Wolves’ lodge. They went inside. The Wolf Brothers were there, eating.
“We are two maidens come to marry you,” said Coyote. “Your parents and our parents, who live in that camp beyond those mountains, arranged it for us.”
“Well, yes,” said the Wolf Brothers, “we always wanted to marry comely maidens like you. Well, we consider ourselves married already.”
The one brother pointed to Coyote and said: “I will marry you, and my brother will take this one,” pointing at Fox.
“Yes,” said the other brother. “I will take my new wife to that corner over there, and you, my brother, will take yours to the far corner over there. We will cohabit right away.”
“Not so fast,” said Coyote. “Before we marry and sleep with you, we must make sure that you can provide for beautiful maidens such as us. For four days you shall feed us—only the best, mind you. Then, after we have satisfied ourselves that you are skilled hunters, we will marry and cohabit.”
“Well, you are certainly very demanding,” said the Wolves, “but we will do what you want.”
For four days the Wolves went out hunting. Every evening they came back with loads of meat—buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, fowls of every kind. Coyote and Fox gorged themselves. At the end of the fourth day, bloated with food, Fox whispered to Coyote: “There arises now a situation difficult to handle.”
“Just watch me,” Coyote whispered back.
“Well,” said the Wolves, “it is now time to get married and cohabit.”
“Yes, certainly,” said Coyote. “You have shown us that you are great hunters, but first I have to answer a call of nature.” To Fox he whispered: “Brother, pretty soon these wolves will be in a hurry to leave this lodge. Then run for your life!” Coyote went out.
After a short while the Wolves said to Fox: “Your sister takes her time relieving herself.” In the meantime, Coyote had run to a nearby lodge belonging to the Wolf Brothers’ mother. Coyote crept into the lodge. The Wolf Mother was sleeping. Coyote quickly lifted her skirt and entered her. Wolf Mother woke up and realized what was done to her. She howled with anger and anguish. Her howl reverberated through the forest. The Wolf Brothers heard it. They tore out of the lodge to run to their mother’s aid. Then Fox ran for his life. Coyote was already doing the same. They got clear away. They joined up some time later.
“Brother, you are very smart, indeed,” said Fox.
“Let’s get out of these women’s clothes,” said Coyote.
COYOTE AND THE GIRLS
{Karok and Yurok}
Coyote went to visit a village where the Indians were having a feast. There was much deer, fish, and acorns to eat and they were planning to have a big dance. There were, however, two girls who were very beautiful but who had never joined the other Indians at a dance, and who lived alone on a nearby hill. Everyone had tried to get the girls to come to the dance, but had failed. Coyote was told about the girls, and he said that he would get them to come down.
Coyote caught a cricket and put it behind one ear. He caught a bird and put it behind the other ear. As the dance began, Coyote danced and swayed with the others and soon the cricket and the bird began to sing. Coyote mouthed the songs, causing people to think that he himself was doing the singing. The two girls heard the songs and thought that they were the loveliest that they had ever heard. Finally they could resist the singing no longer and came down to see who was at the dance and who was singing such songs. They saw Coyote and danced with him, one on each side. The people marveled at the sight. Finally, as the other people became tired, they left, and Coyote and the two girls were alone.
When they tired, they lay down to sleep, with Coyote in the center and a girl on each side. When Coyote fell asleep he snored and swayed and this started the bird and cricket to sing again. The girls looked behind Coyote’s ears and found the cricket and the bird, and knew that they had been tricked. The girls looked about and found two logs and put them alongside Coyote. They were put so close to Coyote that he was unable to move. Coyote finally awoke and saw the logs pinning him down. The girls had gone back to their home on the hill and Coyote knew that he had been tricked himself and repaid for what he had done.
COYOTE KEEPS HIS DEAD WIFE’S GENITALS
{Lipan Apache}
Coyote’s wife died. Before he disposed of her body, he cut her genitals off, and after that he dried them and pounded them to a powder, which he put in a pouch. Every time he got lonely for his wife, he took this package out and sprinkled some of the powder on his penis. It caused an orgasm every time.
Coyote had several sons. They saw their father go away by himself with his pouch several times. They snooped around and finally saw what he was doing.
One time when he was away they stole his pouch. They stood around and sprinkled the powder on their penises. It caused erections and orgasms, and they were ejaculating in all directions.
Just then Coyote came in and found them at it. He was very angry. He scolded them and beat them. “It was just for myself,” he said. “You had no business taking it. Which of you did it work on?”
“It didn’t work on me,” the smallest son said. “No white stuff came out, though my penis grew big. I had only a pouch.”
THE TOOTHED VAGINA
{Yurok}
Coyote was a young man. He came out and saw two girls picking hazelnuts. They had a sweetheart, Cotton Tail Rabbit. Coyote came along and asked, “Where are you going?”
They said, “We are going to camp out.”
Then Coyote said, “Can I go with you?”
“Sure,” they said, so he went with t
hem.
They said to him, “We’re going to camp right here on this sandbar,” so they laid down and slept. Coyote slept in the middle between the girls, while Rabbit slept crossways at the foot.
The blanket was narrow. Every time they pulled it, they tore it in the middle, and Coyote pushed with his elbows and said, “Don’t get so close to me, your breasts are too big. Don’t get so close to me, I am going hunting tomorrow.” Then he went to sleep and snored.
The girls did not like him. They felt sorry for Rabbit sleeping at the foot and they said, “Let’s run away from Coyote.”
Rabbit said, “All right,” and they put logs on both sides of Coyote so he would think they were still there, and went across the river and stayed.
About noon they saw Coyote come out across the river. He said to Rabbit, “Take me across.” Rabbit would not do this, so Coyote got angry. He picked up rocks; he was going to fight that Rabbit. He swam across, carrying the rocks. Rabbit got frightened. He made medicine to cause the river to be rough, so that Coyote would not be able to land. Soon Coyote drowned, and Rabbit thought he had two wives now and would never see Coyote again, because he was drowned.
Coyote landed way down the river, nothing but bones. Some thought they saw some nice wood in the river. They thought they would go and chop it. When they hit him, Coyote got up and said, “I was just sleeping right there,” and went along up the river. He came across a camp where he saw many children. He thought, “I bet those are Rabbit’s children.” So he frightened all those children and made them go to sleep. Then he set fire to the camp and all the children were burned and he ran away up the river.
He had heard that there was a woman up the river who had killed many men. Every man who slept with her she killed. There was nothing but bones outside, and nobody ever passed that way anymore. He knew how she killed them: When a man had intercourse with her, she killed him. There were teeth inside her. Coyote decided to go up and see her. So he made sticks. He took those sticks and went up there and thought he was going to kill her.
He stood around near her house. Soon she came out. “Ah, come on,” she said. She wanted him to sleep with her right away. Coyote thought everything was all right, so when the woman wanted him to have intercourse with her, he took one of the sticks and did what she wanted. Soon he felt the stick was wearing out, and he put another in its place. He had ten sticks. The woman kept talking about it. She said, “I’m glad, my husband.” He changed sticks five times. After that she quieted down. At about the eighth time she was saying something only once in a while. The tenth time he killed her. Coyote blew his breath and said, “These Indians are going to have a good time with women from now on. They aren’t going to be killed.”
SOMETHING FISHY GOING ON
{Athapascan}
Coyote was walking along. He saw too young girls by a lake about to take a bath. He thought: “I sure would like to have these girls. I sure would like to cohabit with them.” He hid himself among the reeds and watched. The girls were taking their clothes off. Coyote turned himself into a fish and slipped into the water. He was darting back and forth.
One of the girls said to the other: “Look at that pretty little fish.”
“It’s just a fish,” said the other.
They were naked. They waded into the lake. When it was deep enough, they began to swim. One girl said to the other: “I feel something tickling me between the legs, something slippery.” Coyote entered that girl. Her body almost swallowed him up. “I feel something strange down there,” said the girl. After a while Coyote slipped out of her.
Then the other girl said: “Something is tickling me, too, between my legs.” Coyote entered her. The girl said: “I also feel something strange wiggling down there, but it feels rather good.” Coyote did what he wanted and slipped out of her. The girls finished bathing, dressed, and went home.
After some time, one of these girls said to the other: “My belly has swelled up. It must be all the good fatty meat and kidneys we are eating.”
“That must be it,” said the other girl. “We are lucky that our father is such a good hunter.”
After some more time one of these two girls said to the other: “My belly is really big now. What can be the matter?”
“My belly is swollen up, too,” said the other girl. “I think we are pregnant.” ,
“How can this be?” asked the first girl.
“Remember when we were swimming in the lake? It must have been that little fish that got between our legs.”
“But how can a fish get us pregnant?”
“It was Coyote, that evil fellow, who played this trick on us.”
“I hope we’ll be giving birth to humans,” said the other, “and not little coyotes.”
Well, Coyote was on his way to make mischief again. He came to a stream. On the far shore he saw two girls digging camas. “These girls are pretty, even from this far away,” Coyote said to himself. “I will enter them.” He sent his penis across the water. It came out on the other riverbank. With his Trickster power, he make it look like a stalk.
“I have been sitting on some plant stem,” one of the girls said to the other. “It got into me by accident.” The penis was enjoying himself. Coyote, on the far bank, was enjoying it. He took his penis out of this girl and slipped it into the other.
“I, too, sat on some kind of root,” said the other girl. “It also got into me.” Coyote was having a good time.
“There is something strange about these roots,” said the first girl. “Let’s look and see what it is.”
They looked. “It’s just some kind of plant,” said the first girl. She gave the stalk a whack with her camas-digger. At once there was a loud cry of pain from the other side of the river: “Oh, oh, it hurts, it hurts!” The girls looked to where the cry was coming from. They saw Coyote there, howling. They examined the strange stalk again and discovered that it was a part of Coyote’s body. The girls got very angry and shook their fists at Coyote, crying: “It’s that evil, scabrous lecher who has tricked us.”
“Someday,” one of the girls shouted, “I’ll get him with my skinning knife!”
“This is not the day,” Coyote shouted back, pulling his member across the stream. He rolled his penis up and flung it over his shoulder. He laughed, waved at the girls, and ran off.
WHERE DO BABIES COME FROM?
{Karuk}
It was Coyote who first made a baby. Then Coyote said: “Human will make a baby the same way.”
Coyote and Lizard were talking in the sweathouse about what human is going to do. And one said: “They ought to cut a woman open; they ought to take the baby out of her belly.”
Then Coyote said: “No. There won’t be many people. How quick will he lose his wife, though he paid so much for her.”
Then they all said: “How will the baby travel through?”
Then some said: “Let him out of her mouth.”
Then Coyote said: “No, that won’t do. Let the baby come out behind.”
Then Lizard said: “Yes, that’s good.”
Then Coyote said: “One will be a female, and the next will be born a male. That’s the way we will do. The female will be mixed with them.”
Then Lizard said: “That’s good. I am going to make the boy’s hands, and his feet, and his penis, too, I am going to make. His hands and his feet will grow first of all, when he is water yet. When he is earliest embryo.”
They measured what size a baby was to be. “If it grows over this the woman will die,” they said. “If it is growing beyond this the mother will die.” There will be some herb medicine. The Ikxareyavs, the Immortals, will leave some herb medicine. There will be lots of herb medicine. Human will have herb medicine.“
They instructed the boys that way: “Ye must not kill Lizard.” And they told the little girls: “Lizard is your husband.”
And it (the baby) is small yet, they (the Lizards) tell when it is asleep, when the baby is dreaming about something sometimes
it laughs when asleep, and then people say: “It is dreaming about Lizard; lizards are telling it: ‘Laugh, laugh!’ And sometimes Lizards tell it: ‘Cry,’ ” and people say: “Lizards are telling it: ‘Cry, cry, cry,’ ” when the little baby is asleep.
When it is asleep, when it cries, they tell it: “The Lizards are pinching the baby.”
Lizard said it: “I will be bothering Human’s little baby.”
They were talking in the sweathouse, that Human is going to come, they were talking about it. And today Lizard likes it on top of the sweathouse. He hugs his chest toward it repeatedly (with raising and lowering motion toward the sweathouse roof board). That’s why he likes it there, because it is warm. It is too bad for the lizards, that there are no more sweathouses. We never see lizards anymore in the Indian rancherias; they only live in rocky places now. They do not stay around the rancherias anymore.
WINYAN-SHAN UPSIDE DOWN
{Sioux}
There was this chief’s daughter. She was beautiful. Coyote was thinking: “This one is for me.” He was hanging around her tipi, he was courting her, but she would have nothing to do with him. What was to be done?
Now, at that long-ago time, the White Man had already come, but he was still only in a narrow strip along the eastern sea. Except for a few tribes living there, Indians had not yet seen their first White Men, and they knew nothing of the many new strange things they had brought. Now, Coyote knows everything that is going on long before anybody else. He senses what is going on far away. He can travel there in no time. So Coyote went there fast, in a magic way, to see what those White Men had brought. He went there and came back in a flash with four things no Indian had ever seen.
American Indian Trickster Tales (Myths and Legends) Page 8