American Indian Trickster Tales (Myths and Legends)

by Richard Erdoes

  Iktomi felt between his wife’s legs. “Ah, how pleasingly moist your shan, vagina, is compared to the dried, shriveled-up one of my wife.” He panted. He mounted her. They did it. Iktomi fell asleep. When he awoke he saw that it was his wife he had done it with. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. “I knew it was you all the time. Wasn’t it great?”

  Mrs. Iktomi had a heavy club. She used it on her husband. She beat him black and blue. He howled with pain.

  “I’ll give you ‘sagging breasts,’ ” she shouted. “I’ll give you ‘lumpy body.’ I’ll give you ‘shan puza, dried-up vagina.’ This old hag will beat the shit out of you!”

  “Ow, ow, have pity, wife! I’ll never stray again.”

  Iktomi was very sore for quite a long time, but no beating could keep him from philandering. Soon he was at it again.

  TOO MANY WOMEN

  {Lakota}

  Iktomi was traveling. He came to a village of about forty tipis. He saw many women in this camp, but no men. He asked one of the women: “Where are your men?”

  “I don’t know what men are,” said the woman. “I don’t know what men means.”

  “You are joking,” said Iktomi.

  “No,” said the woman, “I am not. You ask too many questions. If you want to know something, you have to ask our two women chiefs.”

  “Where can I find them?”

  “Over there, in the big tipi, right in the center.”

  Iktomi went there. Inside the big tipi he found the two women chiefs. Each of them was holding a cradleboard. In one cradleboard was a baby rabbit, in the other a baby fox. “What are these for?” Iktomi wanted to know.

  “These are our children,” said the women chiefs.

  “Who are the fathers?” Iktomi inquired.

  “We don’t know what father means,” said the women.

  “Fathers are the ones who help make babies.”

  “These babies made themselves. They just popped out of us, from here.” The women pointed to a place between their legs.

  “Don’t you have any men around here?” Iktomi asked.

  “We don’t know what men are.”

  Iktomi said to himself: “These women have never been with a man, that’s why they give birth only to rabbits and foxes.” Aloud he said: “I want to show you something.”

  Iktomi pushed his breechcloth aside and showed them his man-thing. It was standing up proudly. The woman with the rabbit looked closely at it. She looked at it for a long time. “This is a very strange thing,” she said. “I have never seen one like it. How come I don’t have a root like this?”

  “Because I am a man and you are a woman. All men have it and it is not a root, it’s a wichasha-che.”

  “What is it good for?” the woman wanted to know.

  “It’s for copulating.”

  “What is copulating?” she asked.

  “It means ‘making babies.’ ”

  “How?”

  “You have a certain place in your body where you put this thing of mine. It fits perfectly. You put it in there and, after a while, you have a baby—not a little rabbit or fox, but a real human being.”

  “All right, where do you put it?” Iktomi was only too happy to show her. He slipped his penis into her vagina. “That feels good,” said the woman. Iktomi started to move back and forth. “Now it feels even better,” cried the woman. “Move faster, move harder! Don’t stop!”

  They finished. Iktomi withdrew. “What do you call what we just did?” the woman wanted to know.

  “We did tawiton, we copulated.”

  “Oh, that’s what it was.”

  Then the other woman-chief, the one with the fox baby, said: “I want to have a look at that strange root of yours.” Iktomi showed it to her. It was flaccid. “It looks like a worm or a slug,” said the woman. “It doesn’t look as if it could do anything worthwhile.”

  “Just wait, and you’ll see it standing up again.”

  “Well, go ahead, make it rise, hurry!” After a while Iktomo’s che was standing up again. He put it into the fox-baby chieftess. “Ah, this is good indeed,” she said. Thus the two women chiefs were satisfied.

  Then the two women chiefs came out of their tipi and called out: “You women, do you want to know what a man is like? There is one in our tipi. Do you want to know what copulation is like? He’ll show you. Do you each want to have a baby? He’ll make you one. So come and meet the creature called MAN.”

  Then the women crowded into the tipi to tawiton with Iktomi. There were so many of them that most had to wait for their turn outside. “Have pity!” cried Iktomi. “This is too much of a good thing. What you admire so much cannot stand up all the time. It needs a long rest. Right now it’s only good for making water.”

  The women would not listen. They said: “We’ll beat you until you do tawiton with us.” Then they hit him with sticks. He managed to satisfy a few of them, but then became totally exhausted. He almost fainted. But more and more women crowded in on him, shouting, “My turn now! My turn now!” and beating him unmercifully when he could not do what they wanted.

  He said to himself: “I started something I cannot finish. Will I ever learn?” Aloud he said: “You wild women, if you want my die to rise up again, you must let me walk about a bit. That’s the only way get it to rise.”

  “All right, go and walk about,” they said. Iktomi walked about in ever widening circles. When he thought that he had a sufficient head start, he began to run as fast as he could.

  “Stop him!” yelled the women. “This good-for-nothing man is running away from us. After him!”

  Iktomi got to a river ahead of them. He saw a single canoe there. He jumped into it and paddled furiously. The women could not follow. They stood at the riverbank wailing and shaking their fists.

  Over his shoulder Iktomi cried out to them: “So long, women! Sometime I’ll see you again. I enjoyed meeting you!” He got to the far bank and walked off. “Well. I taught them something new,” he said to himself.

  FORBIDDEN FRUIT

  {Lakota and Rosebud Sioux}

  When Iktomi was fourteen years old, he wanted to get married. His parents told him: “You are too young. Have you earned eagle feathers? Did you count coup on enemy warriors? Have you learned to be a good hunter and provider? Do you have many horses to offer to your future in-laws? Become a man first, then marry.”

  “No! No! I’m not too young,” protested Iktomi, “and there’s a girl I have my eyes on. If I wait, someone else will get her.” Iktomi whined and wheedled. He used his considerable gift of glib talk to overcome all objections. He made his parents give in to his demands.

  Dressed in all his finery, wearing his best beaded leggings and his father’s war shirt, decorated with the scalp locks of slain enemies, bringing along a dozen fine horses his parents had given him for this purpose, he used his powers of persuasion to talk the girl of his desires to marry him. He won the girl’s widowed mother’s consent by offering her the horses as bride payment. So he assumed the role of a husband.

  Before Iktomi took up married life in his own tipi, elders warned him: “Never talk directly to your mother-in-law. It isn’t done. It is bad, particularly, as in your case, your mother-in-law is a widow without a husband. There is a reason. The worst thing a man could ever do is make love to his mother-in-law. It is worse than killing a fellow tribesman. Of course, such a horrible, evil deed has never been done since this tribe was founded, since the beginning of time. Still, there should not be even the smallest temptation, like getting too familiar with your mother-in-law or spending too much time in her company. We thought you should know.”

  “Such a thing is not even to be thought of,” Iktomi answered them.

  Married life agreed with Iktomi. He made love to his wife every day, sometimes twice. He learned to hunt a little bit, though mostly he scrounged meat from others. On the whole, Iktomi and his wife were satisfied with what they had. Thus things went on in a pleasant way for two or three years
.

  Early one morning, Iktomi went out to do a little hunting. He forgot to take the quiver containing his arrows. So, after a short time, he went back to his tipi. Then he remembered that he had left his quiver with his mother-in-law, who had promised to embroider it with porcupine quills. So he went to his mother-in-law’s tipi. He surprised her as she came out naked from under her buffalo robe, before she had a chance to put on her dress. Iktomi liked what he saw. “Hmmm, she is rather pretty,” he thought. “She is still young and pleasantly plump. Compared to her, my wife is skinny—scrawny, to tell the truth. Really, I think a fellow would be lucky if she’d let him sleep with her.”

  From then on, the image of his mother-in-law, crawling naked out from under her robe, became fixed in Iktomi’s mind. In his dreams he imagined making love to her. Whenever he made love to his wife, he pictured holding his mother-in-law in his arms. He slept with his wife less and less often. She began suspecting him of carrying on with another woman. Life in Iktomi’s tipi grew less and less satisfying. Iktomi was thinking about his mother-in-law all the time. It inflamed his senses. It caused a hot stirring in his loins. Then, doing the unimaginable, doing what had never been done since the beginning of time, occured to him. He made up his mind to sleep with his mother-in-law. He thought: “Her husband was a warrior. He must have been lusty and vigorous. He was killed by enemies a few years ago. She must be missing his embraces.” He also thought: “How can I get under the same blanket with her? How can I do it without my wife noticing it? And will my mother-in-law let me do it? This is something very difficult to achieve.”

  Iktomi is a very clever fellow. He hit upon a scheme that would get him what he wanted. He began talking about becoming a warrior. “The one thing missing in my life,” he told his wife, “is becoming a great fighter and horse stealer. I have not yet counted coup. I wish to earn eagle feathers and war honors. Sometime I will be a chief.” He had never spoken that way before. Actually, he was afraid of fighting. The thought of facing an enemy made him tremble. But it suited his purpose to talk about going on the warpath. One evening he came home and told his wife: “I have been accepted as a member of the Tokala [Kit Fox] Warrior Society. It is a great honor.”

  The Tokala were the fiercest fighters. They never showed their backs to the enemy. They went into battle shouting: “It is a good day to die!” They were the bravest of the brave. Iktomi’s wife was impressed. Some days later, Iktomi told her: “Wife, we will be going on a raid against the enemy soon. Our war chief has had a vision that each member of the party should take his mother-in-law along to cook and help carry weapons and provisions.”

  Iktomi’s wife was incredulous: “But that has never been done before,” she said. “It is against our traditions. It is forbidden.”

  “I know, I know!” said Iktomi. “I don’t like it, either. But a vision has to be obeyed. If we don‘t, our medicine will be bad. We will lose the battle. We’ll all be killed!”

  Iktomi’s wife told her mother, who said: “This is really unheard of, but if it comes from a vision, I guess I’ll have to go.” So the women prepared everything needed for Iktomi and his mother-in-law to go- on the warpath.

  A few days later, Iktomi came running. He was greatly excited: “Wife, mother-in-law, they have gone! They forgot to take me! All the warriors and their mothers-in-law have departed! They must be far ahead. After them! After them!” Of course, there was no war party to catch. It existed only in Iktomi’s imagination, but the women believed him. Iktomi picked up his weapons, his mother-in-law her bundles, and off they went.

  Night fell. Iktomi’s mother-in-law said: “The Tokala must have gotten a really big head start.”

  “Yes, they must have,” said Iktomi. “I hoped to have caught up with them by now.” Iktomi put up a small brush and blanket shelter for his companion. He also gave her a buffalo robe to keep warm. “I’ll sleep outside,” he told her. “It wouldn’t be fitting for me to be alone in the same shelter with you.”

  “It sure wouldn‘t,” said his mother-in-law.

  In the middle of the night Iktomi began scratching at the shelter cover: “Mother-in-law, it’s so cold. I am freezing to death. May I come in and warm myself?”

  “Well, all right,” she said. “I don’t want you freezing to death.”

  Iktomi made his teeth chatter. “Dear mother-in-law,” he implored, “I can’t get warm. Listen to my teeth chattering.”

  “Yes, they are really clicking away like a deer’s hoofbeats.”

  “Mother-in-law, if I could get under the buffalo robe with you, maybe I could get warm.”

  “Well, all right, but keep your distance.”

  “I will, I will!” Once under the robe, Iktomi went on pretending to tremble with cold. His shiverings made the little shelter shake. “Dear mother-in-law,” Iktomi suggested, “if I could snuggle up to you, the warmth of your body might stop my shivering.”

  “Well, all right, you really seem to have the shakes badly.”

  The body warmth, the snuggling and cuddling, awoke a long-slumbering desire inside the woman. She thought to herself: “How long has it been since I had a man lying by my side? I really miss it. And who’s to know?” So when Iktomi started to grope underneath her dress, his mother-in-law did not resist “Imaputake,” she said, “kiss me!” So he slept with her.

  The next morning, as Iktomi and his mother-in-law were getting up, he told her: “I think the Tokala are too far ahead of us now. We’ll never catch up with them. Let’s go home.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, “let’s go home.”

  “You know something?” he added.

  “What?”

  “Mother-in-law, it is so much nicer making love to you, lying so softly, than doing it with your skinny daughter. You are so much better at it.”

  “Thanks for telling me.”

  “Mother-in-law, when we get home, don’t tell on me.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said.

  THE SPIDERS GIVE BIRTH TO THE PEOPLE

  {Arikara}

  There was once an old Spider-Man who lived by himself with his wife. One day the Wolf and his friend went to visit these old folks. The Spider-Man was dirty, his eyes were red, he had no hair on his head, he was dirty all over, and he emitted a bad odor. His wife was also very dirty; her hair was thin and very coarse. The Wolf had never seen people like these people.

  The Wolf asked these people: “How do you copulate?”

  The Spider-Man and his wife showed Wolf how they did it. They did it all wrong, Spider-Man sticking his huge penis into all the wrong places. Also both the Spider-Man and his wife emitted a big stink while doing it. So they copulated in the manner of Spiders.

  Thereupon Wolf taught them the right way to copulate in a more beautiful position.

  The Spider-Man and the woman were both willing to try it the new way. So the Wolf and his friend went and got some wild sage and fixed up some medicine. They dipped the wild sage into the water and rubbed it all over the two Spider people. As he rubbed the wild sage over them, they became different; they looked better, and they did not smell bad. Whereupon Wolf and his friend thoroughly taught the Spider-Man in what manner, by uniting their private parts, they could beget people. So Spider-Man and his wife produced people, and if Wolf had not shown them how to copulate in the right way, there would not be any human beings.

  THE WINKTE WAY

  {Omaha}

  Winkte is the Sioux word for hermaphrodite or

  transvestite. Such people were also known as Berdaches

  in Indian literature.

  Iktinike and Rabbit are always chasing women, but

  sometimes, just for a change, they turn themselves into

  winktes, doing it the winkte way.

  Iktinike and Rabbit were ambling about. By chance they met. “Hau, uncle,” said Rabbit, “I was just thinking about you—and here you are!”

  “Yes, nephew, I am glad to see you,” said Iktinike. “I have been thinking about you. Com
e along. Let’s go someplace where nobody can see us.”

  “Why, uncle?”

  “You’re asking too many questions. Come along!”

  They went into the woods. “Friend,” said Iktinike, “bend over. Let me get on top of you. Let’s do it the winkte way.”

  “No, uncle,” objected Rabbit. “You bend over and I get on top of you.”

  “No, young friend, I am the older. I go first. Respect your elders.”

  “On the contrary,” Rabbit insisted, “youth must be served. It is the younger who always goes first.”

  They argued for a while. At last Iktinike lost patience. “All right, get on top of me.” Rabbit did. “Oh, it hurts!” cried Iktinike. “Your che is very big!”

  “No, it isn‘t,” said Rabbit. “Your onze is too tight.” After only a few seconds, Rabbit got off lktinike’s back and ran off. Rabbit is very quick at that kind of thing.

  As Rabbit was running off, Iktinike called after him: “Hey, come back! It’s my turn now!” But Rabbit just continued running, laughing loudly. “That rotten, evil-smelling, bug-eyed fellow has played me false,” Iktinike complained. “It’s just like him. He always plays tricks on me and I fall for them.”

  Iktinike was furious. He would have liked to punish Rabbit, but Rabbit was too fast. He could not be caught. So all Iktinike could do was call Rabbit some very bad names. So Iktinike was walking toward home. He came to a place where some boys were playing stickball. Iktinike called out to them: “Hokshila, what’s new?”