Embedded Files
“Once upon a time, I knew a grizzly bear that went by the name of Old Grizzly. She used to get angry all the time and one time, she actually ate a band of people that she came across while wandering through the forest next to our village. Well, that dumb old bear got what she deserved and got extremely sick from eating all of those people. She was pretty much on her deathbed when she decided to call for me to come heal her as a medicine man. I usually listen to all these requests, but Old Grizzly always caused trouble for everyone so no one would mind if she just passed away. However, my wife told me to go so I had to listen or who knows what would happen. I went with a couple of people from the village to go heal Old Grizzly and with me giving her some medicine, she made a full recovery. I told her a lie about the reason she was sick because if I said that it was from eating too many people, the villagers I was with would run away. I told the people that went with me that they needed to go back to the village before Old Grizzly got cranky again and so the villagers left. After the people had left the house, I told Old Grizzly the real reason why she was sick, and something flipped in her head. I have no idea why she was so angry after hearing this but next thing I knew was that I was running away at full speed. That crazy old bear chased me for hours, so I changed myself into a buffalo to throw her off my trail. She saw me change from afar, so she went around killing every buffalo she saw, not knowing that I had already changed back and ran away. She finally got back on my trail after hearing my taunting voice from afar. She chased me into the forest where I saw a flimsy bridge made from a willow tree and I suddenly had a great idea. I turned into an old man and occupied a teepee that was nearby the bridge so when Old Grizzly caught up, she couldn’t find me. After looking for a while, she ended up walking to the teepee and asking me if anyone had passed here so I told her that a man had walked across the bridge just a moment ago. The bear believed me and walked across the flimsy bridge as she thought it could support her weight. She was dead wrong, and the bridge broke causing the bear to fall and drown in the river below. I changed back and bragged to all my friends in the village about how I killed Old Grizzly!”
After Coyote finished his story, the room was filled with silence. “That was it? After all that bragging, that was your story?” said Till.
Anansi sat nodding his head. “Agreed, that story was so unimpressive that I didn’t even need to make fun of you for everyone to know how bad that was. All you did was trick an elderly bear that didn’t know any better.”
Coyote looked at the reactions of the silent crowd. “Fine, if you guys aren’t satisfied, then listen to this story.”
“A long time ago, probably before Till was even born, there was a dragon that lived inside a cave in Willamette Valley. I learned from the villagers that the dragon was afraid at sunlight so every night, the dragon would come to the village to eat the villagers and would return to the cave in the morning. Now, because of my pure genius, I came up with a brilliant plan to take down this troublesome monster. I grabbed my bow and arrows and shot one arrow at the sun. I shot another arrow at the end of the first arrow and created a chain of arrows that reached from the sun all the way to the earth. I grabbed hold of the chain to pull the sun down to earth and hid the sun away in the Willamette River. Now that the sun was hidden away, darkness enveloped the land, and the dragon came out of its cave as it thought it was nighttime. It started to attack the villagers until I broke the chain releasing the sun back into the sky. The light from the sun blinded the dragon causing it to panic, so I loaded up one more arrow and released it towards the dragon. The arrow pierced the dragon’s heart, killing it in one shot and the people of the village now revere me as a hero.”
After the second story, the audience started cheering and clapping. “That was a much better story,” exclaimed someone from the audience. “Killing a dragon is way better than killing an old grizzly bear,” exclaimed another.
Coyote looked back smugly at Anansi and Till. Till rolled his eyes and looked away. “It was okay, I guess. At least, it was better than that trash first story of yours,” said Anansi.
As Coyote returned to his seat and the cheers died down, Loki arose from his chair. “Now, we only have one contestant left, so would Anansi please come up to center stage?”
While looking back at Till and Coyote with a smug grin, Anansi walked up and grabbed the mic. “Now, let’s all listen to a what a real trickster story should be like.” And so, the final story began.
Author’s Note:
Coyote is a common trickster in stories from the indigenous people of North America and is based off of the actual animal. Coyote is often described as having very human-like qualities such as having human traits and emotions, while still having coyote qualities such as having fur and a tail. The stories and traits of major tricksters differ from region to region such as Raven in the Pacific Northwest or Rabbit in the Southeast. I chose to focus on Coyote rather than Raven or Rabbit because throughout the stories that I have in the Native American unit, Coyote seemed to be more popular, and I thought that his stories were quite interesting. Coyote is popular in the western Plains region and is common in stories throughout many cultures in the region such as the Nez Perce, Chinookan, Flathead, and the Syilx just to name a few. The stories that I used were actually from the Nez Perce tribe which have been living in the Pacific Northwest region for around 12,000 years. For both of Coyote’s stories, I kept them very close to the original including details about the setting and characters of the story. The only thing that I changed was the perspective from which the story was told as Coyote is the one telling his own stories. The reason I chose to include two stories in Coyote’s part is that most of his stories are actually quite short compared to Till’s stories due to Coyote’s stories being shared orally rather than being written down in a book as is common in Native American stories. Therefore, I thought it would be a good idea to make the first story somewhat tame in order to lead up to the more exciting and impressive second story as a way to include more than one story. As the stories were short, I didn’t have the characters interrupt during the story but had them make fun after Coyote had finished telling his story.
Image Information: "Greek meeting hall" via Pikist
Image Information: "Coyote in a Canoe" by Edward S. Curtis via WikimediaCommons
Bibliography: "Coyote and Grizzly" and "Coyote and the Dragon" by Katharine Berry Judson via Mythology UN-Textbook
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse