One thing to know is that until Tecumseh invented an alphabet for Tsalagi, there was no know written language among the Native Americans. The story teller was one of the most respected and valued member of each tribe. So the story tellers told everytrpe of story from Religious beliefs to humor. But, most stories do have a moral associated with them.
I have noticed that among all the tribes the animals all share the same charateristics, for example coyote is always shown as sly and devious. In the Navajo language coyote is Ma'ii it is also the word often used to mean chaos. I must caution that many Navajo stories contain parts that may be seen as unsuitable for children. But, keep in mind the purpose was not only to be humorous but also to teach morality.
From the Navajo:
“Coyote and Strawberries”
told by George Wasson
(1) Coyote was going down South Slough off Coos Bay, and he was
going along when a hail storm came up.
(2) Big hailstones came down and started hitting him, pelting his
body, and he was jumping around, saying, “Oh, that hurts! Oh! Oh!” And
he had to get out of the hail storm, so over on the side of the trail there he
found this big tree. I think it was a cedar tree.
(3) It had been burned, maybe even hit by lightning (which would make it
a taboo tree to mess with), but anyway this big cedar tree that had a hole down in
the bottom of it, a cavity had been burned to the bottom and partly hollow down
there. So he rushed over, and he got down inside there, and he huddled up to get
out of the hail storm. But it didn’t quite protect him, so he used his magical
powers, his tamanawis, and he commanded the tree to grow shut around him.
(4) So he said, “Tree, grow shut. Grow shut around me.” And the tree did
that. But he left a little hole he could see through, little hole he could look
through, and he was looking through that hole and he could see outside, and he
felt really proud of himself, saying how smart he was, how good he was. He had
commanded that tree to grow shut.
(5) Well the hail storm passed by, and Coyote was sitting in there, and he
decided, “Well I guess it’s time to get out of here now,” so he used his power
again, his tamanawis, and he said, “Grow open.”
(6) Nothing happened.
(7) Then Coyote says again, “GROW OPEN!”
(8) Still nothing happened. He thought, “Well, I’m not doing something
right here,” so he commanded the tree, “Grow open.” And nothing happened, and
on the fourth time, he still said, “Grow open.” Nothing happened at all, and there
was Coyote stuck inside of the tree. He must have been too proud of himself
because his power wouldn’t work, the tree wouldn’t grow open.
(9) So he was looking out that little hole, and pretty soon he saw one of
the Woodpecker Girls flying by, and he looked through the hole, and he called out
through the hole, “Oh Miss Woodpecker!”
(10) She looked around, and she said, “Where’s that coming from?”
(11) And he says, “Come over here, over here to this hole.” And she flies
over the tree, and she looks in there. And he says, “Yes, in here. Peck this hole
bigger so I can get out.”
(12) Well, she starts working away. She starts pecking on the hole, and
she pecks on it and pecks on it, and it gets bigger and bigger.
(13) As the hole gets bigger, Coyote can see a little more of her, and he
looks out and says, “She’s pretty nice looking.”
(14) He reaches out there, and he thinks, “I’m just going to stroke her on
the tail feathers.” And he reaches out and just starts to touch her on the tail
feathers, and he grabs her, and she jumps back and says, “What are you doing?”
He says, “Oh, oh, I didn’t mean to do anything.” He’d grabbed her by the tail
feathers, grabbed her by the tail. “Oh, oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do
anything. I won’t do that.” And she starts work and says, “Okay. I’ll work
some more.”
(15) She had started to fly away, and he said, “Oh, I won’t do that again.”
And so she starts working away, pecking away, and the hole gets bigger, and
she’s inside pecking away, getting it bigger, working away.
(16) And he looks up. By that time he can see the front of her, and he
says, “She has nice beautiful round breasts.” He said, “Oh, she’s got her head up
in the air, she won’t even notice me. I’ll just reach up and just kind of, I’ll just
kind of stroke and just touch them a little bit.”
(17) And he gets so excited, he grabs her, and she jumps back and flies
away, says, “No more. I’m not going to help you.”
(18) Well, you might know, there’s a little woodpecker down the coast
that has two marks on it: white marks across its tail and across its breast also.
That’s probably where they came from, Old Coyote messing with her when she
was trying to peck the hole bigger.
(19) So anyway, she flew away and left Coyote inside the tree, the hollow
tree, and he’s trying to figure out what he’s going to do to get out.
(20) Then he has a bright idea: “Aha.” So he reaches up behind his braid,
behind his ear, in his braid, and he pulls out his clamshell knife, and he takes his
clamshell knife, and he starts cutting himself up in little pieces.
(21) Reaches down to his foot, and he cuts out a piece and he pokes that
out through the hole. Then he cuts off another piece and he pokes that out
through the hole, and he just goes like mad. He starts cuttin’ himself a little piece,
poke, cut off a piece, poke it through the hole, cut off another piece, poke it
through the hole. Working up his legs, all the way up his body, he cuts himself all
up in little pieces, pokes ’em out through the hole, and then he’s going to put
himself together when he gets outside.
(22) But while he’s doing this, he’s cutting out his intestines, his guts, and
he throws ’em out through the hole, but while he’s doing this, here comes Bluejay
flying along. Bluejay flies along and looks down and says, “What’s all that?”
Looking around, down the bottom of that tree, all that interesting stuff, coming
out of that hole over there, falling on the ground. Nobody’s around any place.
(23) Bluejay swoops down and grabs a string of intestines and flies away.
(24) Well Coyote gets all finished, gets all poked out through the hole,
gets outside, puts himself all back together [narrator pats hands against various
parts of his body, as if assembling himself]—back here, back there, everything
back into place. He doesn’t notice that Bluejay has flown away with part of his
intestines. And he just thinks he’s just fine, so he’s all put back together, and he
goes on his way.
(25) Walking on down, and he goes on down South Slough and
comes upon where Coos Head is now, and he gets up on there, and here are
strawberries all over. And Coyote says, “Oooh. Oh, look at that, nice
strawberries.” (Well, you can tell that this is an unusual year because here’s
a hail storm when the strawberries are ripe out on the bluff out there, so
unusual things are happening). And here’s Coyote, “Oh, I love
strawberries!” And he reaches down and starts picking strawberries. And
he picks a strawberry and he eats it, and he picks another one and he eats it
and says, “Oh, these are so good.” He just keeps eating strawberries,
picking and eating, picking and eating. (Well, you know right away he’s
doing something wrong here because you’re not supposed to pick
strawberries and eat them yourself. You’re supposed to take them back home to
share with other people. So here’s Coyote doing the wrong thing again. Picking
and eating, picking and eating. )
(26) But he just can’t get full. He just can’t—he tries eating faster. So he
picks faster and eats faster, picks faster, pick and pick, and he just goes as fast as
he can. But he can’t get full at all.
(27) When eventually he looks around behind him, he sees a whole string
of strawberries lying on the ground, and they come right up to his rectum because
that’s when he discovers that Bluejay flew away with the lower end of his
intestines and flew away with his rectum. And he’s just got a straight line right
through, and the strawberries just go right in one end and out the other.
(28) And Coyote’s looking, and he says, “I’ve got to stop that.” So he got
an idea. He said, “I’m going to have to plug it up.” (Aunt Mary always said his
“bunghole,” “plug up his bunghole.”) And so Coyote figured what’s he going to
do.
(29) So he looks around there and says, “This’ll do.” And he walks over,
and here’s this old rotten log, and he kicks on one of the knots sticking out of this
old rotten log, knots sticking up, everything’s rotted away. These knots are out
there, and he kicks one off, and he grabs that, and he says, “Oh, I’ll take that.”
And he takes it, and he shoves it up in his bunghole and jumps—“Ouch!” And he
throws it down, “Oh, that hurts! That’s rough, that hurts.” And he says, “That
won’t do. I want something that’s more smooth.”
(30) And he looks over, and here’s a rock down there. He says, “Well,
I’ll try that.” So he picks up this rock, and he takes it, and he starts to shove it up,
and, “Oh, that’s cold.” And it’s too big and it falls right back out. “No, that
won’t do it. I’ve got to have some way to plug it up so I can keep strawberries
inside of me.”
(31) So he’s thinking about it, and he looks down the trail there, and here’s
a wild carrot, a wild carrot growing down there. And he says, “Ah, that’s just the
right thing.” You know it’s just about so long, and it’s tapered, and it’s nice, soft
and pliable, and that’s just what he wants so he reaches down and picks it and
very carefully turns it and pulls it out of the ground. Yes, that’s just right.
(32) He breaks off the stem and throws it away. But he’s thinking, “You
know, I ought to have something to make sure it stays in better.” And right over
on the side a little ways there’s this great big fir tree that’s been hit by lightning,
and it’s dripping pitch, pitch falling down there. So he takes this carrot—(Well,
you know something’s wrong here also, ’cause he shouldn’t mess around with a
tree that’s been hit by lightning). But here’s this tree hit by lightning, and Coyote
goes over and takes this carrot and rolls it around and around in the pitch, gets it
all pitched up, and then he takes it and very carefully slides it up into his bunghole
and pushes it up and takes some more pitch and packs it in place.
(33) Oh, he gets it all nice and glued up there and pats it real tight, and it’s
all sealed up. And he’s really happy with himself.
just as fast as he can go, eating and eating, more and more and more and
more—eating strawberries until he gets so full he can hardly walk. His belly’s
just puffed way out, and by this time he’s worked himself way down to the edge
of the bluff.
(35) And he looks over there, and he can see a fire out there. He’d worked
way out toward Bastendorf Beach. And he gets off out there, and he looks way
out there, and he goes closer and closer, and he gets up on the edge of the dunes,
and he looks out, and there are people out there with this fire on the beach. And
he’s thinking, “Oh, someone’s cooking something.”
(36) Well, you know, Coyote’s such a glutton he’s always ready to eat
something more. And he calls out, “Hallooo.” And the people look up.
(37) And it’s the Seagull Boys out there, and they say, “Oh, hello mother’s
brother.” And he says, “What are you doing?” And they say, “We’re playing
‘Jump over the Fire.’” He says, “Oh, well I’m very good at that.” “Well, come
over and show us.”
(38) So Coyote goes over there, and he goes along and he runs over by the
fire. He’s disappointed it’s not food, but he comes down there, going to show off,
and he runs up—here his belly’s so big he can hardly walk—runs up there and he
takes a little jump over the fire.
(39) And they say, “Oh, well that was very good, but you really ought to
jump over here where the flames are. That’s where the contest is. Jump over the
fire.”
(40) “Oh, well, I can do that too.” So Coyote circles back around, and he
goes over, and he takes another run at it. He takes a run, and he jumps over, and
he just barely gets over the fire, and he drags his tail right through the flames, and
his tail suddenly explodes into fire.
(41) And he looks back there, and oh, his tail is burning, and flames
shooting up. And he starts batting at the flames, batting at his tail, and he’s
running in circles, and it gets too hot, and suddenly the pitch melts, and POP!—
out goes the carrot.
(42) And Coyote’s running in circles. Strawberries start spewing out.
He’s running in circles, batting at his tail, strawberries spewing out, and they’re
flying all over the Seagull Boys, just spewing out, covering everybody,
strawberries everywhere. And the Seagull Boys are mad. They grab rocks and
they start throwing rocks and sticks at Coyote.
(43) And he runs and heads for the ocean as hard as he can go, runs and
jumps out into the ocean, going to put his tail out. And he jumps out there, and
what happens, but he jumps right out into the waves, and out in the waves is a big
whale. And he jumps—right as the whale is coming up, he jumps right into the
whale’s mouth, and the whale swallows him.
(44) He goes clear down inside the whale’s stomach. And everything’s all
quiet down in there. Coyote’s down inside the whale’s stomach. The tail is not
burning any more; it’s gone out.
(45) Coyote’s feeling his way around: “How’d this happen? Where
am I?” And he’s wandering around in there, and BUMP, suddenly he hits his
head on something. He reaches up, and there’s the whale’s heart,
Coyote bumps right into it. And he says, “Aha.” And he has an idea, so he takes
his clamshell knife again, and he says, I’ll get out of here.”
(46) So he takes his clamshell knife and reaches up and cuts off the
whale’s heart. And the whale dies.
(47) There’s Coyote, inside the whale, out in the ocean. The whale dies,
and it floats up to the surface, and there’s Coyote, standing up inside the whale,
with his arms out, holding on. He can tell they’re out in the big swells because
the whale’s going back and forth, real slow-like with the great big swells out
there. Back and forth, back and forth.
(48) And pretty soon it gets a little rougher. They’re going a little faster,
and he can tell they’re coming into the breakers on shore, and it gets faster and
rolls some more, and the breakers are tossing him around, and he gets tossed
around.
(49) Pretty soon there’s a bump, and rolls over, and then everything’s still.
Aha, he knows then that they’ve washed up on the beach because the whale came
ashore and washed up on the beach, and so Coyote is going to get out of there.
(50) Once again he takes his clamshell knife, and he starts cutting between
the ribs, through about this much blubber, about a foot thick or more of blubber.
Coyote starts cutting, and he starts cutting, and cutting between the whale’s ribs,
trying to get a place to get out of there.
(51) Well, that whale washed ashore right at Sunset Bay. (And that’s a
very famous place where whales come ashore because there’s another old story
about a woman who went out in the ocean and married the sea otters, and she had
them send a whale ashore every year [as a present to her people]. So whales are
very important to the people.) And they had been watching it. Now, they didn’t
know Coyote was inside it. The whale comes ashore and washes in at Sunset
Bay, and all the people are watching. They’ve all come down. All the people
come down. This great gift from the ocean. And they’re coming down to Sunset
Bay, and the whale is on shore. And they’re all waiting for the ceremonious
occasion to cut up the whale and share it with everybody.
(52) And just as they all arrive, here comes Coyote. He cuts his way,
finally cuts through between the ribs, last strike just as the people arrive, and here
comes Coyote, squeezing out between the ribs, and he’s just covered with oil and
whale blubber, just covered like Crisco all over him, just really tight. His hair is
all matted down, and he’s real skinny, sliding out, and his tail’s all burned off.
Coyote’s just squeezing his way out between the ribs, and everybody’s mad.
(53) Well, the Seagull Boys are there too, and they haven’t forgotten the
strawberries yet at all.
(54) All the people are mad because Coyote’s contaminated the whole
thing, this great gift from the ocean for all the people. Coyote’s contaminated it.
(55) Everybody starts throwing rocks. Seagull Boys throwing rocks.
Everybody throwing rocks at Coyote
(56) He can’t see anything because of all this blubber in his eyes, and it’s
all blurry. But he can hear. Down south he knows where Big Creek is; he can
hear it running in down there, and he takes off running as hard as he can down the
beach.
(57) And all the people throwing rocks at him, and he runs and runs and
goes way down the beach. And he goes way up to Big Creek, and he starts
running up Big Creek, and he hears the Salmon Girls going up Big Creek, and
they’re out there paddling, paddling in the water. And he gets ahead of the people
real fast, and he runs up and he says, “Oh Salmon Girls, oh come over here.”
(58) All the people are still trying to catch up with him. He says, “Oh
you’re so pretty. Come here, let me scratch your sides.” And he reaches down
and he’s scratching their sides for them. He says, “Oh, you’re so lovely. I could
scratch better if you get up here in my lap.” And so they let him. They get up in
his lap, and Coyote’s taking both hands and scratching both sides.
(59) Well, he’s probably got other things on his mind, too, but he hears the
people coming too soon. They’re right on his tail.
(60) And he’s scratching both sides so casually, rubbing their sides, and he
gets right up to their heads, and he grabs their eyes, pulls their eyes out of their
heads.
(61) He takes his own eyes out, which are all blurry and greasy, and he
sticks them in the salmon’s head.
(62) Because at that time salmon had bright shiny eyes, and Coyote had
greasy eyes, and now he traded with them, so salmon now always have greasy
eyes, and Coyote’s got the bright shiny ones.
(63) And that’s the end of that part of the story, as they told it.
