VI. COYOTE
Reading edition
CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE RECORDING
This group of narratives was told chiefly by an old woman of the clan which names its daughters Māha. Her more specific name was Mah-tšitnyumêve. She was a doctor for eyes that had been made sore from being struck by mesquite leaves or by a rushlike plant called hatelypo. In curing, she breathed against the palm of her hand held near her mouth, then laid the hand on the eye. She got this power from Coyote in her dream, as told in this story. She had a son called Lahoka, who was also a doctor, for the sickness caused by contact with foreign tribes. He was alleged to have also the power to make people sick, and at the time I knew his mother, he had gone from Needles to live at the reservation in Parker because of this accusation of witchcraft.
I secured the Coyote material from Mah-tšitnyumêve near Needles on March 22, 1903, as the result of an endeavor to learn more about the place of Coyote in Mohave mythology. Coyote is always mentioned in connection with the death of Matavilya, as in the beginning of the Mastamho myth (VII, 1-6), but beyond that there were mostly allusions only. This old lady said she had dreamed a Coyote story which she was ready to tell. It proved that she told it very badly. She did not pursue a consistent thread and she left contradictions which remained unresolved after questioning. The fault is undoubtedly hers, not my interpreter's, for Jack Jones was by this time well trained. She said nothing of songs belonging to the story, and I failed to enter in my notes whether I asked her.
I do not know how far the narrator's deficiencies were the result of her being a woman. She was my only Mohave woman informant on matters of myth and religion. I suspect she was unaccustomed to narrating and therefore inexpert at it. A number of people were listening in, some probably members of the household and others casual visitors. Several of these, including a man older than the narrator and one younger, protested when she concluded her main narrative (given as "A" below). They declared that she had told not a Coyote narrative, but a (private) dream, and that it was not the sort of thing to tell. Their disapproval seemed fairly strong. After this controversy had subsided, she resumed and told the briefer section given as "B," but this again evoked protest from an old man who was listening, who said it was not a genuine Coyote story, but a dream about killing people. All the Mohave listeners seemed to take for granted that Mah-tšitnyumêve had dreamed what she alleged. Their objection was to her dreaming the wrong sort of thing.
Possibly these protests had their effect, or the old lady ran out of what she had dreamed, because she then dropped into telling conventional Coyote tale episodes such as are told children—"C, D, E." These in turn stimulated the interpreter into telling several that he had heard—"F, G, H."
THE TALES
A: Dreamed
Coyote was a person like these Indians. There were two Coyote brothers,[1] little boys.[2] They started going from this country.[3] They had bows and arrows, and as they went along they shot at a mark, betting their arrows. They would throw up a bundle of arrowweeds to shoot at. The older won all the younger brother's arrows. Then he took one, wiped it on his anus, shot it up into a cottonwood tree, and said: "Will you go get it for yourself?" The little boy said: "No," and cried because the arrow was soiled. So he was going to leave that place and, crying, went north to θawêve, a place on Cottonwood Island. Now I was following him.[4] When he got to θawêve, I did not see him any longer, so I came back to this country here. Then I dreamed of him again at Avi-hamoka, near Tehachapi.
At Avi-kwa'ahāθa, a mountain beyond Phoenix in Arizona, there lived an old man called Patak-sata. This is a name of Coyote. With him at the same place there lived a man called Hipahipa.[7] There were many people there at Avi-kwa'ahāθa, among them a woman called Qwāqāqta.[8]
Now there was war between the Mohave and those people. On that day Qwāqāqta bore a boy baby. Then these people[9] won, burned all the houses and food and blankets and broke the dishes. They threw the newly born child into the brush, but did not succeed in killing it. Then they set fire to the brush, but the boy baby made it rain and did not burn.
Then the old woman, his father's mother, ha'auk,[10] found him and made a roof shade and a cradle for him and hung him up off the ground so nothing could touch him while she went out to look for inyeinye seeds for food.
She was gone all day. The baby was intelligent and after she was gone, he made black balls (vanyeilk) from his own breath by magic. Before long many quail came to where he was hung up, and he snapped or filliped (harrêmk) the balls at them and killed them. Then he piled the birds into a heap and went back into his cradle.[11]
When his grandmother came, she said: "Who brought them here? Who did it? I am an old woman and I surely like to eat meat, but I did not think that someone would bring them under my shade roof." She was very angry and began to curse who did it. She said: "Kweva-namaue-napaue."[12]
The boy grew up. Then they returned to this country,[13] he and his grandmother. The Mohave Indians went to Phoenix to fight the people at Avi-kwa'ahāθa, and he went along. Patša-karrawa was his name.[14]
Now he went ahead of the others, like a leader, to spy them out and see where the houses were. On the desert he found his mother. She was a slave there. He said to her: "Do not tell them when you go back home that I met you here. Take these birds and rabbits with you, but do not tell that I gave them to you. Say that you found them." She had on her back her pack basket.[15] Into this she put the game he gave her. He entered it too. He said: "Let me get into your basket. I will make myself into a bird so that they will not know me. Carry me back, but do not tell who I am. You may tell them tomorrow."
So she returned and gave the rabbits and birds to the people. They wanted to know where she got them, but she would not tell. Then Patak-sata said: "Let me look at them. I think Patša-karrawa killed these." He knew it right, but she would not admit it. In the morning she said: "I have another bird in my basket, a dove." Then Patak-sata said: "Let me see it." She gave it to him. "That is not a dove," he said, "I know it. Patša-karrawa made himself into this. I can tell a dove by its bill. And when you see a dove, it shakes its head. This does not." Soon after, on that day, the Mohave arrived and attacked. While the fight was going on, Qwāqāqta stood on the roof and sang as follows:
iθauwe
ahwe-kanām abroad-tell
haθo'ilya to the sea
Then she sang:
hunapnap butterfly
mat-utšavek he made himself
mat-apui killed
meθkemewê-mote he cannot be
sumatš-ahôtem he dreamed well
Then the Mohave killed all the people at Avi-kwa'ahāθa, and took Patša-karrawa's mother as a slave and brought her back to this country. Then she said: "Where there is war, notify other tribes and then gather: my son is wise and cannot be beaten."
Now he and his mother were poor and had nothing to eat. There was much food here among the people, but no one gave them anything to eat.[16] Then he took his mother and went west with her to Avi-hamoka.[17] There they lived.
B: Dreamed
This country was full of coyotes. Then we became Mohaves, human beings: the coyotes turned into people. There is a place called Hukθara-ny-enyêve, a small mountain south of Mukiampeve, Needles Peak.[18] There is where Kwayū[19] lived, at Hukθara-ny-enyêve: he belonged to this country. Whenever he saw a child, he seized it, stuck it under his belt, and took it home. There he would put them into a hole in the rock, pound them up, and eat them. Sometimes he ate them raw, sometimes he roasted them in the fire. All the people were afraid of him.
Now the Crayfish, Hal(y)kutāṭa,[20] killed Kwayū. He was little, but when he became angry, he made himself into a big man. So all the people were saved. If Crayfish had not killed him, Kwayū would have eaten everyone up. After killing him, Crayfish took him far south to the ocean where he lived and ate him up. So there was no more Kwayū in this land here.
Kwayū was Coyote.[21]
Children's Stories
C
Coyote was hunting, but killed nothing. Then he took deer excrement, planted them like seeds, and built a brush fence around. In four days the deer had grown as big as dogs: then he ate them.
D
When Coyote was hungry, he ate his children. "My daughter, climb this tree," he said. When she had climbed up, he piled brush around the tree and set fire to it. The girl fell down and into the fire and he ate her.
Stories like this are not dreamed, but are heard from other people and are told to children.
E
One Coyote said to another, "Let us set fire all around to this patch of thick brush. I think there must be deer, rats, and rabbits in it which we cannot get at. But if we set fire to the brush all around, they will burn up and we can just pick them up and eat them." Then they set fire to the patch, but one Coyote went inside first and stood in the middle. When the fire came near him, he had a song which would make him sink into the ground to his ankle. His second song would make him sink in to the middle of his calf (or the middle of his body); the third, to his knee (or neck). And with the fourth song he would be completely under the ground so the fire could not touch him. Now when the flames began to come near him, he sang his song: hilyhavek kerropsim, enter descend. But he did not begin to sink into the ground. He sang again and still did not penetrate. By the time he had sung his fourth song, the fire reached him and he burned up.
More Stories for Children
F
[The following three episodes are not from informant Mah-tšitnyumêve, but are from the interpreter, whose recollection of them she stimulated. He had heard them told by a young man called Mekupuru-'ukyêve. They are recognized as stories for children.]
Coyote went out and met Quail. Quail said to him: "Pluck my feathers and then send me to your wife to cook me." Coyote plucked him and Quail came to Coyote's old woman and said: "He says you are to cook your sandals."
"He is crazy."
"That's what he said. 'Cook your sandals!' Tell her that, he said."
"What for?"
"You have a pair, have you not?"
"Yes."
"Then you are to cook them."
So she started to cook her sandals. Meanwhile Quail lay down outside under the shade roof. After a while Coyote came home.
"What are you cooking?" he asked her.
"What you sent me word to."
"What did I tell you?"
"To cook my sandals."
"Who was it said so?"
"Quail."
"Where is he?"
"Outside in the shade."
Quail was lying there laughing. When Coyote came running up, he fled till he came to a slough. There he sat quietly on a tree. When Coyote arrived, he saw his reflection in the water, thought it was Quail, jumped in to seize him, and drowned. Then his old woman came too, tried to pull him out, but fell in and drowned also.
G
Coyote was visiting Beaver, his friend. Beaver had nothing to eat, but he had four or five children, so he killed them, cooked them, and gave them to Coyote to eat. But he warned him: "Do not throw away any of the bones. Lay them aside." When they had eaten, Beaver took the bones, threw them in the water, and they turned into living beavers again.
Then after a while Beaver came to visit Coyote. Coyote had no food, so he killed his young ones and cooked them. "Do not throw away the bones, but put them carefully aside," he warned him. Then after the meal, he threw the bones into water. But no young coyotes came out, and the bones were gone.
H
When Coyote visited Beaver, he had no food. Beaver took his bow, shot up in the air, the arrow fell down and entered his rectum. Beaver turned it around and then pulled it out with fat on the end. This he cooked and fed to Coyote. This he did for four days then Coyote went home.
Beaver came to see Coyote. Being without food, Coyote took his bow, shot up in the air, the arrow came down, hit him in the rectum—but he fell down dead.