Coyote's Got a Bad Rap || Reading Notes: California and the Old Southwest Part B

But maybe he prefers it that way...

• I like that all we learn about Duck from this first story is that she was:
• Created
• Small
• She died almost immediately because she got some mud in her beak.
• An interesting origin story for El Capitan. 
• I wonder why the boulder was growing in the first place.
• Why did the boys sleep so long?
• Could these be things to explain in a retelling?
• So the boys turned into agave? For....no reason?
• Could explain this in a retelling.
• Interesting story with the father testing them so much.
• So the next story has a youth become a god.
• He learns dances and songs from around the world?
• And takes them back to his people to teach them.
• They wear masks during the dances to represent the other gods that danced with the youth.
• I feel like the Raven and Macaw story is an explanation of why different some parts of the world have four seasons and why some only have two (wet and dry).
• The Raven people stay in the north and have to toil to grow crops and winter comes every year.
• The Macaw people may be further south where there is no real winter and things grow pretty easily year-round.
• So in the previous stories coyote tended to die for his trickery.
• Here is tricked in return.
• Although in the second one his kids die as a result.
• Why did the deer need to trick coyote?
• Was coyote hunting the deer? Or did he just run into them by chance?
  
• It's very interesting that someone who has such a pivotal role in most of these creation stories is also a trickster who ends up hungry, humiliated, or dead most of the time.
• The story with the quails is messed up.
• They cut his own flesh for themselves and then tricked him into eating it.
• Then they tricked him into letting them go.
• And coyote STILL dies at the end.
• The bluebird story is more okay.
• Coyote doesn't die.
• He's sort of justly punished for some hubris.
• Coyote does seem to get greedy and always wants what other animals seem to have already.
• Coyote makes a lot of requests of the sky people.
• Is the result of his deal with she-skunk his punishment? Or is it a punishment for tricking and killing all those rabbits?

Coyote

Bibliography:

Unit: California and the Old Southwest

By: Katharine Berry Judson

Photo Credits:
Coyote