“Peyote Coyote” is a drawing I’ve done (more than once, in fact). If I knew how to post images I’d share it, so if you can tell me how I can display it tomorrow.
Coyotes are fascinating animals in many respects, and Coyote is a fascinating character/god. But, in European tradition, the Fox shares many traits. Check out the Reynard stories, which are pretty much pan-European and perhaps even predate Christianization (although I have no idea whether, in pagan Europe, the Fox was ever considered an actual god).
There are certain stories which are part of Native American Coyote cycles which are nearly identical to European Reynard stories. Of course, pretty much all cultures have some tradition of Trickster Tales, but I suspect (it’s only a theory) that early French traders, sitting around American campfires with the locals trading stories, heard some Coyote stories and reciprocated with similar stories of Reynard. The Reynard stories thus got assimilated into Amerind oral tradition. (I have no real evidence to support this theory, but it seems plausible.)
Coyote’s the kind of god I can get behind; arbitrary, capricious, untrustworthy, hindering as much as helping, and who laughs and is laughed at in equal measure. Also, like his Warner Bros. manifestation Wile E., he’s pretty much indestructible; he takes a pounding, but he always bounces back.
“Peyote Coyote” is a drawing I’ve done (more than once, in fact). If I knew how to post images I’d share it, so if you can tell me how I can display it tomorrow.
Coyotes are fascinating animals in many respects, and Coyote is a fascinating character/god. But, in European tradition, the Fox shares many traits. Check out the Reynard stories, which are pretty much pan-European and perhaps even predate Christianization (although I have no idea whether, in pagan Europe, the Fox was ever considered an actual god).
There are certain stories which are part of Native American Coyote cycles which are nearly identical to European Reynard stories. Of course, pretty much all cultures have some tradition of Trickster Tales, but I suspect (it’s only a theory) that early French traders, sitting around American campfires with the locals trading stories, heard some Coyote stories and reciprocated with similar stories of Reynard. The Reynard stories thus got assimilated into Amerind oral tradition. (I have no real evidence to support this theory, but it seems plausible.)
Coyote’s the kind of god I can get behind; arbitrary, capricious, untrustworthy, hindering as much as helping, and who laughs and is laughed at in equal measure. Also, like his Warner Bros. manifestation Wile E., he’s pretty much indestructible; he takes a pounding, but he always bounces back.
Besides, he was on this continent first.