Hopi Coyote

Thirty Hopi tales about Coyote the Trickster, Medicine Man badger, and the Chipmunk Girls reflect Hopi attitudes towards such issues as courtship, friendship, courage, healing, and the treatment of children.

This volume brings together twenty-one traditional tales recently retold by Hopi narrators. Complete with English translations and original Hopi transcriptions on facing pages and a bilingual glossary. Hopi Coyote Tales is important to an understanding of the Hopi language and folklore. To nomadic hunters such as the Navajo, who competed with him on the open range, Coyote was by turns a formidable trickster, a demonic witchperson, and a god. As sedentary planters, the Hopis tended to reduce Coyote to the level of a laughable fool. In these tales Coyote is a friendly bumbler whose mistakes teach listeners what tricks to avoid. Time after time he is hurt or killed for failing to understand a situation correctly. The collection is as amusing as animal fables should be, as simply told, and as instructive. Published as a companion volume to Father Berard Haile's Navajo Coyote Tales, Hopi Coyote Tales is a valuable contribution to cross-cultural studies.

The New York Times best-selling account of how coyotes--long the target of an extermination policy--spread to every corner of the United States Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award "A masterly synthesis of scientific research and personal observation." -Wall Street Journal Legends don't come close to capturing the incredible story of the coyote. In the face of centuries of campaigns of annihilation employing gases, helicopters, and engineered epidemics, coyotes didn't just survive, they thrived, expanding across the continent from Alaska to New York. In the war between humans and coyotes, coyotes have won, hands-down. Coyote America is the illuminating five-million-year biography of this extraordinary animal, from its origins to its apotheosis. It is one of the great epics of our time.

One of the most constant symbols of North American Indian mythology is coyote, a figure that has not only persisted but successfully crossed cultural barriers. Coyote survives both as an animal and a myth in literature and art. These stories illustrate the many roles and adventures of coyote. The Western Writers of America selected this book as a Spur Award winner for cover art. Readers will also want to read “Kachina Tales,” also published by Sunstone press.

The traditional Hopi world, as reflected in Hopi oral literature, is infused with magic?a seamless tapestry of everyday life and the supernatural. That magic and wonder are vividly depicted in this marvelous collection of authentic folktales. For the Hopis, the spoken or sung word can have a magical effect on others. Witchcraft?the wielding of magic for selfish purposes by a powaqa, or sorcerer?has long been a powerful, malevolent force. Sorcerers are said to have the ability to change into animals such as a crow, a coyote, a bat, or a skeleton fly, and hold their meetings in a two-tiered kiva to the northeast of Hopi territory. Shamanism, the more benevolent but equally powerful use of magic for healing, was once commonplace but is no longer practiced among the Hopis. Shamans, or povosyaqam, often used animal familiars and quartz crystals to help them to see, diagnose, and cure illnesses. Spun through these tales are supernatural beings, otherworldly landscapes, magical devices and medicines, and shamans and witches. One story tells about a man who follows his wife one night and discovers that she is a witch, while another relates how a jealous woman uses the guise of an owl to make a rival woman's baby sick. Other tales include the account of a boy who is killed by kachinas and then resurrected as a medicine man and the story of a huge rattlesnake, a giant bear, and a mountain lion that forever guard the entrance to Maski, the Land of the Dead.

Lewis Mehl-Madrona explores the use of stories for healing and personal transformation. By introducing new characters and plots in the stories we tell, we can perceive ourselves in new ways. The author draws upon indigenous cultures of North America, Maori, East Africa, Mongolia, Australia, and Lapland to illustrate the healing use of stories throughout the world.

The birds find a way to teach Coyote a lesson when he tries to trick them. Includes a section introducing the Hopi language.