I’m not sure how to define Coyote in the novel – which may be (one of) the point(s); the best way to evaluate Coyote Pedagogy, I think, is to look at what Coyote does (in all his/her incarnations – I’ll switch between pronouns for fun), and his relationships with the other characters – particularly in the iterative ‘genesis story’ (without the capital G). I don’t mean to imply an ‘order’ or ‘progress’ by my use of ‘iterative’.
Coyote, for me, is a centre of resistance to colonial narratives – the DOG, obviously – yet plays into a sort of ‘binary’ thinking I like to avoid – a demarcation between ‘native’ and ‘colonial’. Coyote runs through the mythic and real – typical of ‘trickster’ figures, I think – and comes across as playful; at the same time, Coyote’s actions are – almost to a fault – deeply significant. There is intent behind her spontaneity and its actions carry substantive import. For me Coyote is not a force for chaos – that implies no direction – but instead a disturber (trickster) or resistor that embodies First Nations mythology especially in the context of dominant (colonial) discourse. Coyote does not just resist the dominant discourse, though – I found him to serve equally well in its criticism of the ‘legitimacy’ of native narratives.
Speaking of pedagogy – Alberta’s students are particularly productive as a locus of interrogation. The one that springs to mind is Mary Rowlandson, named for a woman who wrote an ‘abduction narrative’ (the academic term has vanished from memory) that sold quite well. While Coyote is not present in the scene I’m looking at, she is ever present in the reader’s mind; no scene exists in discretion (in the physical sense) and this character in particular sticks in my vision.
If you’re interested:
The other students:
Elaine Goodale – another writer who became a Superintendent of Indian Education and supported on-reserve education (as opposed to the boarding-school model we’ve encountered).
Hannah Duston was another writer of a captivity narrative (ah, there it is) and hers is particularly gruesome. She was a mother of nine taken hostage with a newborn girl, and killed (and scalped) ten Native American family members holding her captive. She was also the first American woman turned into a statue. (not literally)
Henry Dawes – a reference to this man, an American legislator who drafted the Dawes Act – meant to assimilate native Americans by conversion to the private-property model of landownership. (A process return readers are familiar with). In the novel, Henry’s asleep in the back of class.
John Collier – a reference to this advocate for native American rights who was responsible to a large extent for the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act.
Helen Mooney is better known as Nellie McClung, and was every bit the nerd she appears to be in the novel. She’s a quite famous Canadian author and was involved in suffrage and the temperance movement; her attitudes are dated, of course, but that’s what happens when time passes.