Assignment 3.5 – Trickster or Transformer?

This blog post is in response to prompt 2:

Coyote Pedagogy is a term sometimes used to describe King’s writing strategies (Margery Fee and Jane Flick). Discuss your understanding of the role of Coyote in the novel

This isn’t the first time that I’ve heard of the ‘Coyote’ as synonymous with a trickster or transformer. However, it’s been a while since I’ve had to analyze the role of a tricker or a transformer in a story. Upon reading this story I wanted to keep my pre-existing knowledge on hold, in order to get a first impression on what I thought of Coyote’s role.

Coyote seems to be a powerful presence, he definitely has a title of a God in the story. A part of me needed to be able to forget my conception of what a ‘god’ might mean, might look like, might act like, etc. Since I’m only well-verse with the Christian religion, I had to push away this notion that a God must be a figure of Christian “virtues” and “purity”.

With some elements up for interpretation, I think we can assume that Green Grass, Running Water  supposes Coyote’s consciousness and a creation story for a particular purpose. Throughout the book it doesn’t seem like that Coyote is built up to be all-knowing or the ultimate being. Coyote’s banter between him and the “Dog” demonstrates to us that the Trickster is not always the most perceptual or the smartest person in the room; it shows that sometimes the Trickster also fall wary to his own problems. This is not without saying that Coyote is not a mighty being or a smart being. In comparison and context with the humans, Coyote seems to be a symbol of authenticity. Even in just the naming of the characters – like Lone Ranger, Ishmael, Robinson Crusoe, and Hawkeye, the name ‘Coyote’ seems to not falter with Western cultural pressure. Though the stories and the characters in the book are manipulated from a figment of Coyote’s mind, the issues along the way demonstrates Coyote’s insightfulness of the First Nations conditions in the Western society. As King embodies Coyote’s stream of consciousness in the novel, it seems to be Coyote that gives the humans a stream of consciousness as well.

I watched this clip presented by TRU, which I felt supported me in matters of putting Coyote and the role of consciousness together. Coyote seems to be known for his stealth amongst other qualities, I find that the term “Trickster” to be too solitary as opposed to the “Transformer”. Paul Michel of TRU referred to Coyote as a Transformer, as the one that was able to provide resources to the people he protected. The Transformer in relation to the idea of creation, was able to transform the humans to sentient beings.

Works Cited:

“Native American Coyote Mythology.” Native American Indian Coyote Legends, Meaning and Symbolism from the Myths of Many Tribes, www.native-languages.org/legends-coyote.htm.

Thompson Rivers University. “Coyote Story.” Thompson Rivers University, www.tru.ca/indigenous/coyote/story.html