Chapter 8: Story Telling

Copyright 1998 by Tad Beckman, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711

The old man's voice deepened, now, and the plank walls trembled as he continued . . . "Moon asked the girls at Kepel [a Yurok village below Weitspus, on the Klamath River] to line up each night so that he could make a selection!"

"This village had the reputation of having the most beautiful girls on the river. Ten girls stood in line each night, each hoping that she would become the wife of such a prominent person as Moon. He told them he would come three nights, and on the third night he would make his final selection. The first girl he choise was a very beautiful girl, about eighteen snows from birth. She had long glossy black braids which reached to her waist, large brown eyes, smooth soft skin, an oval face, and was slender and very agile."

The boy's sister sat up straight and shifted her position so that her own long braids fell forward, toward the firelight. They all sat in the large square subterranean inner room of their plank house. It was raining hard outside, now, and the water could be heard running off the roof and plattering hard against the rock porch that ran along the front of the house. The familiar smell of smoked salmon filled the atmosphere and the flickering firelight danced along the plank walls the lined the earth sides of the living space. Up above, baskets of food and provisions lined the outer plank walls and were divided from the living space by mats and skin curtains. The old storyteller's voice grew stern.

"Moon took this girl to the skies with him but he soon learned that she was not a good housekeeper. She never swept their house and her basket of cooking utensils was never washed. So he brought her back and selected another girl. This girl was also very beautiful, but she kept a clean house and washed her cooking utensils. Moon was happy at first, but then he realized that she never took a bath and that her body was rarely clean!" Everybody laughed at such a preposterous situation and nodded agreement as "Moon took this girl back to the village as well. In this way, Moon tried out every elligible girl in the village and all of them had something objectionable about them."

"Finally, on his last visit to the village and having tried out all of the girls, Moon spied Frog-girl. She was sitting on the edge of a pond and was singing very happily. She bathed every day in the clear water of the pond so she was very clean. She was by no means as pretty as the other girls, but Moon took her back to his home in the sky. She was a good cook; she kept the house spotlessly clean; and she was always happy and singing songs. Moon was well satisfied so he paid her father one string of beads and five Woodpecker scalps for her and kept her as his wife."

There was a general murmur of approval in the family and, even though the rain tore at the rafters with even greater energy than before, the children were lost so deeply in the story that they no longer heard it at all. The inside of their living space had expanded into the sky and they imagined, before them, the sky-house of Moon and Frog-girl and contemplated what this marriage might bring.

"All the stars in the sky are their children," announced the old man, with authority, "and when the stars twinkle, they are talking to each other and they're laughing and happy. Mrs. Moon, however, is very strict with them and sometimes has to punish them. On cold nights in winter, the children get so cold that some will take the deerskin blankets from others and cover themselves to keep warm. Their mother punishes them for that, and then all the children are sad to see each other punished. Their tears fall to earth as winter rains. But in the summer, when they are not likely to steal each other's blankets, no punishments are necessary. So that is why, in summer, it rarely rains!"

Snuggled up, feeling his own fortune in having his very own deerskin, the boy relished the warmth and listened to the rain lashing against the cedar planks of their roof. And far off, in his mind, he thought he could hear the crying a star-children being punished by their mother, Frog-girl, who afterall thought her children should get along without hurting each other. [Adapted from "Moon Takes a Wife" in Warburton, Austen D. and Joseph F. Endert. Indian Lore of the North California Coast (Santa Clara, CA: Pacific Pueblo Press, 1966)]

While technical knowledge could be passed from parent to child in the line of daily work, basic concepts of behavior and larger issues of world and spirit required narratives. Some of these narratives were reserved for ceremonial situations that might occur only once or twice a year; but others were stories that could be told in the evening while seated around the fire. Winter was the principal season for storytelling and this form of entertainment could go on long into the night. Storytelling was theatrical in the sense that a good storyteller used gestures, diverse voices, and song to embellish and enliven the characters of a story. And audiences were responsive with howls of laughter or screams of surprise. (Wallace, 1978; 658)

Other stories, rather clearly, were not family tales, suitable for all listeners, but may have been shared among women, while gathering or basket making or preparing food, or among men, in the sweatlodge or while traveling distances to hunting grounds. It is best to view the Indians' narrative world as similar to our own; though many of us have replaced the human storyteller with a radio, television, or movie. Indigenous people talked and told stories under all circumstances and with diverse interests. Sometimes it was gossiping or teasing; sometimes it was for entertainment; and sometimes it was for instruction and cultural enlightenment.

Unfortunately, our access to these narratives, today, is almost always through printed texts where the context of the story has been entirely lost. It is left to our imagination to picture the audience, to put flesh on the storyteller, to actually hear the theatrical voice, and to feel the presence of other listeners in the closeness of a lodge, perhaps with rain or wind outside, the crackling and flashing of the fire, and the excited hoots or surprised wails beside us.

While some stories were collected by Powers and by Bancroft, in the Nineteenth Century, the major efforts did not begin until the early Twentieth Century. Major collections were achieved by Kroeber and other Berkeley anthropologists, like Gifford, and by Harrington, Dixon, Merriam, and Du Bois. (Heizer, HNAI; 654) It was soon recognized that California narratives could be divided according to characters, content, and form.

There were three kinds of story forms in California --- animal stories, Indian stories, and creation stories. Northwestern Coastal tribes followed Northwest traditions in having no creation stories, in the literal sense, and in dwelling primarily on Indian subjects. Southern tribes possessed creation stories that show significant relations with each other. And Central tribes possessed both creation stories and large numbers of animal stories. The Central tribes could be divided into two sub-groups according to their versions of the creation.

I have already covered creation stories in the first chapter. Indian stories were, as the name suggests, stories about Indian people. These were either intended as biographies or histories, or they were intended as "morality plays," illustrations of good or bad behaviors. I will begin with animal stories.

Animal Stories.

Animal stories, as the name implies, developed animal characters and explored their actions, both for entertainment and for moral lessons. These animals were usually viewed as the primordial "first people" of the world who became animals, as such, when humans were created. Whether they were animals or humans, of a sort, in primordial times is not clear. What is clear is that they were powerful spirits and that they became the animals of our world when humans were created.

The use of animal characters was also a convenience to storytellers since their characteristics were well known to the audience and the storyteller could develop more intense drama or humor by only the slightest reference to this collective store of material. While most animals found their way into one story or another, there is no doubt that Californians had some favorite characters in mind; and Coyote was preeminent among them. Part of Coyote's popularity is that he is always seen as one of the principal primordial characters, figuring into many important details of creation and the establishment of human culture. But the coyote, Canis latrans, is also an ever-present animal with whom Californians had, and still have, an intimate relationship. So Coyote's characteristics were well known and they fitted well into a universal storytelling archetype --- the trickster. In this discussion of animal stories, I will examine Coyote stories exclusively.

One of the most accessible collections of Coyote stories is William Shipley's translation of The Maidu Indian Myths and Stories of Hanc'ibyjim. But Coyote is no mere California creation; his stories were told all over the West, from the Hopis and Navajos of Arizona, throughout the Great Basin, and well into the Northwest. In fact, the boundary line between Coyote-as-trickster and Raven, in the Northwest, is found more-or-less along the southern side of Puget Sound. Another very accessible collection is Jarold Ramsey's Coyote Was Going There: Indian Literature of the Oregon Country. William Bright's book, A Coyote Reader, is a comprehensive and fascinating study of Coyote himself, locating accounts of Coyote in both Native languages and English, as well as in pre-Columbian and contemporary settings. By no means should we assume that the exploits of Coyote are past and dead. As children, we ourselves have watched the film character Wile E. Coyote employ every possible strategy to overcome Beep Beep Roadrunner. (Bright, 1993) And Native Americans also continue to invent new ways of expressing Coyote's everlasting traits. A prime example, perhaps, is Peter Blue Cloud's several books of contemporary Coyote tales, Elderberry Flute Song and The Other Side of Nowhere. The latter book includes a poem dedicated to Maidu artist Harry Fonseca, "Coyote, in tanktop dancing," inspired by Fonseca's 1982 painting of Coyote.

Coyote is a major figure; as we have already seen in our discussion of creation stories, Coyote was involved in making the world, bringing fire to humans, and arguing the merits of mortality. But Coyote is also "an insatiable glutton, a gross lecher, an inveterate thief, liar, and outlaw, a prankster whose schemes regularly backfire. In short, Coyote is the archetypal Trickster known from literatures all over the world." (Bright, 1993; 3) Why should such a figure be so popular and exercise so much importance?

What we are really asking is why a trickster should be such an important figure. And furthermore, why should the coyote be singled out to represent this trickster. In the deepest sense, what is involved here is the existential situation of humankind. Our existence is a trick. That is, we can always conceive of how existence would have been more comfortable and more to our liking. So the way things actually are always looks like the trick that our creator played on us. In fact, in the creation stories, this is precisely the role that Coyote plays; he is always intervening in the creation of humans and throwing the course of things in other directions. Mythically, Coyote is the explanation of why things are as they are; Coyote is our "reality principle."

But the trickster serves other purposes. Coyote is the ultimate individual who never conforms to rules, except his own perverse nature. In this way, he is always inventing new ways of looking at things and new ways of doing things. Bright quotes a Navajo consultant, saying, "If he did not do all those things, then those things would not be possible in the world." (Bright, 1993; 21) Not only does Coyote set the condition of human life but he also creates the possibilities of human nature. In this sense, Coyote is the ancient figure Everyman both in defining the human condition and in establishing the human way. Like humans, Coyote can never leave anything alone; if he sees it there, then he has to exercise his influence over it.

This is not to say that Coyote stories were taken as recommendations for action. Far from it, they were opportunities for indigenous people to look at the human condition and to laugh or recoil in horror or embarrassment. Little that Coyote ever did recommended itself for immitation.

So why should poor Canis Latrans, coyote, be picked upon? Certainly one reason must have been his pervasive presence and his eery nocturnal yodelling howl. But another must have been his complete ease, integrating his lifestyle with human society, and standing ready to take advantage of any situation. Like humankind, the coyote is an omnivore and, thus, shares that attribute with human kind of turning any situation into a profitable one. Furthermore, coyote is not a threat to humans, aside from competing for small game; coyote's relation with humans is being a sneak and a rascal, though we can scarcely blame him. And when it comes right down to it, zoologically, coyote is a fascinating if not, actually, lovable animal.

What does Coyote do in typical California narratives? He is an incredible wanderer, always out on the loose, passing through, and observing the ongoing scene. Frequently, he takes on much more than he can handle and gets wounded, maimed, or killed. But Coyote, unlike unlucky humankind, possesses a personal immortality that needs only a dip in the spring to put him back into action. Coyote loves to party and loves to eat. If you have been hunting, he will help carry back your game; though you had best keep an eye on him. Passing by your house in the evening, if he smells something delicious cooking, he will likely drop in, on some vague excuse, and stay for a treat. Coyote is also horny most of the time and has an uncontrollable impulse to show off and use his sexuality. His exploits are amazing --- and outside of any bounds of good taste or manners. Coyote violates virtually every taboo; and when he loses his penis in one lost cause or backfired scheme, he simply borrows another and bigger one. Nevertheless, no one can deny Coyote's intelligence. Just as soon as we are appauled by Coyote's foolish exploits, we turn around to face up to a story in which Coyote's insights and shrewdness are clearly superior.

A good example of Coyote stories is "Coyote Marries His Daughter," (Shipley, 1991; 91) as told by the Maidu, which is essentially the same as "Coyote and His Daughter," (Ramsey; 1977; 239) as told by the Northern Paiute, and "Coyote Died" (Haile, 1984; 47) as told by the Navajo. Having married and settled down, Coyote has a daughter and a son. The daughter is developing into a fine young woman and Coyote finds himself desiring her. So Coyote strikes up a preposterous plot. He will turn sick and die, but while he is sick he will instruct his wife to have their daughter marry a man, a ways over yonder, who will provide for them. So Coyote "dies" while they are out, burns down the house with some animal bones inside, and gets over yonder to assume his new position. Sure enough, the daughter marries Coyote and he provides for the family until they become suspicious of his obvious similarity to their father. Mother, daughter, and son desert Coyote in a rage, and Coyote contemplates his wickedness. (In the Northern Paiute story, the mother and daughter beat Coyote with sticks and run him off, though he returns as an old man to discover that his daughter has borne him a child.)

Coyote has many long exploits with Badger and elements of these are common from story to story, from Washington through California and into the Southwest. "Why Badger is So Humble" is a story told by Mourning Dove, a Colville-Okagonan of Washington. (Mourning Dove, 1934; 135) In this story, Coyote has taken note of Badger who is living alone in a village with his four lovely daughters. Coyote assumes the form of an attractive woman and arranges to meet the daughters who bring "her" back to their house. Badger is taken with "her" and makes it clear that he'd like to take "her" as his wife. But Coyote explains that he needs first to take dried meet back to his village for his old mother and he enlists the help of Badgers daughters in doing that. Needless to say, the end result is that Coyote has his pleasure with the daughters before either they or Badger discover their mistake. Badger winds up humbled before the other villagers.

Another "Coyote and Badger" story, told by the Hopi, shows Coyote once again tricking Badger but, this time, Badger gets more than even with him. (Malotki/Lomatuway'ma, 1984; 23) As the story begins, Badger and Coyote are hunting together. This is a common theme and Badger tends to be the better hunter than Coyote. While they are off hunting, Coyote remembers having found a young woman who had died in some accidental fashion. Knowing that Badger is a shaman, Coyote gets him to go to the same locale and, finding the woman's scattered bones, he convinces Badger to bring her back to life. With substantial difficulty, Badger succeeds in this project and they set off for home, hoping that the young woman will keep house for them. But Coyote has had different ideas all along and soon begins to lust after the woman. Badger scolds Coyote for his advances and warns him, but Coyote's lust is too great. He mounts the girl from behind with such energy that he breaks her neck and she is, alas, dead again. Badger is furious and stalks off. But in the second half of the story, Badger gets even by using a device that is a quite common pitfall for poor Coyote. Badger has Coyote over for dinner and cooks up a wonderful, tasty meal. When Coyote is eager to have the recipe, Badger admits that he has cooked his own entrails and reveals a fresh wound down his stomach where he claims to have removed them. Needless to say, Coyote goes home and tries to duplicate the recipe. Painful as it is, he finally succeeds in cutting himself open, only to fall dead before the gathering pile of his own entrails, in his own house. Poor Coyote; and when Badger comes over, later, he can scarcely believe that Coyote has been so dumb. In a Chinook story, "Coyote and Badger" (Bright, 1993; 124), that comes close to our own cartoons, Coyote and Badger are again hunting, though along the river, this time, and they are enjoying considerable success. In fact, their success is so great that other animals start to fear them and refuse to cooperate; they enter into a dry period. For a few days, they take up the previous weapons and seek game away from the river. Badger has continuing success but Coyote is a poor hunter. The secret behind all of this is that Badger kills game with his farts! (Badgers, like skunks, have strong scent glands.) So when Coyote finally recognizes this, he proposes that they trade assholes, and they do. Needless to say, lacking the crucial glands, poor Coyote finds Badger's asshole quite useless and, in frustration, he asks to trade back. So Badger secures his own from Coyote first and then throws Coyote's asshole in the river! Poor Coyote winds up tearing along the river, ripped by brush, watching young boys trying to hit his floating asshole with spears. When he finally recovers it, it is a mess; and Coyote whimpers off, the loser once more.

Why does the trickster prevail in literature and art? What is Coyote's social role? One could certainly say that humor is the end and not be far wrong, except we would then have to ask the same questions about humor itself. Perhaps a deeper answer is to be found in the psychoanalytic tradition, for example, Freud's analysis of the role of wit. It is good to laugh but what do we laugh at and why. According to Freud, we laugh at "truths," usually repressed, unconscious truths. I think that Coyote can be seen in this way. Coyote does outrageous things and, in this, he mirrors our own unconscious. It is not that Coyote necessarily reveals our interests or desires; but he does reveal the possibilities of which we are aware. Laughter is always complex --- a little embarrassed, covering for oneself a little, and collectively sharing in possibilities that everyone knows but does not speak about. We do not howl in laughter (the word speaks to Coyote) over the mundane or obvious; we howl over instincts that we forbid ourselves and whose collective recognition must otherwise go unspoken.

Indian Stories

While animal stories were extremely popular in the central portions of California, they were only secondary in the northwestern area where Indian stories dominated. By Indian stories, we refer to stories about humankind. These stories relate historical or biographical material of interest or significance to particular regions; or they represent mythic human characters, their actions and behaviors, somewhat in the manner of morality plays.

Theodora Kroeber's The Inland Whale is a fine readable collection of Indian stories, and one of the truly typical ones is the Yurok story called "The Inland Whale." (Kroeber, 1959; 19) The story's heroine, Nenem, is a very beautiful young woman of a distinguished family, living in a "named house," Pekwoi, on high ground in the river village of Pekwoi. Nenem's father expects the highest "bride price" for his daughter but, needless to say, Nenem fals in love with a handsome young man from a humble family, living in an unnamed house near the river. When Nenem finds herself pregnant, the lovers ask the family's permission to marry, the young man even offering to indenture himself in payment; but the situation explodes into disaster. The young man leaves the village in disgrace, never to be seen again; Nenem is disowned and thrown out of Pekwoi; and Hunè, the young man's mother shelters Nenem in her broken down house beside the river. Through a sequence of events too long to relate, the young son, Toàn, gains spiritual power from a chance encounter with the Inland Whale, setting the theme for the remainder of the story. As Toàn grows, his powers increase and he becomes the most industrious young man of Kotep. Finally, after Nenem's father's death, the younger men of Pekwoi, Nenem's brothers, invite Toàn to take up residence with them in the big named house. Nenem accompanies her son back to Pekwoi and is restored to her family and to its distinguished position in Yurok society.

This Yurok story is a model of simplicity and beauty. It is a true love story, full of rich feelings --- lover and beloved, parent and child, mother and son, sister and brothers. Meanwhile, it is teaming with the elements of Yurok culture --- wealth, status, division. It displays behaviors that are acceptable and unacceptable, but it also displays life as it really is. Young listeners are left informed, yet understanding that, in the end, people make their own decisions, for their own reasons, and live their ways through the consequences.

On a somewhat more troublesome theme, "Loon Woman" has been found among eight different storytelling traditions in northern interior California. (Kroeber, 1959; 41) Among nine children in a family, are the eldest young man, Makikirèn, and his sister, Ishanihura, closest in age. Ishanihura has reached womanhood and spends some time, each month, in seclusion in a menstrual hut, which is near to a spring used for bathing. During one of these times she takes note of a fine young man whom she only barely sees but who leaves behind a long black hair. Ishanihura becomes possessed by this hair and goes to great lengths to discover its owner, who turns out to be her older brother, Makikirèn. Finally, completely compelled by desire, Ishanihura schemes to have Makikirèn accompany her on a long trip; and taking advantage of nightfall, she seduces the sleeping Makikirèn into intercourse. In the morning, the brother realizes what has happened and is overwhelmed by the moral import of it. He flees home, informs his parents, and gathers them up to flee the place. After burning their houses, they begin to ascend the Sky Pole to secure a future home on the Sky Floor, a spiritual place where Makikirèn has already established himself prior to this episode. But, in a disastrous scene somewhat reminiscent of Orpheus and Eurydice, the mother's love for her daughter leads her to look back down the Sky Pole and, losing her balance, she carries all but Makikirèn to their deaths. In a maniacal fit, Ishanihura strings the hearts of her family into a necklace and dances around their funeral fire at the bottom of the Sky Pole. Years pass and Makikirèn has married Sky Maiden and returned to live on earth with their two sons. But Ishanihura still inhabits the region darkly, now as a lonely old witch, the Loon Woman. In the final action, Makikirèn seeks out the Loon Woman at a small lake and slays her with an arrow. In the end, the story is connected with the loon bird which can be seen dancing its strange dance on a rock at the water's edge and which has a mottled necklace-like marking around its neck.

The story leaves no doubt that incest is taboo; indeed, it connects incest with spiritual power that is out of control and destructive to all involved. But it also admits that incest is understandably human so it is able to explore this case of incest as a distinctly human tragedy. As stories go it is riveting. The driving elements are known from the beginning, but the storyteller lingers on his way to the deed and lingers, equally long, on his way to the disasterous end. There is enormous open space for the storyteller to amplify the particular characters, to stage the action in locally familiar places, and to elaborate the mythic elements of the Sky Floor.

Amore light-hearted, short incest tale is related in the Chumash collection, December's Child, edited by Thomas Blackburn. A young man, Siqneqs, lives with his family. Siqneqs is somewhat simple minded and makes a series of terrible mistakes as the story proceeds. First, he kills his baby brother by misunderstanding his mother's directions for child care. Then, when told to locate a suitable cave in which to store their season's cache of acorns, he blunders horribly by storing them in caves along the seashore where the acorns quickly come to be ruined. On and on went examples of his stupidity. Finally, once at some distance while his mother was looking for some plants and Siqneqs was told to watch for bears, he misses the approaching bear and tells her only that he has seen a fly. She is torn apart by the bear and he runs back to the village, to his grandmother. So in the end, the grandmother says to Siqneqs, "You are old enough now to marry, so look for someone about the age of this woman," pointing to his sister. So, of course, that night Siqneqs goes to get into bed with his sister and his grandmother is outraged at his foolishness. The story has endless opportunities for variation and, the more outrageous Siqneqs' behavior was, the more the children must have laughed.

A Miwok story, told in Legends of the Sierra Miwok, by Frank LaPena, Craig D. Bates, and Steven P. Medley, relates the death of a woman, the beloved wife of an old man. The couple had been together for a very long time and the old man grieved over her grave for days. Eventually, one morning, the spirit of the old woman rose from the grave and wandered about the village throughout the day. The old man watched; and by the late afternoon, she began to walk an old trail out of the village and to the west. He followed and, eventually, she entered a cave. It was the entrance to the Land-of-the-Dead and she disappeared.

The old man lingered about and grieved for some time and finally he encountered the Keeper-of-the-Gate. After some time and over the Keeper's protests, the old man convinced him to allow him passage. The journey into the Land-of-the-Dead is precarious but soon the old man sees his dead wife in the distance. With great difficulty, he follows her; but she eventually turns and addresses him, saying, "you must not follow me any farther." Looking further on, the old man sees dead people of his tribe from long ago. And in the end, the Keeper convinces him that he cannot stay with his beloved life, that death has separated them, and that he must return to the village where he can only await his own death.

In The Inland Whale, Theodora Kroeber relates another version of this story in which the husband actually receives permission to take his wife back into the land of the living people, if only he will not touch her during their long journey back. In this tale, the husband is so overcome by passion and thanksgiving, during the first evening of their journey back, that he attempts to fondle her and she disappears forever. The same story occurs in the collection of Chumash stories, December's Child, edited by Thomas Blackburn. In this case, the husband and wife are young, newly married. Again, the woman dies and the man follows her into the Land-of-the-Dead. Again, he receives permission to take her back to his land but on the condition, this time, that he does not sleep for the three nights that he remains with her in that land. Each night he finds himself very sleepy and does fall asleep so, on the final night, she disappears forever. In both of these cases, the man's return to human society is the means through which we know about the Land-of-the-Dead. In the Chumash tale, however, the penalty for telling others about death is the young man's own premature death. The similarity of both tales to the classic story of Orpheus and Eurydice is stunning and indicates the timeless universality of the human issues involved.

The importance of storytelling cannot be overemphasized. It was the chief mode of explanation and, hence, the chief educational tool. At the same time, storytelling was one of the three most important resources for entertainment. Everything was suggested through story. Just as we would generalize on some piece of information --- "good, warm bread can be purchased from the woman with the cart" --- the Indian would tell a story --- "I was once cold, on a frosty morning, and I got some wonderful, warm bread from that woman who was standing with her cart." Stories were never endingly entertaining; after all, they told about the human condition. And where they went beyond humans in general they appealed to people by addressing specific locations and landmarks in their own immediate world.

Blackburn, Thomas C. (Ed.) December's Child: A Book of Chumash Oral Narratives (University of California Press, 1975)

Blue Cloud, Peter. Elderberry Flute Song ()

. . . The Other Side of Nowhere ()

Bright, William. A Coyote Reader ()

Kroeber, A. L. Yurok Myths ()

Kroeber, Theodora. The Inland Whale (University of California Press, 1959)

LaPena, Frank, Craig D. Bates, and Steven P. Medley. Legends of the Sierra Miwok (Yosemite National Park, CA: Yosemite Association, 1993)

Shipley, William. The Maidu Indian Myths and Stories of Hanc'ibyjim (Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 19??)

Steward, Julian. "Myths of the Owens Valley Paiute" in University of California Publications in Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. No. Pp. (19??)