American Indian Trickster Tales (Myths and Legends) (15 page)

“There is something strange about these roots,” said the first girl. “Let’s look and see what it is.”

They looked. “It’s just some kind of plant,” said the first girl. She gave the stalk a whack with her camas-digger. At once there was a loud cry of pain from the other side of the river: “Oh, oh, it hurts, it hurts!” The girls looked to where the cry was coming from. They saw Coyote there, howling. They examined the strange stalk again and discovered that it was a part of Coyote’s body. The girls got very angry and shook their fists at Coyote, crying: “It’s that evil, scabrous lecher who has tricked us.”

“Someday,” one of the girls shouted, “I’ll get him with my skinning knife!”

“This is not the day,” Coyote shouted back, pulling his member across the stream. He rolled his penis up and flung it over his shoulder. He laughed, waved at the girls, and ran off.

It was Coyote who first made a baby. Then Coyote said: “Human will make a baby the same way.”

Coyote and Lizard were talking in the sweathouse about what human is going to do. And one said: “They ought to cut a woman open; they ought to take the baby out of her belly.”

Then Coyote said: “No. There won’t be many people. How quick will he lose his wife, though he paid so much for her.”

Then they all said: “How will the baby travel through?”

Then some said: “Let him out of her mouth.”

Then Coyote said: “No, that won’t do. Let the baby come out behind.”

Then Lizard said: “Yes, that’s good.”

Then Coyote said: “One will be a female, and the next will be born a male. That’s the way we will do. The female will be mixed with them.”

Then Lizard said: “That’s good. I am going to make the boy’s hands, and his feet, and his penis, too, I am going to make. His hands and his feet will grow first of all, when he is water yet. When he is earliest embryo.”

They measured what size a baby was to be. “If it grows over this the woman will die,” they said. “If it is growing beyond this the mother will die.” There will be some herb medicine. The Ikxareyavs, the Immortals, will leave some herb medicine. There will be lots of herb medicine. Human will have herb medicine.“

They instructed the boys that way: “Ye must not kill Lizard.” And they told the little girls: “Lizard is your husband.”

And it (the baby) is small yet, they (the Lizards) tell when it is asleep, when the baby is dreaming about something sometimes it laughs when asleep, and then people say: “It is dreaming about Lizard; lizards are telling it: ‘Laugh, laugh!’ And sometimes Lizards tell it: ‘Cry,’ ” and people say: “Lizards are telling it: ‘Cry, cry, cry,’ ” when the little baby is asleep.

When it is asleep, when it cries, they tell it: “The Lizards are pinching the baby.”

Lizard said it: “I will be bothering Human’s little baby.”

They were talking in the sweathouse, that Human is going to come, they were talking about it. And today Lizard likes it on top of the sweathouse. He hugs his chest toward it repeatedly (with raising and lowering motion toward the sweathouse roof board). That’s why he likes it there, because it is warm. It is too bad for the lizards, that there are no more sweathouses. We never see lizards anymore in the Indian
rancherias;
they only live in rocky places now. They do not stay around the
rancherias
anymore.

There was this chief’s daughter. She was beautiful. Coyote was thinking: “This one is for me.” He was hanging around her tipi, he was courting her, but she would have nothing to do with him. What was to be done?

Now, at that long-ago time, the White Man had already come, but he was still only in a narrow strip along the eastern sea. Except for a few tribes living there, Indians had not yet seen their first White Men, and they knew nothing of the many new strange things they had brought. Now, Coyote knows everything that is going on long before anybody else. He senses what is going on far away. He can travel there in no time. So Coyote went there fast, in a magic way, to see what those White Men had brought. He went there and came back in a flash with four things no Indian had ever seen.

Back in the village, Coyote put up his tipi right next to the one in which the chief’s daughter lived. All night he made a great noise, drumming, rattling, pounding sticks together, howling.

The chief’s daughter heard it. She could not sleep. She told her sister-in-law: “Sister, go over there where they make this noise and make them stop.”

The sister-in-law went to Coyote’s tipi. She told him: “Stop that racket. Don’t you know people are sleeping here?”

“I can’t help it,” said Coyote. “I am making some wonderful new strange things, the kind no one has ever seen. Beautiful and useful things.”

“Why don’t you make these wonderful things during the day, when people are up and awake?”

“These things can be made only during the night.”

The sister-in-law went and told this to the chief’s daughter.

The next morning the chief’s daughter was thinking about this. She was curious. She said: “Sister-in-law, why don’t you go over there and bring this man and the wonderful thing he has made? I want to see what it is.”

The sister-in-law went there. She came back with Coyote. The chief’s daughter asked: “Well, where is the thing you made? I hope it is something worthwhile, worth the great noise you made.”

Then Coyote showed it to her. It was a bead choker made of the White Man’s wonderful colorful glass beads. The chief’s daughter had never seen anything so beautiful. Naturally she wanted to have it. “What do you want for this?” she asked.

“Nothing much, just a kiss, imaputake, kiss me,” said Coyote.

“Really, just one kiss?”

“Yes, just one.”

“Sister-in-law,” the chief’s daughter whispered, “do you think there is any harm in that?”

“No,” the sister-in-law answered. “What harm can there be in just one little kiss? I can’t imagine giving away such a valuable thing just for this.”

So the chief’s daughter gave Coyote a kiss, and he thanked her many times and went off. The chief’s daughter was very happy with what she had gotten and with what she had paid for it.

Now, the next night, Coyote was making a lot of noise again. In her tipi, the chief’s daughter was thinking: “I wonder what this man is making now!” In the morning she said: “Sister-in-law, I can’t wait to see what was made this night. Go over and bring Coyote to me, together with whatever he has made.”

The sister-in-law brought Coyote. “Let me see it,” said the chief’s daughter, “the thing I think you have fashioned last night.” Then Coyote showed it to her. It was an iron kettle for making soup. No one had ever seen the like of it. The chief’s daughter had never seen anything made of iron. It was so much better than cooking in a buffalo’s paunch.

“What do you want for this?” the chief’s daughter asked.

“Oh, well, nothing much. I just want to fondle one of your breasts. Only once and quickly.”

“Sister-in-law, what do you think?” the chief’s daughter whispered.