Trickster

2012-01-24T07:44:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys,

I apologize for how long it took me to make this blog. I hope that I canmake up for the post I missed with some interesting and hopefully sometimeshumorous information I come across in this course. I have never blogged before,so I am excited to give this a shot.

Last week, we talked about the trickstertales. I found these to be rather enjoyable and definitely far from what Iexpected. Before reading any of the tales, I figured they were some sort ofmorality plays used to instill children with a culture’s sense of morality.More specifically, I expected them to be rather light-hearted and childfriendly. Though for the most part they did deal with morals and warnings, thetrickster tales also included creation myths and several strange fecaladventures. My first reaction was easily, “Why tell your children tales throughthe use of loose-stooled coyote?” Out of interest, I researched what was meantin this context by trickster to maybe see if that could help me out.

After meandering around the web for sometime, I actually settled onto the trickster page of Wikipedia, everyone’sfavorite and entirely reliable source of information. The quick introduction onthe page says this:

In, and in the studyof folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normalrules and conventional behavior. It is suggested by Hansen (2001) that the term"Trickster" was probably first used in this context by Daniel G. Brinton

This actually raised some thoughts. In a few tales, thecoyote is a main character. He playsmany roles including the creator and trouble maker. In a way perhaps it seemsthat these trickster tales could be considered some type of religion, especiallywith the creation myths included. I mean, without attempting to offend anyone,is the Bible not some sort of story used to teach people the correct way tolive? However, in going this far with this idea I have to wonder about onething, and that is the treatment of the creator elsewhere in the trickstertales. It almost like, show a godcreating the earth…now show him trying to poop over a fallen buffalo. Thoughthis may take research for another day, I actually believe this is due to theNative American view of nature, and possibly a natural religion they somewhatfollow.

Well, thanks for reading. I will attempt to look further into this tomake up for last week’s post. Also, if you want to see more about the tricksteryou can look here.

So it seems I am having difficulty posting the quote from Wikipedia, just follow the link right above this, the quote is just the intro paragraph.