creation

the hero

Monsters
Herakles
Theseus
Perseus
The Trojan War and Achilles
After Troy
The Foundations of Rome
Krishna
The Arthurian Legend
Sigurd and Beowulf


goddesses

gods

tricksters

afterlife

love

Coyote and the Giant


Coyote

Coyote is among the most popular of all Native American mythological characters. He appears in the Southwest and West and on the central Plains in a wide range of roles, including that of creator, culture hero, trickster, sorceror and lover. Coyote's prominence as spirit and trickster reflects the nature of the coyote itself, a member of the dog family found from Alaska to Costa Rica. It is crafty and swift, an eats almost every kind of animal or plant. One of its tricks is to pretend to be dead in order to attract scavengers, which it then catches and eats. Coyote's cunning is well illustrated by the following Navajo myth.

Long ago the earth was roamed by giants who were especially fond of catching and eating little children. Coyote was crossing   a rocky place one day when he encountered one of the giants and decided to teach him a lesson for his cuelty. He persuaded the monster, who was very stupid, to help him build a lodge for a sweat-bath, claiming it would make him as agile as Coyote himself. When the dark interior had filled with steam, Coyote said he would perform a miracle by breaking his own leg and mending it again. He took a rock and pounded an unskinned leg of deer, which he had secretly pushed into the sweat-lodge, until it broke with a loud crack. The giant felt the broken leg and, completely fooled, listened as Coyote spat on it and chanted: "Leg, become whole!" The giant reached over, felt Coyote's real leg and was astonished to find it uninjured. Coyote offered to repeat the miracle on the giant's leg, and the monster agreed, screaming in pain as his companion started pounding it with the rock.

Soon the giant's leg broke and Coyote told him that to mend it all he had to do was spit on it. The giant spat until his mouth was dry, but the pain became no more bearable and the leg refused to mend. Eventually the giant begged for help. "Just keep spitting," said Coyote, reassuringly. Coyote then slipped out of the sweat-lodge, leaving the child-eater with his agony.