![]() ![]() “Now you didn’t think I was going to keep this, did you? Naah, I was just having a little fun…” “Hey, Jackie and Blackie!” he called, looking smug over his creative prowess. This Coyote greets visitors at our front door.Ĭoyote saw us and waved. “Your thing is as good as returned to you.” “There’s the little shitball (!!) now,” Black Body said. Ultimately, with the assistance of one of the aforementioned gods, Black Body, Jack catches up to Coyote, who is having trouble staying on the bike. But true to form, Coyote suddenly winks out-with Jack’s bike in tow. The tour through Navajo mythology commences in the next chapter, with Coyote performing some tricks that are actually part of Navajo myth. “Lead on, MacDuff,” I said, which made him scratch his fuzzy head. Okay, why not? The guy didn’t seem that bad, and I could always keep an eye on him. We don’t get many visitors here, and showing you around will be a nice change of pace. ![]() Being a trickster is fun, but it can get boring sometimes, too. Jeez, those were nasty teeth! “So, my notoriety precedes me. “Just wondering what this was going to cost me.” In other words, to the Navajo he was a royal pain-in-the-ass. If there was a used-car lot in the Fourth World, Coyote would be out there wearing a smile and a plaid sport coat and writing the deals. He was more a troublemaker, a trickster, a real mamser. Oh, he wasn’t a monster or anything like that he wasn’t going to suck out your brains or do Nazi-style surgery on you or your children. This was Coyote, and in Navajo legend he didn’t have the best reputation. “Anyway,” Coyote said, “I give a pretty good tour. So after the coyote suddenly reappears, scaring the crap out of Jack, he offers to show our hero around. Suffice to say, I’m currently re-reading the series and am into Book Ten, titled-appropriately- Coyote Waits. I’ll write a post-or two-about this series at a future date. In addition to solving the crimes, Hillerman offers remarkable insights into this tribe’s fascinating culture. Prior to his death in 2008, Hillerman wrote an outstanding series of mysteries featuring Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, both of whom work for the Navajo Tribal Police. But what motivated me to write about this? That’s easy: Tony Hillerman. I’ll present some of those scenes shortly. It was weird, to say the least but weird was commonplace now, wasn’t it?Īs Jack contemplates his unusual but compelling surroundings, the coyote returns, and our traveler is about to get a grand tour not only of the Fourth World, but of Navajo mythology in general. It happened so fast that I’m not sure if he winked out, faded away, dissolved, or what. I’ll catch up in a while.”īut he was gone, just like that. “Oh bother!” the coyote suddenly exclaimed. I spun around and found myself face to face with a grinning coyote, who stood on his hind legs. Preoccupied as I was, the voice nearly sent me jumping out of my bike shoes. “Something will have to be done about separating the blue and the black and putting order into this chaos.” “Looks really odd, doesn’t it?” a raspy voice from behind me said. As he gazes around him at the oddly colored landscape, he is startled by a voice. ![]() Chapter 22 finds him in the Fourth World of the Navajo (we are in the Fifth World), bemused as ever. In my 1991 satirical science fiction novel, Bicycling Through Space and Time, my character, Jack Miller, rides his alien-enhanced mountain bike into the darnedest places. In some stories, he can induce others to perform nasty deeds.Ĭoyote is especially prominent in the Navajo culture. He could fight monsters, or be the monster himself and bring harm to people. (In my horror novel, The Modoc Well, my nasty demon does exactly that, first raping and then-after changing back to his demon form-killing his female victims.)Ĭoyote can be noble, or he can be mean. He might appear as other animals, or even as a handsome young man, prone to seducing unsuspecting young women. ![]() While most representations of Coyote show him as an actual coyote-often standing upright-he is said to be a shape-shifter. In the latter guise, he may begin by entertaining folks but ultimately tricking them and stealing their stuff. In the Creation stories of some tribes he represents the Creator himself, but for the most part Coyote is known as a messenger, a trickster, or a clown. The Coyote myth is well known in many Native American cultures, especially out here in the western U.S. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |