Reading Notes: Apache Tales, Part B

Coyote Steals A Man's Wife

This story was almost laughable in its simplicity! I loved it. In fact, we understand the story's namesake after just two quick sentences. Sure enough, a man at a camp was stranded on a rock, and the coyote leaves with his wife! The man eventually gets down, looks for them across the course of several camps, and encounters his wife while coyote is out hunting. He feeds coyote several stones, coyote dies, and then the man and hie wife continue on with their lives. So bizarre!
One component of this story is that the author simply adds his audience into the middle of a narrative. There is not really an introduction or a conclusion, but simply the explanation of part of a story, and that is all the picture that we get.
Another component that I could use in my own storytelling is this: something occurring to a character which they find harmless, but over the course of time, it has terrible effects. The best example that I can think of is a frog in a pot of water. If the temperature is gradually turned up over an extended period of time, the frog will not notice. Eventually, the water will be boiling and the frog will die. In the same way, the coyote eats a series of stones which the man gives him, and he thinks that they are harmless. However, over the course of time, these eventually kill him!

Coyote and Porcupine

This is a terrible, gruesome story with a shocking amount of deception and killing for being so short! First, a porcupine convinces a buffalo to carry him across the river, and the porcupine kills him in the process. Then, the coyote encounters the porcupine and the two search for some flint to gut the buffalo. The porcupine unfairly steals some of the food, so the coyote kills him on several separate occasions, but he continues to survive. When coyote goes to fetch his children to feed them from the buffalo, the porcupine escapes with all the meat. In another sequence of trickery, he manages to kill the coyote and his entire family when they return for their food!
My own storytelling could utilize this plot, but perhaps in a more relevant sense. Maybe in some sort of gang war? I am afraid it would be a very dark story, but then again, the original is pretty dark. If this were related to a modern setting with gangs and drugs, I actually feel as if the plot could be somewhat realistic. One member could trick another into giving him a ride, then deceiving him by killing him (or maybe destroying his car?). This would be reminiscent of the buffalo scene. Or perhaps he kills the driver, and then the rest of the scene involves who gets the car? This would resemble the argument over the buffalo. And in fact, different people are actually after the car because of the drugs hidden inside.

Bibliography:
"Jicarilla Apache Texts: Coyote Steals A Man's Wife" by Pliny Goddard: online link
"Jicarilla Apache Texts: Coyote And Porcupine" by Pliny Goddard: online link

Image Information: A coyote on a shoreline.
Image link: Wikimedia