what is the trickster in native american literature

Who is the Trickster in Native American tales?

Trickster tale. Coyote is possibly the most widely known indigenous North American trickster. His tales are told by California, Southwest, Plateau, and Plains Indians. For Northwest Coast Indians, the trickster is Raven ( see Raven cycle ), Mink, or Blue Jay, while Spider fills the role in many Southwest Indian tales.

What is the role of the Trickster in mythology?

He is the patron of thieves and the inventor of lying, a gift he passed on to Autolycus, who in turn passed it on to Odysseus. In Slavic folktales, the trickster and the culture hero are often combined. Loki cuts the hair of the goddess Sif. Frequently the trickster figure exhibits gender and form variability.

What is a trickster According to Hyde?

Lewis Hyde describes the trickster as a "boundary-crosser". The trickster crosses and often breaks both physical and societal rules: Tricksters "violate principles of social and natural order, playfully disrupting normal life and then re-establishing it on a new basis." Often, this bending or breaking of rules takes the form of tricks or thievery.

What does the trickster represent?

Often the trickster serves as a transformer and culture hero who creates order out of chaos. He may teach humans the skills of survival, such as how to make fire, procreate, or catch or raise food, usually through negative examples that end with his utter failure to accomplish these tasks.

What is a trickster in literature?

In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story (god, goddess, spirit, human or anthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and defy conventional behavior.

What is the role of the trickster in indigenous cultures?

While Indigenous nations construct tricksters in their own ways, there are some cross-cultural similarities. Often considered cultural heroes, tricksters are credited with protecting (and in some cases, creating) human life. As their name suggests however, tricksters are also associated with rule-breaking.

What is the figure of the trickster in some indigenous narratives?

There are many tricksters in Indigenous stories! Many trickster stories have a coyote or raven as their trickster because they're usually considered to be clever creatures. Tricksters usually move easily between our world and the spirit world. They can appear as animals, humans or even rocks!

What is a trickster in Native American folklore?

The trickster is the embodiment of lawlessness and paradox. He is a divine buffoon, a hero who breaks taboos, a rebel, a coward, and a creator. Trickster helps establish social rules, and he deliberately flouts them. He is commonly depicted as deceitful and humorous.

What is an example of a trickster?

The Cheshire Cat is a good example of tricksters not always being villains — ultimately, he does more good than harm to Alice. He may be mischevious, but ultimately he teaches important lessons to Alice and us readers.

What are the three 3 Characteristics of trickster tales?

Three characteristics that are shown include anthropomorphism, negative qualities of the trickster, and helpfulness of the trickster, all in which will lead to the success of the trickster at the end of the tale. One technique commonly used in trickster tales is the use of anthropomorphism.

Why are Trickster Tales important to American literature?

Trickster stories were important because they taught morale rules and boundaries. The purposes of the stories were to teach the young certain lessons about life and how they should act.

Who is the most famous trickster?

Loki, the god of chaos, is perhaps one of the most famous examples of a Trickster character.

What are the characteristics of trickster narratives?

Trickster tales are short, imaginative narratives that usually use animals as the main characters to show wisdom. These stories were originally passed down through oral tradition and were eventually written down. Some trickster tales can also end with a lesson taught, or a moral.

What message does the trickster tale convey?

"Through these stories we visit with our ancestors as we receive and, in turn, pass on their wisdom through the millennia." Fables and trickster tales are short narratives that use animal characters with human features to convey folk wisdom and to help us understand human nature and human behavior.

What culture is known for telling trickster tales?

Trickster tales have been an important part of the Native American culture for hundreds of years. Trickster tales are an oral storytelling tradition and are continuously passed down from generation to generation of Native American Indians.

Who is the most famous trickster?

Loki, the god of chaos, is perhaps one of the most famous examples of a Trickster character.

Who are famous tricksters?

This April Fools' Day take a look at some famous literary tricksters we know and adore, and the tricks they played.Loki. Before Loki was Marvel's supervillain, he was known as the God of Mischief. ... Odysseus. ... The Joker and Harley Quinn. ... Tom Sawyer. ... Fred and George Weasley. ... Matilda. ... Brer Rabbit.

What are the six traits of a trickster?

Hynes and Doty, in Mythical Trickster Figures (1997) state that every trickster has several of the following six traits:fundamentally ambiguous and anomalous.deceiver and trick-player.shape-shifter or master of disguise.situation-inverter.messenger and imitator of the gods.sacred and lewd bricoleur.

What are the elements of a trickster tale?

Some of these elements are cleverness of a the trickster, helpfulness of a trickster, and gods, spirits, and the supernatural. These elements can be used to identify the tricksters, and show the ways tricksters trick others.

What is the story of the talking bulb and the trickster?

Native Americans would tell these tales orally to the children in their tribe. The trickster tales weren’t read from a book, they were told by and brought down from generation to generation.

What happens to the trickster at the end of the story?

As he goes on, the symptoms get worse until he can no longer stop defecating. The trickster ends up falling in a pile of his waste and cannot see so he goes around to trees and asks them to guide him to water. He cleans himself up and at the end of the tale it is said that he would have died if he didn’t find water.

Why did the Trickster decide to look into it?

He heard this multiple times and decided to look into it because it was a strange thing for someone to say. He immediately tells himself that he won’t defecate if he eats it. The Trickster went on to find that the source of the voice was a bulb.

What are Native American Trickster Tales?

Native American Trickster tales are told to children of the tribes orally and have morals and lessons within the tales to help teach its listeners how to behave and right from. Show More.

Where did the Winnebago Trickster come from?

According to the passage on page 35 of the Norton Anthropology American Literature Beginnings to 1865, Winnebago is a term that comes from Algonquian people . Trickster tales are very common among the Winnebago cultures and well known by many Native Americans.

What is the transformation of Tayo?

Tayo Transformation In Ceremony. In Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, transformation is portray ed as a way to heal Tayo’s inner demons. Within the novel, Tayo faces the horrific symptoms of PTSD, while trying to simultaneously assimilate to both Native American and white culture and therefore accept his true self.

What did Homer say about the stool he let fly?

This idea was then further elucidated in the words of Homer, “The stool he let fly hit the man’s shoulder. Odysseus only shook his head, as he walked on” (Homer 685). After Odysseus came up with the plan to sabotage them from the inside, he went to the suitors, where he asked for food -disguised as a beggar-. After asking for food, the haughty suitor Antinous, bashfully threw a stool, just to defend for that meager comment, “A pity you have more looks than hearts”. Although Odysseus could’ve ended his life right now and then, he waited patiently; That is the true format of self-control, holding one’s eager covets in the most crucial moments.

What is the Brer Rabbit?

The Brer Rabbit tales share many features of traditional African trickster stories: the trickster is an underdog, smaller in stature and strength than his opponents (thus gaining the audience’s sympathy) but much cleverer and always well in control of the situation.

What is a trickster story?

Trickster stories may be told for amusement as well as on serious or sacred occasions. Depending on the context, either a single tale or a series of interrelated stories might be told. The typical tale recounts a picaresque adventure: the trickster is “going along,” encounters a situation to which he responds with knavery, stupidity, gluttony, or guile (or, most often, some combination of these), and meets a violent or ludicrous end. Often the trickster serves as a transformer and culture hero who creates order out of chaos. He may teach humans the skills of survival, such as how to make fire, procreate, or catch or raise food, usually through negative examples that end with his utter failure to accomplish these tasks. Frequently, he is accompanied by a companion who either serves as a stooge or ultimately tricks the trickster.

What was the name of the trickster in the New World?

Over time, as Native Americans and enslaved Africans met and exchanged elements of culture, their separate Hare traditions produced a new trickster, Brer Rabbit.

What is the name of the fox that is known for his mischievous metamorphic abilities?

The Australian Aboriginal trickster Bamapana is known for his vulgar language, lustful behaviour, and delight in discord. Japan’s Kitsune is a trickster fox renowned for his mischievous metamorphic abilities. He is regarded in Shintō lore as the messenger who ensures that farmers pay their offerings to the rice god.

What is the African myth of the trickster?

In African traditions, particularly those involving the spider Anansi, the trickster often appears as a mythological figure and a rival of the sky god, tricking the god in one way or another.

What are some examples of tricksters?

North American trickster motifs generally combine moral lessons with humour. Examples include the false bridegroom, whose boasting exposes him as an impostor; the eye juggler, who plays ball with his eyes and finally loses them; contests between creatures with inimitable skills, as when Beaver invites Porcupine to swim and Porcupine invites Beaver to climb; and cases where guile ill-serves its perpetrator, as when Coyote tricks Skunk and eats him but neglects to anticipate the digestive effects of this scheme. Many indigenous North American trickster figures have been portrayed, or their influences depicted, in contemporary Native American literature by such writers as Paula Gunn Allen, Louise Erdrich, and N. Scott Momaday.

What is the role of the trickster-hero in the story?

Simultaneously an omniscient creator and an innocent fool, a malicious destroyer and a childlike prankster, the trickster-hero serves as a sort of folkloric scapegoat onto which are projected the fears, failures, and unattained ideals of the source culture.

How did the storyteller use repetition?

One adaptation frequently used by the storyteller was the repetition of incidents. The description of an incident would be repeated a specific number of times. The number of repetitions usually corresponded to the number associated with the sacred by the culture; whereas in Christian traditions, for instance, the sacred is most often counted in threes (for the Trinity), in Native American traditions the sacred is most often associated with groups of four (representing the cardinal directions and the deities associated with each) or seven (the cardinal directions and deities plus those of skyward, earthward, and centre). The hero would kill that number of monsters or that many brothers who had gone out on the same adventure. This type of repetition was very effective in oral communication, for it firmly inculcated the incident in the minds of the listeners—much in the same manner that repetition is used today in advertising. In addition, there was an aesthetic value to the rhythm gained from repetition and an even greater dramatic effect, for the listener knew that, when the right number of incidents had been told, some supernatural character would come to the aid of the hero, sometimes by singing to him. For this reason, oral literature is often difficult and boring to read. Oral literature also loses effect in transcription, because the reader, unlike the listener, is often unacquainted with the worldview, ethics, sociocultural setting, and personality traits of the people in whose culture the story was told and set.

How does mythology relate to culture?

The importance of mythology within a culture is reflected in the status of storytellers, the time assigned to this activity, and the relevance of mythology to ceremonialism. Mythology consists primarily of animal tales and stories of personal and social relationships; the actors and characters involved in these stories are also an index to the beliefs and customs of the people. For example, the Navajo ceremonials, like the chants, are based entirely on the characters and incidents in the mythology. The dancers make masks under strict ceremonial control, and, when they wear them to represent the gods, they absorb spiritual strength. The Aztec ceremonials and sacrifices are believed to placate the gods who are the heroes of the mythology.

Why are folktales important to Native Americans?

Folktales have been a part of the social and cultural life of American Indian and Eskimo peoples regardless of whether they were sedentary agriculturists or nomadic hunters. As they gathered around a fire at night, Native Americans could be transported to another world through the talent of a good storyteller. The effect was derived not only from the novelty of the tale itself but also from the imaginative skill of the narrator, who often added gestures and songs and occasionally adapted a particular tale to suit a certain culture.

What is the difference between a folktale and a myth?

The terms myth and folktale in American Indian oral literature are used interchangeably, because in the Native American view the difference between the two is a matter of time rather than content. If the incidents related happened at a time when the world had not yet assumed its present form, the story may be regarded as a myth; however, even if the same characters appear in the “modern” present, it is considered a folktale. Whereas European fairy tales traditionally begin with the vague allusion “once upon a time,” the American Indian myth often starts with “before the people came” or “when Coyote was a man.” To the Eskimo, it is insignificant whether an incident occurred yesterday or 50 years ago—it is past.

What are the three major regions of Indian mythology?

American Indian mythology can be divided into three major cultural regions: North American cultures (from the Eskimos to the Indians along the Mexican border), Central and South American urban cultures, and Caribbean and South American hunting-and-gathering and farming cultures . Though each region exhibits a wide range of development, there are recurrent themes among the cultures, and within each culture the importance of mythology itself varies. In North America, for example, each tale can usually stand alone, although many stories share a cast of characters; in contrast, stories developed in the urban cultures of Central America and South America resemble the complicated mythologies of ancient Greece and are quite confusing with their many sexual liaisons, hybrid monsters, and giants. In North America many mythologies (such as “ the Dreaming ” of the Australian Aborigines) deal with a period in the distant past in which the world was different and people could not be distinguished from animals. These mythologies are related to the concept that all animals have souls or spirits that give them supernatural power. Because humans have subsequently been differentiated from the animals, the animals appear in visions, and in stories they help the hero out of trouble. When there are many tales involving a single character—such as Raven, Coyote, or Manabozho—the transcriptions are linked together today and called cycles ( see e.g., Raven cycle ). The body of American Indian folklore does not include riddles as found in African folklore, for example, nor does it include proverbs, though there are tales with morals attached.

Why is oral literature so difficult to read?

Oral literature also loses effect in transcription, because the reader, unlike the listener, is often unacquainted with the worldview, ethics, sociocultural setting, and personality traits of the people in whose culture the story was told and set.

Why do animals appear in myths?

Because humans have subsequently been differentiated from the animals, the animals appear in visions, and in stories they help the hero out of trouble.

What is the first fish weir?

In Native American creation stories, when Coyote teaches humans how to catch salmon, he makes the first fish weir out of logs and branches. Wakdjunga in Winnebago mythology is an example of the trickster archetype.

What is the difference between Native American tricksters and Picaro?

One of the most important distinctions is that "we can see in the Native American trickster an openness to life's multiplicity and paradoxes largely missing in the modern Euro-American moral tradition".

What is the role of a coyote in mythology?

Coyote. Main article: Coyote (mythology) Coyote often has the role of trickster as well as a clown in traditional stories. The Coyote mythos is one of the most popular among western Native American cultures, especially among indigenous peoples of California and the Great Basin .

What is the Trickster subplot in The Relapse?

Trickster subplot in The Relapse: Tom Fashion, pretending to be Lord Foppington, parleys with Sir Tunbelly Clumsey in a 19th-century illustration by William Powell Frith. Abenaki mythology: Azeban. African mythology: Ekwensu. Afro-Cuban mythology: Eleggua, Eshu.

What is an example of a Jungian archetype?

The trickster or clown is an example of a Jungian archetype.

What is the meaning of the term "trickers"?

The trickster crosses and often breaks both physical and societal rules: Tricksters "violate principles of social and natural order, playfully disrupting normal life and then re-establishing it on a new basis."

Why did humans have tricksters?

Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacred ceremonies for fear that they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth. Native American tricksters should not be confused with the European fictional picaro.

What is a trickster figure?

Trickster figures exist in open defiance of the established order, represented by the other gods of the pantheon, or the laws of mortals— and, they typically combine this open defiance with the powers and intelligence necessary to be able to get away with it.

What is the name of the trickster in Native American folklore?

Also from Native American folklore, this time from the tradition of the Lakota tribe in particular, is Iktomi, a Trickster figure every bit as complex as Coyote. Most commonly portrayed as a spider, Iktomi is also indicated to have the shape-changing abilities so common among various Tricksters.

What does a trickster represent?

In general, whether depicted as heroic or villainous, a Trickster can be taken as representing a direct defiance of the natural order—and, of normal rules and conventional behavior —sometimes, to the benefit of both himself and the culture as a whole, and sometimes to his own detriment.

What is Anansi's role in the mythology?

And, like Iktomi, and indeed all other Trickster figures that can be identified, Anansi is usually portrayed as a figure of mischief, as likely to help as hinder anyone who comes across him. These are only some examples of the various Trickster figures that can be identified in the mythology and folklore of various cultures throughout history.

Where did the Trickster come from?

Another well-recognized Trickster figure comes from Norse mythology, in the form of Loki—ultimately, a direct example of the Trickster figure as a villain. Like with many Trickster figures, many early stories focused on Loki showing him to be an intelligent figure, prone to pranks and general mischief, though still ultimately likely ...

Who is the Trickster in the Coyote in a Canoe?

'Coyote in a Canoe', F. N. Wilson, 1915. The Trickster, a figure who relies heavily on guile and trickery to get what they want, is a frequent feature in the mythology of a wide variety of different cultures. Some-times cast as the hero of their particular tale, and sometimes taking on ...

Is Coyote a hero?

As a mythological figure, and as is standard with Trickster figures in particular, Coyote's position is somewhat difficult to define. Sometimes described as a hero, such as in this retelling of a story from the Chinook tribe, where Coyote comes to the defense of the animal people against the monstrous beaver Wishpoosh.

What is a Trickster?

A Trickster is a character who uses wits, rather than strength or authority, to accomplish his goals. Like heroes, Tricksters usually come out of their adventures unscathed, having won the prize they desired and upset the regular social order in a way that will cause lasting effects for the people around them. Unlike heroes, Tricksters are usually morally questionable. They may lie, cheat, or steal to get what they want, and their ends don’t justify their means. These slippery characters don’t set out to save the world. They set out to get what they want.

Why is Loki so famous?

Loki is famous for his dangerous charisma (especially with women) and his wicked sense of humor. Using his smooth way with words, he ingratiates himself with one powerful woman after another, only to set her heart against people he doesn’t like. In one story, an angry giantess threatens to destroy all of Asgard unless the gods can make her laugh. Of course, the gods elect Loki to sooth the giantess’s wrath, which he does successfully.

Why was Anansi important to the slave trade?

As the slave trade funneled people of African descent into foreign lands, where they were oppressed by cruel authority figures, Anansi’s fame spread. He became a powerful symbol of hope to slaves in the Caribbean nations and in the southern United States. They were encouraged by Anansi’s craftiness and his ability to get the better of stronger, loftier characters. The Trickster’s famous word-craft might even have inspired slaves to begin hiding secret messages in songs and folk tales, a brilliant decision that led to the escape of hundreds of slaves.

What is the monkey king?

The crafty King was born with incredible intelligence, which allowed him to master a deck of magical tricks, including shape-shifting into 72 images and somersaulting across the clouds. Eventually, he grew so powerful that he began getting into scuffles with the Jade Emperor, the lord of heaven itself. None of heaven’s warriors could lay a finger on the Monkey King.

What are the special abilities of a trickster?

Special Abilities. Tricksters are, of course, well known for their scheming brains. Outsmarting one of these characters is next to impossible, but brains aren’t the only weapon in their arsenal. They are masters of disguise.

What are tricksters? What are their characteristics?

Tricksters come in all forms, shapes, and sizes. They can be men, gods, magical creatures, or animals, as the qualities that unite them come from their personality, not their physical appearance.#N#Still, there are some norms about the appearance of these social deviants. They are usually male characters, a little bit on the small side but attractive nevertheless. What they lack in brawn, they make up for with their agility and their expressive faces. When animals appear as Tricksters, they are usually small predators like foxes or coyotes.

Why is Trickster important?

One of the Trickster’s most important roles is to undermine authority. These clever characters love to break rules and make leaders or social norms look silly. In doing so, they may give more serious social reformers the courage to step forward.

Overview

In Native American tradition

While the trickster crosses various cultural traditions, there are significant differences between tricksters in the traditions of different parts of the world:
Many native traditions held clowns and tricksters as essential to any contact with the sacred. People could not pray until they had laughed, because laughter opens and frees from rigid preconception. Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacred ceremonies for fear that t…

Mythology

Trickster or clown

In oral stories

In literature and popular culture

In Internet and multimedia studies

See also