WEBVTT - Ep. 04: Old Man America 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.920 When Native people cast about for an American animal to 0:00:04.960 --> 0:00:11.960 carry their creation stories, the intelligent survivor coyote became Deity. Coyote, 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:15.600 an avatar for humans who taught them about human nature 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.720 for thousands of years. I'm Dan Flores, and this is 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:24.520 the American West, brought to you by velvet Buck. Still 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:27.960 in barrel, Velvet Buck arrives this summer just in time 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:31.080 for the season that calls us home. A portion of 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:35.839 every bottle supports backcountry hunters and anglers to protect public lands, 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:59.000 waters and wildlife enjoy responsibly. Old Man America in the 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:03.000 remotest time of early North America, after he had molded 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:06.800 mud from the ocean bottom into mountains, plains, and forests 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:11.000 to create the essential topography of the continent, Coyote was 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:15.640 going along. He had placed stars in the sky, some 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.680 as pictures, some as a latticed road across the night. 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:24.200 Some tossed willy nilly into the inky black. He had 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.880 arranged the year into four seasons, and he had populated 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:32.360 the world with humans as the special helper of the Creator, 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:36.080 who seemed not especially interested in any of this hands 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:41.000 on creation work himself. Coyote had killed monster after monster 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:43.880 on behalf of his human charges, who he had then 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:48.600 located in good monster free spots across America. He had 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:52.640 released animals like buffalo from underground, and admittedly with a 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:56.480 few unlucky mistakes, had placed salmon and other fish and 0:01:56.560 --> 0:02:00.080 many of the rivers. He had invented penises and z 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:02.560 giinas and taught humans what to do with them, and 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:06.760 he created a sexual division of labor among men and women. 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:12.440 The first technology in the form of fire, came from Coyote. Then, 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:17.919 not without some remorse, he had introduced death to the world. Now, 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:21.760 with all these fundamental creations in place, Coyote had no 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:25.560 intention of stepping into the background or hiding himself. He 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:41.200 wanted to enjoy how much humans appreciated his creativity. One morning, 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.840 Coyote was going along and spotted a handsome young warrior 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:47.760 who told Coyote he was embarking on a journey of 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:52.400 war against his enemies. Although Coyote was actually a peaceful 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:54.840 sword who thought war and battles to the death were 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:58.079 very bad ideas, he told his new companion that he 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:01.720 was a famous warrior and would be indispensable on the quest. 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:05.359 That first night, the warrior said they would camp at 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:09.840 a place called scalped Man by the fire. Coyote did 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:12.760 not like the sound of that. At the camp, Kyote 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:15.840 relaxed while the warrior cooked and did all the chores. 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:19.440 Then Coyote took the best pieces of the meal for himself, 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:22.799 even laying extra meat over his chest and legs in 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:26.320 case he woke hungry in the night. Sometime in the night, 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:29.320 Coyote heard a sound, and when he looked, there was 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:32.640 scalp man standing over him. Quick as he could, he 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:36.280 swung his club, but somehow what he hit was his knee, 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:40.200 which caused him to yowl in pain, waking the warrior. 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:44.080 I have taken care of Scalpman, Coyote told him, and 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.760 they went back to sleep. Having clubbed his own knee, 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:50.839 Coyote leapt through much of the next day, but made 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:54.840 it okay to a camp called cooked meat flying all around. 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:58.960 But when Coyote heard the warrior described the next night's 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:02.840 camp where the the arrows fly around, his knee suddenly 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:06.720 took a turn for the worse. Coyote lagged far behind 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:10.000 that next day, hoping for a camp somewhere else, but 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:13.920 the warrior led them on that night. Arrows began to 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:17.680 fly from every direction. The warrior stood and caught one 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:21.479 after another, while Coyote twisted and twirled and crawled on 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:25.239 the ground, trying to avoid them, until one arrow grazed 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:29.520 his arm. I've been killed, Coyote shouted, But when the 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.120 warrior pulled him to his feet and he found himself 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:36.360 still alive, Coyote asserted that actually his hurt knee had 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:38.960 caused him to fall asleep, and he had been dreaming. 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:42.560 The next night, their camp was at a place called 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:46.400 where the women visit the men. This place sounded like 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:50.560 an excellent camp to Coyote. His knee improved so remarkably 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:53.440 that day that he got far ahead on their march. 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:57.240 That night, a woman did come to Coyote, but in 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:01.360 the darkness he believed her to be old. Hoping much 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:05.120 younger women would arrive, he sent her away, only to 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.480 see in the firelight as she turned away that in 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:12.039 fact she was young and very beautiful. Coyote cried out 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:14.520 for her to return, telling her it had been some 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:17.760 spirit who had told her to leave, but she vanished 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:21.880 into the night. The camp following this one was called 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.920 war Clubs. Flying around all that day Coyote's knee hurt 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:28.560 so much that he was barely able to arrive at 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:32.640 the spot sure enough that night, clubs twirled at them 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:36.360 from every direction. The warrior caught to one for each 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.520 of them, but Coyote dodged and weaved so much that 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.400 a club finally beamed him. When he came to, Coyote 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:46.440 told the warrior that in his boredom, he had actually 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:49.320 just fallen asleep. That's why he had been lying so 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:53.400 flat and still. Then the warrior told Coyote that their 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.800 next camp was to be at a place called Vagina's 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:00.760 Flying around, Coyote's knee at once felt into entirely well, 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:03.960 and he was ready to depart then and there. He 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:08.240 pleaded for more details, but the warrior fell asleep. Coyote 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.000 sat by the fire all night, thinking of vaginas and 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:12.919 how many he might be able to carry with it. 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:16.880 His knee now stronger than had ever been in his life, 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.520 Coyote left early and ranged far ahead the next day. 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:24.880 That night, as promised, vaginas began to sail into camp, 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:27.880 and Coyote could tell they were just the kind he liked, 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:31.599 Young and plump. For most of the night, juicy vaginas 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:35.480 whizzed maddeningly out of reach, with Coyote flailing and chasing 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:39.600 and panning until he was near collapsed. Finally, near dawn, 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:43.240 Coyote caught one, but exhausted as he was when he 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:47.920 finally pinned it and mounted it, Coyote's organ resolutely refused 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:51.680 to rise to the occasion. The next night was their 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:55.400 final camp, and the warrior told Coyote this one was 0:06:55.480 --> 0:07:00.400 called where the enemy attacks without delay. Coyote his knee 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.400 began to throb, and all day long he hung back 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.840 on the trail, crying piteously, and sure enough, when the 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:11.040 next morning came, enemies attacked from all sides. Coyote at 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:17.160 once ran for far horizons, but was overtaken, clubbed, and scouted. Meanwhile, 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:22.160 the warriors subdued all his enemies, then looked for Coyote. 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:25.760 When he knew all was clear, Coyote stood and announced 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.280 that he was going along now, but the warriors should 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:32.320 consider himself lucky that he had happened upon Coyote, otherwise 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:34.960 he would have had to engage in this adventure with 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:46.920 no help at all. From a famous warrior. Stories about Coyote, 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:51.120 often called Old Man coyote and rarely, although they are 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:55.160 present in the Cannon. Stories about old Woman coyote are 0:07:55.200 --> 0:08:00.320 the oldest preserved human stories from North America. Both is 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:04.520 that coyote spelled with upper case a capital see to 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:08.320 distinguish the deity version from the ordinary coyote trotting by 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:13.920 while you read is America's oldest surviving literary figure. He 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.360 is also the most ancient god figure of which we 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:21.800 have record from the continent. When Siberian hunters first started 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:25.840 boting down the coastlines are crossing Beringia, at some point 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:29.880 in their entry of northwestern America, they began to encounter coyotes. 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:33.040 Wolves they knew from Asia and well enough that at 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:36.000 some point in their migration, these first Americans arrived with 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:41.000 domesticated ones, wolf like dogs whose wild ancestors in those 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.640 times were recent. But by the time of the Clovis 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:48.000 people at least, who spread to America more than thirteen 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:54.920 thousand years ago, continental coyotes were familiar creatures. Intriguingly, something 0:08:54.960 --> 0:09:01.119 about coyotes captured the imaginations of these first Americans. Religious 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:05.079 explanations for the world and how it works are untold, thousands, 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:10.000 maybe millions of years old, so these former Siberians arrived 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:14.199 with intact religions and deities. But as these first human 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.960 residents settled in from California to the Mississippi River, from 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:22.600 the Pacific northwest to future New Mexico and Arizona, Coyote 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:27.000 emerged as the deity of the ancient Contina. No one 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.440 knows when this happened or exactly how coyote came to 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:34.600 embody so many different people's creation stories and ruminations on 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:39.040 human nature. All we know now, based on the oral 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:43.079 coyote stories collected among American Indians and set down by 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:47.640 nineteenth and twentieth century ethnographers and folklores, is that there 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:52.240 were thousands of coyote tales. No other native deity in 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:55.960 America came anywhere close to producing a body of oral 0:09:56.000 --> 0:10:00.600 literature to rival them. The story here about Coote and 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.840 his knee, although written in my own voice, in its 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:07.840 original form, was collected from the Wichitas of the southern plains, 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:12.240 But the opening paragraph of this episode I distilled from 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:16.040 several groups from all over the West, the Navajos in 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:19.800 the southwest, the Crows on the northern plains, the Kurrak, 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:23.480 and wasco in California, the Monomonee of the Great Lakes, 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:27.000 the Coalville and Klamath of the Pacific Northwest, and the 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:31.760 Salish in Blackfeet from the northern Rockies. For almost all 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:35.040 of the past ten thousand years west of the Mississippi River, 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:40.400 coyote has been America's universal deity. Originally, he was a 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:45.240 Paleolithic god, but he survived the millennia to appear among 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:50.600 agricultural peoples like the Wichitas. Ultimately, his fame reached as 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:55.559 far south as the Aztecs, who knew him as Wayway Coyotal. 0:10:56.600 --> 0:11:09.720 Old Man Coyote truly is Old Man America. The history 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:13.199 of coyotes and the history of humans has many parallels, 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.600 but one difference between us is that across our own 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:21.160 evolutionary history, we humans have created thousands of philosophies of 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:25.320 meaning we call religions, while coyotes, so far as we 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:30.760 can tell, embrace no religious tradition beyond life the sacredness 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:34.720 of existence. In so far as we go, our oldest 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.920 forms of religious explanations featured animals as deities, a type 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:42.960 of religion called animism that was fashioned by humans living 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:47.280 their lives as hunters or hunter gatherers, what we might 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:54.280 call Coyotism is certainly a paleolithic religion. The famed psychologist 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:57.719 Carl Jung is only one of hundreds, from scientists to 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:02.920 poets who have found coyote enduringly fascinating, in part because 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:07.480 of how fundamental he is in human thought. In Jung's view, 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:11.920 the character of coyote is a faithful copy of an 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:18.719 absolutely undifferentiated human consciousness, a forerunner of the Savior, and 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:23.760 like him god, man and animal at once, he is 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:33.560 both subhuman and superhuman, a bestial and divine being. The 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:39.080 Western religious traditions of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity sprang from 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:43.680 later periods of human history, following our domestication of plants 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:50.520 and animals, what anthropologists called the Neolithic Revolution. Early religions 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:54.840 could feature animals, particularly the sacred bull, as deities, but 0:12:55.040 --> 0:13:00.559 over time, hurting and agricultural cultures gradually replaced animal gods 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:04.680 along with gods of special places on the landscape, another 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:10.320 feature of animism with deities that assumed human form. The 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.600 Greek gods, who are so foundational in Western cultures, are 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:18.000 classical examples of this evolution. Four thousand years ago, the 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:21.800 Greeks replaced animal and plant deities with gods and goddesses 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:26.560 in human form, Artemis, who became a mistress of the 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:30.680 animals as a goddess of the hunt, and Demater, who 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.840 evolved into a human form goddess of wheat and crops. 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:39.719 One of the most intriguing questions about coyote is simply this, 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:43.160 Why did the ancient settlers of North America pick this 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:47.160 particular animal as their deity? Ten thousand years and more 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:49.679 in the past, the first Americans would have had many 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:55.120 scores of animal candidates for their deity figures. Charismatic creatures 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:59.120 like mammos or dire wolves or saber toothed cats might 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:02.439 seem to us more likely choices, and in the early 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:06.320 stages of human settlement, perhaps they had been gods. My 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:09.760 own speculation is that as the Wisconsin I says, gave 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:13.439 way to a rapidly warming world, joined at the same 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:18.160 time by the great simplification event known as the Pleistocene extinctions, 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:21.800 which took all three of my suggested species and many others. 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:27.240 The wild coyotes around Indian peoples of the time fascinated 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:32.480 them as creatures endowed with special abilities. I suspect that 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:36.640 it was the coyotes self evident ability to survive those 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:41.280 profound changes when the big charismatic species could not that 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:46.120 attracted human attention. There probably was also an easy identification 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:50.040 with the social lives of predatory wild coyotes that made 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:56.360 them feel familiar to human hunters. In his book Pueblo 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:02.080 Gods and Myths, anthropologists Hamilton Tyler writes that the ability 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:05.120 of an animal to become a god is in part 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:09.120 due to his symbolic potential, which is to say, the 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:12.600 number of ideas he can stand. For a god, even 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.960 the simplest god, is based upon a certain amount of 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:22.160 abstraction in the human mind. Another anthropologist, Lewis Hyde, believes 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:26.760 that coyote stories point to coyotes to teach about the mind. 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:31.240 The stories themselves look to predator pray relationships for the 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:35.200 birth of cunning. How it goes on, One reason native 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:38.680 observers may have chosen coyote is that the former in 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.760 fact does exhibit a great plasticity of behavior and is 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:48.800 therefore a consummate survivor in a shifting world, especially before 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:52.560 our lives in cities which obscured our deep dependency on 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:56.920 nature and diverted our powers of observation. We humans were 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:01.520 profound observers of the natural world. These early Americans would 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:04.400 not have failed to notice one other characteristic of wild 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:08.640 coyotes in a dangerous and changing world, that the secret 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:12.880 of their uncanny ability to survive everything nature through at 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:17.840 them lay in a remarkable intelligence, the kind of trickster 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:21.840 figures that hide mentions make up a very old human 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:26.200 religious figure found in many animistic religions around the world 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:31.240 in the form of many creatures hairs, spiders, blue jays, ravens, 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:36.280 even human figures like the Norse trickster Loki. But here 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.520 in America, the coyote took up the mantle of a 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:43.200 god who lived by his wits. Having a smart god, 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:47.840 after all, was crucial to survival also to our understanding 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:57.440 of human nature in the animal within. In early American mythology, 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:02.920 coyote is almost never the ultimate cause God. More often, 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:06.000 as in the coyote stories from people like the Salish 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:11.000 and the Nespers, he's an immortal helper deity, semi divine 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:15.359 and present and engaged in earthly life. Most often in 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:20.359 the stories, coyote inhabits the world before humankind. Sometimes his 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:23.159 initial form is human, which he gives up for his 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:27.280 coyote body once humans are present. In stories that are 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:31.640 set following the creation, however, coyote is commonly a kind 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:35.919 of an anthropomorphic animal, a coyote man. He preserves a 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:38.720 tale and a sharp muzzle and erect ears, but he 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:41.880 stands and walks upright, has a wife and a family, 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.600 and is capable of shape shifting into a form so 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:49.360 human like that often the other characters in a story 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:53.679 only suspect by his behavior that they are dealing with 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:58.119 Coyote himself. It does not take very much time or 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.359 analytical effort with the coyote s tales to draw a 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:05.359 conclusion about who Coyote really is, and that realization is 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:09.800 what makes him so intriguing. As a god. Coyote is 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:15.320 the god within his mythical function in the beginning is creation. 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:19.200 Coyote takes the basic structure of the world as set 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:22.600 in motion by the Creator, then improves on it and 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:26.800 gives it the natural laws that make it work that done. 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.960 His larger purpose in the many oral stories about him 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:34.399 is to reveal human nature more clearly and rather than 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:39.400 a perfect deity, Jung's savior figure a Jesus who teaches 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:42.880 a codified morality and is set up as a role 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:49.000 model for humans. Coyote personifies the full suite of humanity's traits, 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:54.840 good and bad. As a character, Coyote is the full Monty. 0:18:55.359 --> 0:19:01.840 He's at once admirable, inspirational, imaginative, inner, energetic, a whirlwind 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:06.160 biophysical force with a large capacity for taking sensuous pleasure 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:12.000 in life. But he's also selfish, vain, deceitful, and quite 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:17.560 often envious, lustful, and ridiculous, possessed of an overconfidence that 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:22.880 gets him into endless fixes. Coyote's major flaw, resulting from 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:25.760 a combination of all of his human traits, is that 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:31.639 he finds cause, sometimes admirably, sometimes laughably, never to be 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:36.080 quite satisfied with the world, And because he is invariably 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:40.520 unable to predict consequences with any accuracy, his tinkering with 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:44.760 the world can produce disaster, especially and this is a 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:48.360 major theme in so many of the stories for Coyote himself. 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:56.159 Coyote is almost universally referred to as a trickster. But 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:59.760 after reading many scores of Native Coyote stories, I've begun 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:03.080 to think think we've been missing the point. While there 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:07.520 are certainly stories that feature tricks, the foolly is actually 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:11.000 just a means to an end. Again and again, the 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:14.560 point is not the trick. The point is why the 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:18.639 trick works, and invariably the reason is a result of 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:23.040 the foibles of human nature. These stories survive for thousands 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:27.560 of years because there's such penetrating exposees of the human condition. 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:31.840 Coyote was at his best when he taught lessons, almost 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:36.400 always uncomfortable or funny, ones about human behavior and motives. 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:43.640 As North America's oldest surviving deity, Coyote has bequeathed us 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:49.719 a continental world of imagination, creation, artistry, also hubrious and trouble, 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:53.720 it's difficult not to see the Coyote impulse writ large 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:57.439 in humanity. In deed, to my mind, therein lies a 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:02.040 test for stories about old men America, given what we 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:07.440 now know about ourselves using the modern tools of evolutionary 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:12.720 psychology and neuroscience. Looking at these ancient stories with twenty 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:17.480 first century insight, what can we say about how accurately 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:22.640 they show that people living thousands of years ago understood 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:26.120 as well as we do today exactly who we humans are. 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:31.440 The acquisition of status in games of romance and love, 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:38.520 experiential jolts to enhance neurochemistry and mood states a mind 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:43.879 conflicted over sin and virtue. For the long ago Americans 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:47.800 who selected wild coyotes as a suitable avatar for their 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:51.520 earthly deity, then worked out so many stories about him. 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:55.200 What better subjects for the adventures of their coyote god 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:59.359 than these, No doubt, Over the centuries, storytellers of Mark 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:03.720 Twain like Brilliance dazzled audiences laid into the night with 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:09.080 the many astounding adventures of Coyote, and romanticize their people's 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:14.240 trajectory through time. Coyote often operates as the very god 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:18.760 of Richard Dawkins's selfish gene, in which form his character 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:23.600 is usually that of a self absorbed buffoon. The stories 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:27.720 are that holds up such behavior and plain view. For 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:34.119 comic ridicule, Coyote stories were wildly entertaining. It was still 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:38.760 is perversely pleasurable to observe a character who so blithely 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:44.160 ignores rules and restrictions, usually with predictable results. Although benefits 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:47.680 from rule breaking happen often enough with Coyote to keep 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:53.280 things interesting, but a moral code it's rarely there, nor 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:57.960 are there promises of eternal life salvation from death, that 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:02.920 ancient and oppressive burden of our self awareness. What Old 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:07.960 Man America teaches us instead is delight in being alive 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:13.879 in a world of wondrous possibilities. Coyotism is a philosophy 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:17.280 for the realists among us, those who can do a 0:23:17.400 --> 0:23:21.679 Cormac McCarthy like appraisal of human motives but find a 0:23:21.800 --> 0:23:25.520 kind of chagrined humor in the act, who may think 0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:30.359 of the human story as cyclical, even predictable, because human 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:43.040 nature never seems to change. These ancient stories from across 0:23:43.080 --> 0:23:47.080 Western America lay death for all of us directly on 0:23:47.200 --> 0:23:53.320 Coyote's doorstep, and story after story, it is Coyote who decreed, 0:23:53.840 --> 0:23:58.600 for two admittedly rather admirable reasons, that all human beings 0:23:58.640 --> 0:24:02.800 would have to die if humans never died. Coyote reason 0:24:03.359 --> 0:24:05.600 this explanation is a part of stories from both the 0:24:05.680 --> 0:24:10.520 Yanas of California and the Navajos of the Southwest. Overpopulation 0:24:10.800 --> 0:24:14.560 and the destruction of the earth would be the result. Hence, 0:24:14.600 --> 0:24:19.800 the initial reason Coyote invented death was actually an environmental one. 0:24:20.880 --> 0:24:24.600 The Yanas said it was Coyote, who made it law 0:24:24.760 --> 0:24:27.919 that humans would have to die to create space for 0:24:27.960 --> 0:24:32.919 the generations down the timeline. Coyote also rationalized death for 0:24:32.960 --> 0:24:38.560 a second reason, this time as a great teacher about life. Well, 0:24:38.680 --> 0:24:41.960 you know, if you die, then you really have to 0:24:42.040 --> 0:24:45.760 take life seriously. You have to think about things more. 0:24:47.280 --> 0:24:51.600 Coyote himself was immortal, but when death visited him directly, 0:24:51.960 --> 0:24:55.479 he had some serious second thoughts about what a good idea. 0:24:55.600 --> 0:24:59.720 Death was one of the most poignant of all Coyote stories. 0:25:00.000 --> 0:25:04.280 He's a nest purse account called Coyote and the Shadow People. 0:25:04.880 --> 0:25:08.120 It's something close to a North American version of the 0:25:08.119 --> 0:25:12.960 Greek myth of Orpheus and his wife Eurydus. I tell 0:25:13.040 --> 0:25:16.840 it here rewritten in my own voice from the original 0:25:16.880 --> 0:25:27.040 ethnographic account. Coyote and his wife were living happily when 0:25:27.080 --> 0:25:31.919 she became sick. When she died, Coyote was overcome with 0:25:32.040 --> 0:25:35.800 grief and loneliness. Others had died, but this was different. 0:25:36.680 --> 0:25:39.480 So when death spirit came to him and offered to 0:25:39.520 --> 0:25:42.520 take him to the place where his wife had gone, Coyote, 0:25:42.560 --> 0:25:46.160 who was filled with hope, What I tell you, said, 0:25:46.200 --> 0:25:49.840 Death Spirit, you must do everything exactly as I say. 0:25:50.200 --> 0:25:53.080 Not once are you to disregard my commands and do 0:25:53.240 --> 0:25:58.159 something else. So Coyote traveled with Death Spirit, thinking of 0:25:58.240 --> 0:26:01.320 his wife, but noticing that his god was very difficult 0:26:01.359 --> 0:26:04.400 to see and follow. He looked more like a shadow 0:26:04.480 --> 0:26:08.240 than anything real. When he pointed out herds of horses 0:26:08.280 --> 0:26:11.560 in the plane over which they traveled our bushes covered 0:26:11.600 --> 0:26:16.680 in service berries, Coyote saw nothing, but he exclaimed over 0:26:16.720 --> 0:26:21.200 the horses and pretended to eat the berries. Soon enough, 0:26:21.200 --> 0:26:24.120 the guide announced that they had arrived and led Kyote 0:26:24.160 --> 0:26:26.679 to where his wife was said to be sitting with 0:26:26.840 --> 0:26:32.000 many others inside a very very long lodge. Again, the 0:26:32.040 --> 0:26:36.560 spirit cautioned Coyote to do exactly as he said. Coyote 0:26:36.600 --> 0:26:39.439 made every effort to do so, but while he felt 0:26:39.480 --> 0:26:42.840 the spirit's presence, as far as he could see, they 0:26:42.840 --> 0:26:46.680 were sitting in an open prairie. But Death Spirit told 0:26:46.720 --> 0:26:49.639 him that conditions were different here, that when night fell 0:26:49.720 --> 0:26:52.800 in the living world, it would be dawn in this place. 0:26:53.800 --> 0:26:57.400 Sure enough, when night fell, Coyote began to hear people whispering. 0:26:57.840 --> 0:27:00.439 He began to see many fires in the lot, and 0:27:00.520 --> 0:27:03.879 to recognize old friends, whom he greeted and was able 0:27:03.920 --> 0:27:08.000 to walk about with and reminisce, and he was overjoyed 0:27:08.040 --> 0:27:11.760 to find his wife at his side. Late in the day, 0:27:11.800 --> 0:27:14.120 the people began to grow faint and hard to see. 0:27:14.400 --> 0:27:16.520 Then the spirit came to him and told him that 0:27:16.640 --> 0:27:20.680 as Don came in the living world, night came for them, 0:27:21.000 --> 0:27:24.280 but that Coyote should remain where he sat and not move, 0:27:24.640 --> 0:27:28.960 and Coyote said he would. When Don came, Coyote found 0:27:29.040 --> 0:27:32.720 himself sitting in the open prairie. As instructed, He remain 0:27:32.800 --> 0:27:36.120 there all day, broiling in the heat, but sitting as 0:27:36.119 --> 0:27:39.800 he had been told. This went on for several dawns 0:27:39.880 --> 0:27:43.720 and several nights, with Coyote's friends and his wife returning 0:27:43.760 --> 0:27:47.680 and making merry, then fading as Don came, and kyoteing 0:27:47.760 --> 0:27:51.879 waiting patiently in the heat of the day. Finally, after 0:27:51.920 --> 0:27:54.520 too long, the death spirit came to him and said, 0:27:55.200 --> 0:27:58.760 tomorrow you will go home. You will take your wife 0:27:58.800 --> 0:28:02.359 with you. He told Coyote they would travel for five 0:28:02.480 --> 0:28:05.520 days and pass five mountains, and that while he could 0:28:05.600 --> 0:28:08.280 talk with his wife no matter what, he should not 0:28:08.440 --> 0:28:11.080 touch her. That he should never lay a hand on 0:28:11.200 --> 0:28:14.640 her until they had passed the last of the five mountains. 0:28:15.040 --> 0:28:20.080 Then the spirit admonished Coyote, You, Coyote, must guard against 0:28:20.119 --> 0:28:27.720 your inclination to do foolish things. At dawn, Coyote and 0:28:27.760 --> 0:28:31.560 his wife started out, although Coyote could barely discern her, 0:28:32.320 --> 0:28:35.280 but when they crossed the first mountain, Coyote could feel 0:28:35.320 --> 0:28:38.640 her presence more strongly. When they camped on the homeward 0:28:38.720 --> 0:28:41.640 side of the second mountain, she became clearer to him, 0:28:42.120 --> 0:28:45.479 and in the next camp, beyond the third mountain, clearer still. 0:28:46.520 --> 0:28:49.000 Now they were making their fourth camp, with only the 0:28:49.120 --> 0:28:52.520 final mountain to cross the next day, and Coyote could 0:28:52.560 --> 0:28:55.800 at last see his wife's face and her young body. 0:28:56.240 --> 0:29:00.400 She was almost a living person again, Kayo. He had 0:29:00.480 --> 0:29:03.640