FREE ESSAY ON NATIVE AMERICAN VS. AFRICAN AMERICAN TRICKSTER TALES

NATIVE AMERICAN VS. AFRICAN AMERICAN TRICKSTER TALES

Trickster Tales:
Not Just A Bedtime Story
"Beep Beep"......VRRROOOOMMMM......and the Roadrunner speeds away from the deceitful
Coyote as Coyote falls over a Cliff with his "Acme" dynamite still in hand. The tale of
the "trickster" is known and shared all around the world. It is an age old story that has
many different versions and is culturally diverse. Almost every culture has some version
of the trickster tale; from the early West African people and their tales of Eshu, to the
modern day American versions like Wile E. Coyote that Warner Brothers has made so popular
(Doty and Hynes 10.) Japanese culture has the story of Susa-No-O, and even the ancient
Greeks had similar stories dealing with the character Hermes (Doty and Hynes 141, 46.)
With so many different cultures involved, one would think that the tales and myths would
be just as variegated. However this is not necessarily the case. It seems as though the
trickster story hent this human characteristic in that when a character is tricked, he,
in return, takes revenge on his rival. In fact, this is what constitutes the main purpose
for the action in these folktales. If it were not for our desire to see the wronged
character revenged, there would be no motivation for the reader, or the writer of these
stories. Without this theme, there would be no justification for wrongdoing, no justice
for the wronged. This element of human nature is what makes these stories timeless and
appealing to many generations. It is bred somewhere deep within us that a wrong must be
somehow righted and the trickster tale fills this human need.
Hand in hand with retribution is the theme of punishment. Not only must one be revenged,
but also, in order to feel fully justified, your rival must be punished. Sometimes we can
be our own rivals. When we have done something wrong to someone else, we feel the need to
be punished, and sometimes, consciously or not, we punish ourselves if we do not receive
the punishment from an outside source. Therefore, this idea of punishment is also innate
in us. The trickster tale feeds this necessity for punishment. Each time the character is
gullible enough to fall for one of the vengeful tricks, he is punished in some way for
his naivety, and in essence, for punishing the other character earlier at some point. For
instance, in the "Rabbit Tricks the Coyote," the coyote believes the rabbit and attempts
to "drink all the water to get the cheese." At the end of the story he is punished with a
stomachache, and "the runs." Brer Rabbit, in Uncle Remus, is punished by getting stuck in
the tar-baby, and being laughed at by his adversary. 
The motif of illusion is also reoccurring in these narratives. Referring once again to
the tar-baby and Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox has created the illusion of a person sitting in
the road and Rabbit believes it. In "Rabbit Tricks Coyote," Rabbit convinces Coyote that
the reflection of the moon in the water is cheese lying at the bottom. This theme
coincides with the general effect and purpose of storytelling, to create illusions of
characters, places, and events, or to temporarily "trick" one's senses into seeing
certain things in your minds eye. This plays to a reader's imagination and makes the
story magical and fantastic.
This theme of illusion helps to explain the theme of enchantment. Literature, and in
particular myths and folklore, is known for it's imaginative way of making the impossible
possible. Pertaining specifically to the African American and Native American trickster
tales is the personification and thus enchantment of animals. Only in these stories can a
fox, a rabbit, or a coyote contrive anything so complex as those in the trickster tales.
The feats that these animals attain are not even conceivable for a human being to
complete. For instance, how would you go about making a baby out of tar? Or to go even
further, in one Native American tale about the coyote, he sees an old elk skull and
"makes himself small in order to get inside the skull and see better" (Hynes and Doty 3.)
This is, of course, in reality, an impossible feat, only made possible through the
mechanisms of storytelling, and the theme of enchantment.
Talking animals, magical feats, punishment and retribution for wrong doing; these
characteristics are most commonly and frequently seen in cartoons, (as discussed earlier
with Wile E. Coyote) bedtime stories, and Walt Disney major motion pictures in today's
world. Why? Because all these elements appeal primarily to children, which brings about
the realization of another common motif. This is the duplication of basic structures and
fairy-tale methods that make the stories easy to understand and interesting to
imaginative young minds. 
Most people can remember hearing some version of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox when they were
young. The Coyote Native American tales are written in the same form. They are not full
of details or unnecessary literary 'fluff,' but instead are straight to the point. One
blatant characteristic of Harris's stories is the way in which he tells the story so that
in effect, it is a story of a story that is being told to a seven-year-old boy. The
opening paragraph of the tiny novel begins with "Miss Sally" looking for her little boy
and seeing him through a window with Uncle Remus as she overhears him begin to tell the
story to the boy. This event is a clear statement that the stories are intended mainly
for the young (not that older people do not read them and enjoy them as well.) 
Which leads to the final reoccurring device in the trickster tales of the African
Americans and the Native Americans, which deals with the apparent commonality of overall
purpose and meaning in the myths. They are not necessarily to teach a lesson, although
often they do remind us not to be so gullible, and that 'what goes around comes around.'
Neither are they for shear entertainment to be told while sitting around a Native
American campfire long ago. They don't often explain the unexplainable, or involve
religious meanings, but they do reflect the sometimes ridiculousness of ourselves. "Their
stories provide a fertile source of cultural reflection and critical reflexivity that
leaves one thoughtful, yet laughing; and what a culture does with laughter, reflects its
vitality, flexibility, and creativity" (Hynes and Doty 4.) You could say that the 'true'
meaning of each individual tale is dependant upon it's content and who it was written
for, which is probably true, but overall, these stories do remind us of ourselves. In
them we can see our faults and through these characters, we can subconsciously or
consciously laugh at ourselves from a distance, and without letting anyone else know that
we do these things too. They remind everyone that no one is perfect, and that this is
okay. This is not to say that we can put our guard down and let ourselves fall for
anything, but if it happens sometimes, we just have to pull our heads out of the 'tar'
and get back on top of things. 
So the trickster tales are not simply children's bedtime stories, or enchanted folklore
about talking animals. They are a universally understood literary genre that encompasses
some of the most deep-seeded human needs, such as the need for retribution and
punishment. But they also serve as reminders to us, and lessons to our children in
several aspects. 
Bibliography
Works Cited
Christmas, Darren. "Rabbit Tricks Coyote." Dinetah's Home Page. February 27, 2001
www.Geocities.com/RainForest/5292/stories.htm.
Christmas, Darren. "Coyote and the Hen." Dinetah's Home Page. February 27, 2001
www.Geocities.com/RainForest/5292/stories.htm.
Harris, Joel Chandler. Uncle Remus. New York: Avenel Books, 1985.
Hynes, William J. and William G. Doty eds. Mythical Trickster Figures. Tuscaloosa: The
University of Alabama Press, 1993.