Coyote Stories Of The Navajo People

Fourteen traditional Navajo legends featuring the cunning Coyote and his continual efforts to trick his fellow animals.

Fourteen traditional Navaho legends featuring the cunning Coyote and his continual efforts to trick his fellow animals.

Fourteen traditional Navaho legends featuring the cunning Coyote and his continual efforts to trick his fellow animals.

These tales feature Mole, Coyote's wife, Chipmunk, Owl-Woman, Fox, and others

The Winona dilemma / Lois Beardslee -- No word for goodbye / Mary TallMountain -- About the contributors.

Coyote is easily the most popular character in the stories of Indian tribes from Canada to Mexico. This volume contains seventeen coyote tales collected and translated by Father Berard Haile, O.F.M., more than half a century ago. The original Navajo transcriptions are included, along with notes. The tales show Coyote as a warrior, a shaman, a trickster; a lecher, a thief; a sacrificial victim, and always as the indomitable force of life. He is the paradoxical hero and scamp whose adventures inspire laughter or awe, depending upon what shape he takes in a given story. In his introduction to Navajo Coyote Tales, Karl W. Luckert considers Coyote mythology in a theoretical and historical framework.

Coyote encounters Rabbit, Fawn's Stars, Crow, Snake, Skunk Woman, and Horned Toad in these 6 delightful, English-language adaptations of traditional Navajo Coyote stories collected by anthropologist William Morgan and translated by him and linguist Robert W. Young.

One of the most constant symbols of North American Indian mythology is coyote, a figure that has not only persisted but successfully crossed cultural barriers. Coyote survives both as an animal and a myth in literature and art. These stories illustrate the many roles and adventures of coyote. The Western Writers of America selected this book as a Spur Award winner for cover art. Readers will also want to read “Kachina Tales,” also published by Sunstone press.