A Coyote Reader [Paperback]

William Bright (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520080629 | ISBN-13: 978-0520080621 | Publication Date: March 10, 1993

Wily, raunchy, and heroic. A trickster, lecher, and supreme survivor. Such is the magical Coyote, that mythic Native American figure whose various roles are recounted here in a wonderful selection of poetry and stories.
Anthropological linguist William Bright brings together diverse portraits of Coyote from American Indian texts and modern American writing. Because Native American myths have been recited and transmitted orally, Bright addresses the special problem of converting them into written stories. His familiarity with the native languages gives his retranslations a liveliness that conveys their original vitality.
The collection also includes poetic translations and original works by important contemporary writers Leslie Silko, Gary Snyder, Wendy Rose, Peter Blue Cloud, and Simon Ortiz, along with the voice of an earlier American author--Mark Twain.
We see how the figure of Coyote serves both to entertain and to instruct and, by his similarities to the actual biological coyote, provides a link between culture and nature. At the same time, since he embodies distinctive characteristics of Homo sapiens, Coyote also reflects many aspects of human nature.
Bright places each tale in relation to the larger Native American context and shows Coyote's affinities with classic mythological figures and popular cultural images such as Bugs Bunny. Filled with humor and at times disturbing, Coyote's tales mirror the human condition across time and cultures.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Coyote, the great North American trickster figure, is the star of linguist William Bright's fine collection of traditional Native American stories and modern poems and meditations. Bright has been studying Coyote's role in California Indian societies for four decades. Their stories tell of Coyote as a perennial loser and a figure who plays by no rules: he impregnates his own daughter, steals from his friends, and causes the world endless trouble. Bright links the biological to the cultural Coyote, and he introduces some fascinating ecological arcana, such as the fact that "Old Man Coyote"--as he's often called in traditional stories--hasn't changed much over the last 4 million years. Evolving alongside the saber-toothed tiger and the giant cave bear, Coyote somehow resisted specialization; Canis latrans eats almost anything and lives almost anywhere from southern Mexico to the Canadian sub-Arctic. No generation understands Coyote fully, the anthropologist Paul Radin once remarked, but no generation can live without him. Bright's affection for Coyote has yielded a necessary book about a necessary creature.

From Publishers Weekly

Anthropological linguist Bright, editor of The International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, attempts in this ambitious new volume to explore the meaning and importance of the trickster figure Old Man Coyote for western Native Americans; he also inquires into the origins of the Coyote's character as a blend of human and coyote. Bright assembles an interesting collection of traditional Coyote tales as well as a good cross-section of original stories and poems by prominent contemporary Native writers such as Simon Ortiz, Wendy Rose and Peter Blue Cloud. Coyote is revealed in all his complexity as prodigious traveler, brigand, sexual predator and demiurge shaper of the world. Unfortunately, in the end, Bright fails to answer the central questions of his inquiry and makes some dubious choices in his selections as well. He muddies the picture by including several tales from non-Native authors in order to consider Coyote's continuing power in the dominant culture. Equally questionable is his decision to "adapt" the stories recorded by Native storytellers into poetry in keeping with his belief in "ethnopoetic" translation methods.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 202 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (March 10, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520080629
• ISBN-13: 978-0520080621
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #306,469 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous anthology, May 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Coyote Reader (Paperback)

This is one of the first anthologies I've come across which covers all the aspects of Coyote's character, from his role as creator to his raunchy, trickster persona. Too many people tend to water the Coyote tales down, which is unfortunate, as it reduces a very powerful figure to a Brer Rabbit comic character. Although most people know Coyote as a trickster, this anthology illustrates how complicated the morality of a god/first person can be, both creating and breaking rules, saving the people and bringing destruction on them. Just remember, these are wintertime stories- don't read this book in the summer!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not a Coyote Myth collection, August 7, 2001

By 

Andrew J. Porwitzky (Havre de Grace, MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Coyote Reader (Paperback)

I bought this book expecting it to be a collection of Coyote Mythology, but what I got was the dribbling of American writers who were inspired by the Coyote. This book is full of poems and short stories like the ones I was forced to read in High School English contained within the "Chicken Soup" books.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Coyote, Straight - No Chaser, February 11, 2000

By 

Curtis L. Wilbur "zencoyote" (San Diego, California USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Coyote Reader (Paperback)

As Bright samples the spectrum of Coyote tales (tails?), in his "no punches pulled" fashion, one becomes aware of a continuity of spirit, pervasive in the telling, from the ancient native legends to the modern Zen adaptions. Perhaps with knowledge aforethought, Bright has surfaced a grey feature of humankind, dogging us through the ages: As we try to be "good", Coyote assures us that there is no such thing. Watered down versions of these stories would entirely miss this connection, and it is to Bright's credit that we receive our Coyote "Straight - No Chaser".

Other more familiar aspects of the Coyote folklore, such as the "everything-you-do-will- come-back-to-you" moral, are intelligently presented here in a very readable fashion. Bright attempts to present the stories in as much of an original form as he can. He rightly believes that form here is as important as content. The resulting mix of commentary, prose, and poetry is hard to put down!

I gave Bright 4 stars, because there's room for improvement, and I can only hope that an updated version of this book may someday appear. I felt that the Zen portion was handled too lightly, but it may simply be that the Coyote legend progresses a little too fast to be captured properly at any given time. Let this book begin your journey into discovering the true Coyote, which lies within you.