The Legendary Shapeshifting Trixter of the Native American People
So April fools day happens during the run of this contest so I figure this as good a time as any to finally pull out Old Man Coyote, the Trickster! Now this legend spans enough territory, tribes or for that matter cultures that one has a hard time locking in a concise description. So what we’re going to do here is give a brief holistic account and let you have a lil sample legend to work from.
So depending on where you are from, Old Man Coyote, is the creator, is brother of the creator, or has some of the powers of the creator (he named buffalo for example), but still reports to an even higher spirit. He has the ability to shapeshift into any form, but is most commonly seen as a man, a coyote, a bird or some combo of those three. His main goal seems to be to entertain himself at the expense of others. But in doing so tends to teach us the vulnerabilities in our nature while exposing the unseen opportunities in the world we live in. Mind you not without a lot of loss of life and love and honor or anything else one could lose in a bet, gamble or poorly educated impulsive decision.
So I’m going to shake things up here a lil bit, I’ll still have guest judges where appropriate, And most you who have judged have done amazing jobs (well except for Srini, ha), but I think for the time being, I’m going to take back the reigns for a bit and judge myself… This way I can make sure that our wins get smattered around to some different folks, since I already know who submitted, I can tag the creator upon posting and mostly to make sure that the contribution is rewarded more so than the talent of the contributor. Let’s see how it goes…
and with that I give you
“Coyote Dances With Prairie Dogs”
Coyote went back to his home. From there he went to Prairie-dog Town. He had some red cloth and he put this on a stick and marched around with it held up, saying, “Let all of you circle around here.” Then they all came.
Codi held a stone in the palm of his right hand. In his left hand he held the pole. He said to them, “You must all shut your doors tightly, for while we are dancing someone might steal your property.” [Read more…]
