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The No*Th Ame*Ican Indian T*Ickste* Autho*(S): Mac Linscott Ricketts

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The No*Th Ame*Ican Indian T*Ickste* Autho*(S): Mac Linscott Ricketts !"#$%&'("$)*#'+,-.$/.0+-.$!'+,12(#' )3("&'4256$7-,$8+.2,&(($9+,1#((2 :&3',#6$;+2(&'<$&=$9#>+?+&.2@$A&>B$C@$%&B$D$4E+.(#'@$FGHH5@$IIB$JDKLJCM N3O>+2"#0$O<6$!"#$P.+Q#'2+(<$&=$R"+,-?&$N'#22 :(-O>#$P986$http://www.jstor.org/stable/1062118 ),,#22#06$DSTMCTDMMG$DM6MC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to History of Religions. http://www.jstor.org __ Mac Linscott Ricketts T H E N O R T H AMERICAN INDIAN TRICKSTER One of the most perplexing problems confronting those who wish to understand the myths and folk tales of the North American Indians is the figure of the "trickster," who is also the creative transformer of the world and the heroic bringer of culture. This "trickster-transformer-culture hero" (or "trickster-fixer," for short) is a problem because he combines in one personage no less than two and sometimes three or more seemingly different and contrary roles. Oftentimes he is the maker of the earth and/or he is the one who changes the chaotic myth-world into the ordered creation of today; he is the slayer of monsters, the thief of daylight, fire, water, and the like for the benefit of man; he is the teacher of cultural skills and customs; but he is also a prankster who is grossly erotic, insatiably hungry, inordinately vain, deceitful, and cunning toward friends as well as foes; a restless wanderer upon the face of the earth; and a blunderer who is often the victim of his own tricks and follies. What kind of logic combines all these disparate elements into one mythical personality? The figure who embraces all these traits of character is known throughout Indian North America by various names. Over much This article is based on the author's doctoral dissertation, "The Structure and Religious Significance of the Trickster-Transformer-Culture Hero in the Myth- ology of the North American Indians" (University of Chicago, 1964). 327 The North American Indian Trickster of the Great Plains, the Great Basin, the Plateau, the Southwest, and California he is "Coyote"; on the Northwest Coast he is "Raven" or "Mink"; in a small area of Washington State he is called "Bluejay"; in the Southeast and probably among the ancient Algonkian Indians he was the "Hare." Among modern Algonkians, Siouans, and others he usually appears as an anthro- pomorphic being with a proper name, such as Gluskabe, Iktomi, Wisaka, Wakdajunkaga, Old Man, and Widower-from-across-the Ocean. Generally speaking, the more strongly the tribe has been influ- enced by an agricultural way of life, the less important is the place of the trickster-fixer in the total mythology of the tribe, and the more he tends to be known only as a trickster. This fact alone would seem to indicate that he is an extremely archaic figure, belonging to the culture of primitive hunters and gatherers, and other evidence also points in this direction. In the Southwest and Southeast, where the agricultural influence has been strong, the figure is almost entirely "trickster," and in the priestly mythology of the Oglala1 he is regarded as a positively evil being, one who must be combated by the shaman-priests. After reading exten- sively in the collected oral traditions of these Indians, one is impressed with the persistence of the trickster-fixer, who seem- ingly cannot be extirpated from the affections of the people-for everywhere he is an immensely popular character. A number of theories have been proposed to explain the reason for the combination of clownish, heroic, and sometimes even divine elements in one figure. Daniel Brinton, nineteenth-century stu- dent of Indian folklore, believed that the trickster elements in the character of the Algonkian Manabozho/Wisaka were late and foreign accretions to the character of an originally high and noble deity of light.2 Apparently under the influence of Max Miiller's theories about the development of the Indo-European gods, Brinton postulated a "disease of language" type of theory to account for the degeneration of the Great God of Light (as Brinton conceived the original figure) into the ignoble trickster, the Great Hare. Noting that the words for "light" and for "white rabbit" are similar in Algonkian languages, Brinton proposed that the latter had come to be mistaken for the former with the passage 1 J. R. Walker, "The Sun Dance and other Ceremonies of the Oglala Division of the Teton Dakota," in Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, XVI, Part II (New York, 1917), 164 ff., 181-82. 2 Daniel G. Brinton, Myths of the New World (3d. ed.; Philadelphia: David McKay Co., 1896), p. 194. 328 of time, and thus gave rise to the confusion of two separate figures.3 It is my contention, however, that the trickster elements in the character of Manabozho and the others cannot be regarded as modern, but on the contrary are older than the divine attributes, and at least as old as the heroic characteristics. Brinton's view was called into question in 1891 by Franz Boas, dean of American anthropologists,4 and it is the latter's view, sometimes modified by psychological embellishments, which is generally accepted today by American folklorists. In his criticism of Brinton, Boas asked why all the higher beings of the North American Indians should have suffered the same accidental fate that Brinton claimed had befallen Michabo. It did not seem likely to him that the culture hero should have become debased in all the tribal mythologies; rather, it appeared more probable that the trickster elements were the most primitive aspects of the char- acter in question. It was Boas' opinion that the complex figure evolved from an earlier character who was basically self-centered, amoral, and motivated by no higher impulses than his own desires. Out of this trickster, whose egotistical acts sometimes benefited mankind incidentally, there evolved with the progress of human thought the idea of a culture hero who brings good things to men intentionally. In the more highly developed phases of Indian mythology, the culture hero became a figure separate from the trickster; but in many cases the complete separation had not yet taken place, Boas thought. Thus the trickster and heroic elements are found mingled inconsistently in one personage. Boas' argument is grounded more upon a theory of progress than it is upon factual data, however. Nowhere do we find a trickster who is not also, in some respects, a culture hero. Boas was right in saying that the trickster and culture hero split into two characters in a late stage of mythical development, for we do often find tricksters in whom heroic traits are quite minor and residual, while in the same tribe some other myth figure serves as culture hero. However, Boas' original purely egotistical trickster is entirely hypothetical. In the most archaic hunting cultures of North America the trickster and hero roles are always combined in the same figure. While this does not prove that Boas' theory is absolutely wrong, it does throw the hypothesis into question. A 3 Ibid., pp. 197-98. 4 James Teit, Introduction to Traditions of the Thompson River Indians ("Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society," Vol. VI [New York: Houghton Miffin & Co., 1898]), pp. 4-10. 6-H.O.R. 329 The North American Indian Trickster theory better supported by the evidence is that the trickster and culture hero are, from earliest times, combined in one figure; and therefore, if we wish to understand this character, we should attempt to do so not by splitting him up into logical parts, but by attempting to see what meaning he might have in all his com- plexity. Paul Radin, a distinguished anthropologist and close student of the American Indians, was much interested in primitive religion.5 He tended to view religion as arising out of the economic and psychological needs of human beings. The shaman in the more primitive societies and the priest-philosopher of the higher cul- tures are the systemizers and organizers of the religious senti- ments which remain vague among the common people. With these religious specialists true religion developed, Radin believes. In an article written early in his career, Radin6 contrasts the popular folklore trickster-hero with the spirits and gods of the shamans in North American Indian belief. Without attempting to account for the mingling of heroic traits with buffoonery in such figures as Raven and Coyote, Radin explains that the divine attri- butes sometimes ascribed to these personages are due to the sha- man who "works with the general folklorist material on hand."7 Radin draws a perceptive distinction between the world view of the common man, as evidenced by his folklore, and that of the shaman: The granting of power to man is popularly believed to have been the work of the early culture heroes.
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