Forum Overview :: The Mysterious and Powerful Cran-Grape :: Looks like he was thinking Brunvand...and a plug for Finder.

[quote name="jeep"][quote name="Little Crow"]...well, actually, the term "Trickster" covers alot of territory. It's not really the same as the Christian's Satan, but it's something similar (no Hell for Injuns, W00T). The first evil spirit, been tormenting man since the beginning, etc. There are entire VOLUMES of stories related to the Trickster, called "cycles." Some of the Trickster cycle shit is hilarious. He usually shapeshifts alot in the pursuit of tricking, which I think we can all agree is a pretty handy skill if you're <i>really</i> into tricking people. Pretty much all the nations have some version, just like every other spiritual camp around the world, I guess. I think that's pretty much the first step after contemplating some form of divinity; you create sko ultimate evil. First comes mastery of fire, then you create God, then you create God's evil twin? Something like that. Oh, wait. People keep telling me there's no such thing as evil. Never mind.[/quote] College classes teach "Trickster" Coyote as being more of a metaphor for a man's struggle with both his wisdom and his lack of it, similar to the African stories about Spider Anansi, but unlike the old myths involving Loki (who is always "evil"). The stories we collected from the Seminole for my Native American Folklore classes way back when were stories of Coyote fooling other creatures, spirits, that sort of thing, so we mostly assumed "Coyote as Man v. Nature" rather than "Coyote v. Man," though you'd obviously know more of it than I could learn in a couple classes. Since SB's marginally whiter than I am, I'm guessing he was figuring that. It makes the stories we heard a little less transparent, but I bet they'd really take an interest in it at the old school. Hell, I bet Dr. Thompson would change my grade retroactively if I could back that up with collected evidence. Shame I didn't get more involved in that field, it was a lot more interesting than fucking Brit Lit 19th Century. Trivia: the largest repository of hand-collected Native American lore in the world was in the library of the University of Florida when I attended. It was third in the world in total folkore collections by sheer volume, behind only Harvard and Oxford/Cambridge. Dr. Thompson in the sixties owned the club in Britain where Simon and Garfunkel first heard Scarborough Faire. The original song is about how the Irish are really elves who kidnap British babies to use as slaves and/or eat (think of the Faerie from Neil Gaiman's Sandman...the one that won the Hugo has the Faerie Queen stealing Shakespeares' son). Maybe Swift was being too kind to my ancestors. [quote]I've been reading <a href="http://www.wanderingones.com/D/20000408.html">The Wandering Ones</a>, a comic about post-apocalyptic Native-Americans, but specifically those those of the northwest (don't know the nation). There's a few references within there to Trickster as coyote, but I wasn't sure this was a global Native-American belief, hence my question.[/quote] YOU ALL HAVE TO READ <a href="http://www.lightspeedpress.com/ordering.php#Trades">FINDER</a>. BEST POST-APOCALYPTIC NATIVE AMERICAN COMIC EVAR. Finder Sin-Eater is an all-time great character. /jeep/ ...there's even hentai sex sounds in it, though creex will be disappointed by the lack of an "Oh God, your face!" reference.[/quote]