Week 9 Storytelling: The Legend of the Great Coyote

Once upon a time, when Earth was young and newly created by Old Mole, there was a tribe of Indians. They were humans. Humans created by The Great Man. The Indians were different from the other animals. Unlike the other animals, The Great Man created humans with a thin layer of bare skin, with no fur to keep them warm or protect them from the elements. However, the land scorched their fragile bodies. This was because up in the sky, there were nine glowing orbs that rained rays of heat down onto Earth. They were smaller than the Sun we see today. They orbs were the nine Brother Suns and they were very close to the Earth. They were created by the Great Coyote so that there would be light on Earth. 

As the days went by, the temperature became hotter and hotter to the point where, if the Indians ventured out of their homes, they would be scorched to death in only one hour. The Great Man saw what had happened to his precious humans and wept, for he had made a mistake. He should have known better than to create the humans with no way to protect themselves from the heat. All of the other animals were fine because they had hair on their bodies that shielded them from the sweltering heat. 

The Great Man then thought of a solution for he knew he did not have the power to take down the Brother Suns. He sought out the Great Coyote and asked of him to kill eight of the nine Brother Suns in order to maintain the light, but reduce the heat. At first, the Great Coyote was unwilling. He had exerted great efforts into putting the Brother Suns into the sky and did not want to go through the trouble of destroying them when they were his own creations. The Great Man then made a deal with Great Coyote. In exchange for the salvation of his people, they would worship the Great Coyote as their savior. As their savior, he would be presented with offerings of food, meaning that he would no longer have to hunt for his meals. 

The Great Coyote agreed to the deal. He then crouched down very low onto his haunches and leaped high up in the sky, grabbed one Sun with his paws, and used his teeth to crush it. He repeated the same motion seven times in order to get rid of eight of the nine Brother Suns.

 The last Sun feared that he would be subject to the same fate and tried to run away. He did not get very far, but far enough that The Great Coyote could not reach him. However, The Great Coyote's job was done. The Sun did not have to worry because The Great Coyote had intended to leave one Sun left. However, because the remaining Sun was so far away, its light was weak. To fix that problem, The Great Coyote gathered the shattered pieces of the Sun's brothers and threw them at the Sun. The pieces of his brothers merged with the Sun and made him bigger, which made his light grow stronger and it reached the Earth without burning it. 

The Great Man cried tears of joy as his people ventured out of their caves, some for the very first time. From then on, the people worshipped The Great Coyote as their hero. 

Coyote Portrait.

"Coyote Portrait" by Kyoht Luterman, 2004. Source: DeviantArt.

Author's Note: For this week, I retold a small part of one of the Three Coyote Creation Stories, "Coyote and Old Mole." I wanted to spin a tale based on the nine suns rather than write about the entire story itself. 

In the original story, there was an Old Mole who created the Earth. Then The Great Man created the people. The Indians were cold, so the Coyote got them the White Fire stone that brought them heat. Then there were nine suns that were so hot that the Coyote had to destroy eight of them in order to save the world from burning up. There also happened to be nine moons that brought coldness into the world. The Coyote also destroyed the eight moons to prevent Indians from freezing at night. The story then shifts to telling us about a boy who died. Due to his death, the people wept so much that it created a flood, killing everyone except one couple. 

My story differs in that I did not use the entire story, just a little bit of the beginning and the part about the nine suns. I wanted to give more background information regarding how the people were made as well as how the suns were made as well as make up why the Coyote is worshipped by many Native American cultures. Then I wanted to tie it to real life somehow by telling how the sun is much bigger and much further now than it was before.  

Bibliography:
"Coyote and Old Mole" by Katharine Berry Judson from Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest (1912). Web Source: UN-Textbook.