Nih'ançan
Arapaho · demigod · Arapaho traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Nih'ançan is the great trickster and transformer of Arapaho oral tradition, protagonist of the tribe's largest body of tales. His name, cognate with the word for spider, was later applied to the white man, and both senses color his character: a clever shaper of the world who also blunders through greed, lust, and vanity into ludicrous defeats. He at once benefits humanity, ridding the land of dangers and setting the order of things, and models the folly to be avoided, so that his stories serve both as cosmogonic explanation and as moral instruction.
Domains
- trickery
- transformation
- folly
Powers
- transform features of the world
- deceive by cunning and disguise
Epithets
- Nih'oo3oo — Spider; later also 'white man'Cowell & Moss, The Arapaho Language (2008). (secondary)
Relations
- rival: Whirlwind-WomanNih'ançan contests and races Whirlwind-Woman and is bested.Dorsey & Kroeber, Traditions of the Arapaho (1903). (primary)
Sources
- Nih'ançan is the Arapaho trickster and culture-hero, his name meaning 'spider' and later 'white man,' the subject of a large tale cycle.: Dorsey & Kroeber, Traditions of the Arapaho (1903). (primary); Cowell & Moss, The Arapaho Language (2008). (secondary)