Shnilemun (Sky Coyote)
Chumash · deity · Chumash traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Shnilemun, the Sky Coyote or Coyote of the Sky, is a great being of the Chumash upper world whom the ethnographers Hudson and Underhay identified with Polaris, the one star that does not wheel through the night. He is at once trickster and protector, and above all the friend of humankind. Each night, partnered with Morning Star, he plays the gambling hand-game of peon against the Sun and Golden Eagle, and the result of the year's contest decides the people's fate: when Sky Coyote prevails the year brings rain and plentiful food, but when the Sun's side wins, famine follows and lives are lost. He is distinct from, though related in character to, the earthbound trickster Coyote of the many Chumash folk-tales.
Domains
- pole star
- trickery
Powers
- to take the side of human beings in the nightly peon game against the Sun
Epithets
- ShnilemunTravis Hudson and Ernest Underhay, Crystals in the Sky (Ballena Press, 1978) (secondary)
Relations
- rival: Kakunupmawa (the Sun)Sky Coyote and the Sun are the opposing principals of the nightly peon game, Sky Coyote pulling for the people against the Sun.Thomas C. Blackburn, December's Child (University of California Press, 1975) (secondary); Travis Hudson and Ernest Underhay, Crystals in the Sky (Ballena Press, 1978) (secondary)
Sources
- Shnilemun, the Sky Coyote, is the Chumash celestial trickster-protector identified with Polaris who champions humankind in the nightly peon game against the Sun.: Travis Hudson and Ernest Underhay, Crystals in the Sky: An Intellectual Odyssey Involving Chumash Astronomy, Cosmology, and Rock Art (Ballena Press Anthropological Papers No. 10, 1978) (secondary); Thomas C. Blackburn, December's Child: A Book of Chumash Oral Narratives (University of California Press, 1975) (secondary)