Coyote
Klamath · deity · Klamath Modoc traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Coyote, the Klamath wʼas, is the familiar trickster of the Plateau, appearing throughout the Klamath and Modoc narratives gathered by Gatschet and Curtin. He is the cunning figure whose actions, by turns benevolent and selfish, have lasting consequences for the shape of the world, and he stands close in character to the trickster-transformer K'mukamtch himself, with whom early observers sometimes compared him.
Domains
- trickery and cunning
Powers
- to scheme and deceive for his own ends
Epithets
- wʼasBarker, M. A. R., Klamath Dictionary, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963 (secondary)
Sources
- Coyote (Klamath wʼas) is the trickster animal-person of Klamath and Modoc oral tradition.: Curtin, Jeremiah, Myths of the Modocs, Boston: Little, Brown, 1912 (secondary); Gatschet, Albert S., The Klamath Indians of Southwestern Oregon (Contributions to North American Ethnology 2), 1890 (secondary); Barker, M. A. R., Klamath Dictionary (University of California Publications in Linguistics 31), 1963 (secondary)