Coyote
Mojave (Mohave) · numen · Mojave (Mohave) traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Coyote, called Hukthar, is the trickster of Mohave narrative, best known for his theft at the funeral of Matavilya. When the mourners cremated the dead creator, they arranged themselves in a close ring to guard the body and sent Coyote away on a pretext, kindling the pyre with the swift Fly; but Coyote leaped over the shortest of the watchers, snatched the creator's heart from the flames, and fled to devour it. His theft explains features of the funeral, and across the wider mythology he is the type of the greedy, disruptive trickster whose own dream-sung cycle the Mohave preserved.
Domains
- trickery
Powers
- steals Matavilya's heart from the pyre
Sources
- Coyote, the Mohave trickster, leaps over the mourners at Matavilya's cremation and snatches the creator's heart from the burning body.: A. L. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, BAE Bulletin 78 (1925), 'The Mohave,' pp. 770-771. (secondary); A. L. Kroeber, Seven Mohave Myths, Anthropological Records 11, no. 1 (1948), 'Coyote.' (primary)