Coyote

In Nez Perce tradition Coyote (ʔiceyéeye) is the foremost of the First People and the transformer who readies the world for humankind. The central narrative recounts how he slew the swallowing monster that had devoured the animal people along the Clearwater: letting himself be inhaled, he cut the monster's heart free from inside with flint knives, released the swallowed beings, and then carved the carcass into pieces, flinging them to the four directions to become the surrounding nations. From the heart's blood, sprinkled at Kamiah, he formed the Nimiipuu, promising them a small country but a people strong and clever. Coyote is likewise credited with breaking the dam that held back the salmon, with ordering marriage and death and the seasons, and with journeying to the land of the shadows to recover his dead wife, whom he lost by embracing her before the appointed time. He is at once benefactor and buffoon, wise orderer and appetitive trickster, and he dies and revives many times across the cycle.

Domains

• transformation
• trickery
• creation of humankind

Powers

• slays the swallowing monster from within
• forms the nations from the monster's body
• breaks the dam and looses the salmon runs
• dies and revives across the cycle

Epithets

• ʔiceyéeye — CoyoteHaruo Aoki, Nez Perce Dictionary (University of California Publications in Linguistics 122, 1994) (primary)

Relations

• companion: FoxInseparable travelling companion and reviver.Archie Phinney, Nez Percé Texts (1934), Coyote-and-Fox episodes (primary)
• enemy: The Swallowing MonsterCoyote destroys the devouring monster at Kamiah.Archie Phinney, Nez Percé Texts (1934), 'Coyote and the Monster' (primary)
• ally: MeadowlarkThe bird supplies Coyote with news.Herbert J. Spinden, 'Myths of the Nez Percé Indians,' Journal of American Folklore 21 (1908) (primary)
• enemy: Grizzly BearCoyote is pitted against the ferocious grizzly in several tales.Deward E. Walker Jr. with Daniel N. Matthews, Nez Perce Coyote Tales: The Myth Cycle (University of Oklahoma Press, 1994) (secondary)
• ally: SalmonCoyote liberates the salmon and grants them to the people.Ella E. Clark, Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest (1953) (secondary)

Sources

• Coyote is the transformer who slays the swallowing monster and creates the peoples, forming the Nimiipuu from the heart's blood at Kamiah.: Archie Phinney, Nez Percé Texts (Columbia University Press, 1934), 'Coyote and the Monster' (primary); Herbert J. Spinden, 'Myths of the Nez Percé Indians,' Journal of American Folklore 21 (1908): 13-23 (primary)
• Coyote frees the salmon and journeys to the land of the dead in the Nez Perce myth cycle.: Archie Phinney, Nez Percé Texts (1934), 'Coyote and the Shadow People' (primary); Deward E. Walker Jr. with Daniel N. Matthews, Nez Perce Coyote Tales: The Myth Cycle (1994) (secondary)