In
his self-promotional website, Christopher Moore says of the Native American
trickster Coyote, “The idea of a god that specifically exists as an avatar of
irony intrigued me.” Moore further writes that when he began research for his
humorous fantasy-novel Coyote Blue, “I set out to find an Indian tribe
that was still vital enough to provide the background for my book.” The tribe
Moore found “vital enough” to serve his purposes lived on a Crow reserve in
Montana. There, he had a conversation with an “old Crow guy” who happened to be
a shaman. Moore gave the shaman a package of cigarettes, and upon receiving the
sacred gift of tobacco, the shaman performed a “sweat” for Moore. During the
sweat, the shaman told Moore a story about a sacred arrow bundle that could
“bring the dead back to life.” Thus, Moore claims that he found his “holy
grail,” or the key to the plot of Coyote Blue (“Christopher”). While the arrow bundle does not actually play
as central a role in Coyote Blue as Moore implies, the idea of rebirth
that is associated with the arrow bundle allows Moore to entwine pieces of
Native American folklore into a very familiar plot: the heroic journey formula
famously described in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. That
is, Moore’s novel is separated into three main
sections titled, “Epiphany,” “The Call to Action,” and “Home,” and events echo
Campbell’s description of the heroic journey: the “separation from the world, a
penetration to some source of power, and a life-enhancing return” (35). The
main character of Coyote Blue, Samson Hunts Alone, a.k.a. Samuel Hunter,
is a Crow Indian forced by circumstances to leave the reserve and live in urban
society as a white man. In his white persona, Sam leads a disconnected and
false existence even though he is monetarily well-off. The trickster Coyote
serves not only to disrupt Sam’s unfulfilling existence but also as Sam’s guide
in various adventures that culminate in a descent into the underworld via the
magic power of the arrow bundle. Ultimately, Sam’s trials allow him to return
home to the reserve with a mature sense of self that enables him to acknowledge
his trickster human nature and to live a fulfilling life with his tribe. The
unrepressed presence of the trickster, as well as Moore’s
well-developed sense of humor, infuses the narrative with an exuberance that
makes the novel a trickster text that is quite as funny as any of the original
Coyote tales yet serves as well to highlight serious issues of American social
identity. What may gall critics concerned with issues of
“political correctness” the most is that Moore, a “white man,” traveled to the
remnants of a marginalized indigenous society to find a story that he could use
for personal commercial gain. The implication is that Native American reserves
continue to exist merely as a convenient resource for the offspring of the
original European invaders. Yet, the resulting trickster narrative cannot be
treated so simplistically. And compared to Moore’s
other fantasy/humor novels—such as Practical Demonkeeping,
Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story, Island of the Sequined Love Nun,
and The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove—Coyote Blue not only
stands out but also taps into an unfolding mythology that reveals a great deal
about the ever-evolving culture in North America. It should first be mentioned that, with Coyote
Blue, it is doubtful Moore strove to write anything more than a novel meant
for popular consumption. On his website, Moore himself categorizes his novels
as “goofy.” And Moore presents the trickster narrative with a slap-stick,
obstreperous humor that dwells on Coyote’s sexual antics more for their
entertainment value than for any profound literary reason. In Native American
folklore, Coyote’s sexual athleticism is legendary,
and Moore portrays Coyote’s eclectic sexual habits to good comic effect. For
example, Coyote forms sexual liaisons not only with Sam’s leather couch but
also with Sam’s neighbor’s Persian cat—right before he eats the poor cat as a
snack. Yet, Moore’s only real departure from popular
conceptions regarding a genre novel is that he includes several Coyote stories,
which are modeled on Native American trickster tales, as separate chapters. Moore is nothing if not entertaining. However,
he also tends to perpetuate a strong American tendency to sentimentalize Native
American cultures. In the novel, the narrator comments, “There is a saying that
goes back to the buffalo days: there are no orphans among the Crow. Even today, if someone stays for a time on the reserve, he will be
adopted by a Crow family, regardless of his race” (301). Clearly, the
line embodies a fantasy for certain individuals who would like to be welcomed
into a culture that they perceive to be exotic and exclusive. The line further
allows a character called Calliope to become Sam’s “white wife” without excluding
her white son from the tribe. But it is fantastic optimism indeed when Uncle
Pokey welcomes Calliope by saying, “There ain’t
enough blond Indians, if you ask me” (301). While it is doubtful that the Crow are any
more, or less, altruistic than people of other cultures, Moore’s
attitude certainly underscores the ambiguous value of the contemporary
fascination with Native American cultures. As Louis Owens points out in Other
Destinies: Understanding the American Indian Novel, “the Indian in today’s world
consciousness is a product of literature, history, and art, and a product that,
as an invention, often bears little resemblance to actual, living Native
Americans” (4). It must be kept in mind that, despite the fact Moore visited a
reserve and talked with a Crow shaman, his novel is a fantasy in every sense of
the word. The real value in the novel lies not in any profound insights into
Native American culture but in what the novel reveals about Moore’s
culture, which is contemporary American society. Coyote Blue depicts
current cultural assumptions regarding what being a Native American means and
reveals what impels American authors in particular to incorporate what they
know or think they understand about Native American societies into contemporary
narratives. For one thing, in “The Incredible Survival of
Coyote,” the poet and essayist Gary Snyder argues that developing “a sense of
place” is a crucial aspect in “the old American quest” to build a sense of
“identity” (78-79). Snyder further asserts that when we look at a little bit of American Indian folklore,
myth, read a tale, we’re catching just the tip of an iceberg of forty or fifty
thousand years of human experience, on this continent, in this place. It takes
a great effort of imagination to enter into that, to draw from it, but there is
something powerfully there. (80) Clearly,
Moore’s portrayal of a main character who is Native
American is an attempt to connect with a culture that has existed in North
America for thousands of years. Perhaps despite himself, Moore has written a
quintessential trickster tale. The story does not take itself seriously and
usually presents itself as ribald entertainment. At the same time, the story
addresses serious social issues, a dichotomy characteristic of trickster
narratives both ancient and modern. In Moore’s case, Coyote
Blue addresses issues of racism—albeit in a somewhat naive fashion—that
seem to have become entangled with the ongoing American quest for a sense of
place and identity. Therefore,
the idea that “There are No Orphans Among the Crow,” which Moore considers
important enough to make a chapter title, may be an insensitive observation
considering that white North American settlers made so many Crow children
orphans; however, the reason the idea is so attractive also seems apparent. The
current mythology regarding Native Americans is that they are somehow more
connected to, more rooted in the continent than are any other people born in
North America. Thus, poets and writers keep looking to the Native American
people for guidance. To put it crudely, some Americans want to be adopted so
that they can feel legitimately at home in the place that they now live. And,
according to Snyder, looking to Native American mythology and Native American
culture makes a certain sort of sense. Again, Snyder has said that Native
Americans have “forty or fifty thousand years of human experience, on this
continent” (80). Whom better to look to for
instruction? Intriguingly, Louis Owens writes of American Indian
literature (and by this, he means literature written by authors who identify
themselves as American Indian) that “the problem of identity comprehends
centuries of colonial and postcolonial displacement, often brutally enforced peripherality, cultural denigration—including especially a
harsh privileging of English over tribal languages” (4). Then, echoing Snyder,
Owens says that “recovering or rearticulation of an
identity, a process dependent upon a rediscovered sense of place as well as
community, becomes in the face of such obstacles a truly enormous undertaking.”
Owens claims that this search for a sense of identity, a search eerily similar
to that described by Snyder for all inhabitants of the North American
continent, is “the center of American Indian fiction” (5). In short, Moore, who is not Native American,
has written a novel that illustrates the very quest that Owens describes as
occupying the energies and imaginations of “real” Native American writers. Further,
while Moore exploits rather clichéd themes to drive his narrative, his work
also embodies the search for connection that occupies a great many contemporary
writers, regardless of their ethnicity. And Moore illustrates as well an envy
that pervades American society for those who are perceived as being of or
belonging to a certain geographic area. Owens argues that “at the heart of
America’s history of Indian hating is an unmistakable yearning to be
Indian—romantically and from a distance made hazy through fear and guilt” (4). Thus,
the issue of cultural identity and the search for a sense of place becomes very
tricky indeed—especially since whites in particular may feel that Native
Americans have a right to the North American continent that supersedes their
own, very problematic, rights. Therefore, the need to feel at home in the place
they live may be a need that sensitive whites feel quite guilty expressing or
even acknowledging; after all, historically, whites have been the oppressors,
have comprised the dominant culture in North America, and, realistically
speaking, have little about which they can ethically complain. Overall, the
fact that Moore uses a trickster character to drive what is an astoundingly
politically controversial narrative is very fitting. Coyote is, as Moore asserts,
the avatar of irony, and his shape-shifting nature represents continual shifts
in identity that vex contemporary people of every race, color, and gender in
American society. Thus, Coyote Blue’s overriding tricksterish characteristic is the fact that even though
Moore seems to perpetuate stereotypes about Native American lives, he captures
as well the essence of an ongoing struggle in American culture—the struggle for
feelings of connectedness and belonging in what is so often described as an
alienated society. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Moore’s
trickster narrative is that the comic elements of the novel, which are in no
way degrading to Native Americans but which seem quite faithful to the spirit
of Native American trickster tales, undoubtedly make the novel seem less
threatening to those who might otherwise find an “Indian” novel written by a
“white guy” terribly offensive. In other words, because Coyote Blue is
amusing in a way that does not denigrate the ethnic backgrounds of any of the
characters (except perhaps the evil white bikers),
readers are less likely to become uneasy regarding the fact that a white has
written a novel whose main character is Crow. In this way, Moore’s
trickster tale reflects the manner in which tricksters throughout world
literatures introduce the element of humor necessary to deflect outrage from
otherwise socially unacceptable ideas. What may seem less than surprising, then, is
that the main theme of Coyote Blue perpetuates images of Native
Americans that writers such as Thomas King, who is part Cherokee, seem to find
both somewhat true and extremely troubling. In his own trickster novel Green
Grass, Running Water, King describes one of the more usual themes of movies
and stories that involve Native Americans: “It was a common enough theme in
novels and movies. Indian leaves the traditional world of the reserve, goes to
the city, and is destroyed.” In the passage that includes the description of
the stereotypical theme, a theme with which King himself struggles, King
repeats the line, “The Indian who couldn’t go home,” both before and after the
theme description (317). The line draws attention to itself not only due to its
repetition but also because it represents stark sentiment in a book that
rejoices in satire. Yet, in King’s novel, a character named Lionel
does manage to go home even though home is a place that Lionel must
rebuild—both literally and figuratively. On the Blackfoot reserve, Lionel’s
Uncle Eli has a cabin that is demolished when a dam built by whites collapses,
a catastrophe that is attributed to the trickster Coyote, whose singing and
dancing often leads to disaster. In the final chapters, Lionel and his family
begin to rebuild the cabin and, thus, figuratively recreate their home. Since
Lionel and his family gather the scattered logs of the original cabin to use in
the new construction, the scene leaves readers both with a sense of loss at the
destruction of the old as well as with a sense of replenishment at the creation
of something new. And since Lionel’s new home is built from the scattered
materials of the family’s old home, King shows that while the past cannot be
recaptured, it can serve as the foundation of a present-day sense of identity
and pride. Notably, Moore’s
trickster novel echoes a theme reflective not only of Campbell’s heroic cycle
but also of that which King predicts for all “Indian novels.” The themes are
quite similar, involving a disruption in identity that follows a loss of place.
In Coyote Blue, Sam flees the reserve because he believes that he has
killed “Enos Windtree, a
fat meanspirited half-breed BIA cop”—although, later
in the novel, readers find out that Windtree has
survived the altercation (101). As Sam travels farther and farther from the
world of the reserve, he becomes more and more like a white man. In fact, it
only takes six weeks before Sam becomes “white for the first time. He expected,
from listening to Pokey [Sam’s uncle] all those years, that upon turning white
he would immediately have the urge to go out and find some Indians and take
their land, but the urge didn’t come” (114). And so, the stereotypical theme
King outlines in his novel is played out in Moore’s
fantasy, and the humor helps to deflect outrage at the fact that a white author
has appropriated the persona of a Native American. When Sam renames himself
Samuel Hunter, the Crow character Samson Hunts Alone ceases to exist. However,
Sam’s comic mystification that his new whiteness does not manifest in the urge
to steal Native American land is an acknowledgment of white ancestral
culpability that readers can accept either as a reprimand or as a decidedly
twisted joke. Moore undoubtedly means the line to be both. Indeed, much of the humor of the novel is
quite self-deprecating—in a twisted sort of way. Readers must first remember
that Sam spends most of the novel in the white world as a white man—the role
with which Moore is the most intimately familiar. In other words, the scenes
where Moore can employ his own experiences are much more confidently drawn than
the ones where Moore must imagine his character on a reserve. And although Sam
certainly is the hero of the journey, he does not exactly possess the
personality of Odysseus. Even while Sam supposedly is a steely-eyed life
insurance salesman, the sections told from Sam’s point of view reveal him to be
a kind-hearted bumbler. For example, in one comical
scene, Sam feels that he must save his secretary, Gabriella Snow, from being
sexually molested by Coyote—even though, from the “monkey noises” she is
making, his secretary seems to have no real objections to the experience (87). Nonetheless,
Sam grabs Coyote around the neck, pulls him away from Gabriella, and drags the
excited trickster into another office—only to realize that “unless things
turned quickly to his [Sam’s] advantage he was in serious danger of being
humped” (88). Sam panics at the very idea, knocks the trickster unconscious,
and immediately is terrified that he has killed the man. Samuel Hunter is
something less than grace personified. In fact, the depiction of Sam in his
white persona, along with the many quips and denigrating remarks made regarding
the white world, makes one begin to wonder whether it is the character or the
author who is having an identity crisis. Not surprisingly, once Sam
reestablishes his mature Crow identity, any hint of his bumbling nature
disappears. Coyote Blue is a trickster novel,
meaning that elements associated with the trickster disrupt and redefine simple
analyses. Therefore, to say that Sam’s “destruction” merely perpetuates the
stereotype described by King would be to miss the fact that Sam’s
transformation underscores the novel’s trickster theme—the search for a real
sense of identity—as well as the novel’s underlying social messages. A
fundamental characteristic of most tricksters is the ability to shift shape,
and Moore’s novel opens with Sam already in his white
role, which is the “right persona” to deal with his situation (15). The
narrator remarks that “the apparent ease with which Sam mastered his
environment was the single disturbing quality people noticed in him. How was it
that a guy could play so many roles so well, and never
seem uncomfortable or out of place?” (16). Moore thus associates Sam with the
trickster. Like the trickster, Sam retains the ability to shift shape in a way
that is recognized by other people. He presents himself as white, and people
believe that he is white. By associating his protagonist with the trickster,
Moore reflects the tendency of most contemporary authors to make it clear that
the trickster represents an aspect of human nature. More importantly, however,
the trickster theme highlights the idea that self-perception is fluid and
recursive. Other people see Sam as “white,” so Sam presents himself as “white,”
and vice versa. Sam begins to live the life of a “white” man not because he
becomes white in any magical way but because he chooses to reinforce society’s
impression that he is white. That Sam’s mutable personality is not a
feature unique to Sam but instead is a characteristic intrinsic to humans in
general is suggested by the fact that Sam is not the only human in Coyote
Blue with traits associated with the trickster. All the characters in the
novel shift personalities to deal with their individual situations, a reality
Moore underscores by revealing that none of the main characters uses his or her
“real” name. Sam’s business partner in the white world is an insurance salesman
named Aaron Aaron. Sam notes, “Aaron Aaron wasn’t Aaron’s real name: he had changed it so his
insurance firm would be the first listed in the yellow pages” (33). Furthermore,
Sam’s love interest in the novel is Calliope Kincaid, who announces, “My name
wasn’t always Calliope.” An old boyfriend started calling her after the “Greek
muse of epic poetry” because she “inspired men to art and madness,” and since
Calliope apparently liked the idea of inspiring men to art and madness, she
kept the name (64). A third character who does not go by his real name is an
African-American who works as a security guard in Las Vegas—otherwise known as
Trickster Town. Although the man introduces himself as M. F., the narrator
explains that the poor man’s given name is Minty
Fresh. While it is apparent why Minty might not want
his given name known, it only takes a few encounters with the life-altering
Coyote before M. F. is proud to announce, “The name is Minty
Fresh” (257). The name changes, as well as the fact that Minty, Sam, and Coyote all share the same gold eye color,
suggest that the trickster in Coyote Blue is more an expression of inner
chaos and the inherent possibilities for change within humans than he is a
manifestation of a minor god responsible for the ultimate outcome of the novel.
As Gary Snyder says, “Coyote [. . .] refers to something in ourselves, which is
creative, unpredictable, contradictory: trickster human nature” (74-75). A
minor character in Coyote Blue, Frank Cochran, echoes Snyder’s thinking:
“The human factor was his name for the variable of unpredictability that
was added to the equation of life by human beings” (164). The trickster
represents the paradoxical characteristics of human nature and may even
represent the aspects humans like best—the part able to laugh and be
irreverent, the part that enjoys trouble. The beauty of the trickster is that
the figure defies static definitions, shifting to encompass people of many
cultures yet, at the same time, almost inexplicably representing a commonality
that suggests that “native” and “non-Native” peoples may be searching for the
very same thing. In
fact, the tricksterish name changes in Moore’s novel suggest transformations both personal and
social. Calliope mentions that “Indians used to change their names as they grew
up and their personalities changed or when they did certain things, like Walks
Across the Desert and stuff like that” (64). Regardless of race or gender, as
the characters mature, or as they “grow up,” the characters relabel
themselves. Notably, Calliope already has chosen her name when she meets Samuel
Hunter, a detail that implies she has established a secure sense of identity
already. Her honesty about herself, in fact, makes Sam uncomfortable. To
initiate their first sexual encounter, which occurs during their first date,
the straightforward Calliope steps out of her dress, gets under a blanket, and
says to Sam, “Okay.” Sam, who is still dressed and sitting in a chair, is
“stunned” and wonders, “Where was the hunt, the cat and mouse game?” He
decides, “This is entirely too honest” (132, author emphasis). Although Moore represents Calliope as
searching for stability and love, her role is subordinate to Sam’s quest to
establish a sense of identity. And, from the reader’s point of view, Calliope
and Coyote appear simultaneously in Sam’s life, indicating how closely the two
characters’ roles are related. Sam catches sight of Calliope and is “poleaxed by desire.” At that moment, Coyote appears as a
“young Indian man dressed in black buckskins fringed with red feathers,” who
asks Sam, “You want her?” (16). Sam does want Calliope, and it is this desire,
which is later expressed as love, that leads Sam back to the reserve, down into
the underworld, and finally, into an acknowledgment of his “real” identity, his
sense of himself as a mature, honest, and worthwhile person. Both Calliope and Coyote play necessary roles
in Sam’s journey into a mature sense of identity and place. But Coyote
facilitates Sam’s journey in the way one would imagine of a trickster—by making
trouble. Like many other tricksters, Moore’s Coyote
represents the element of chaos that facilitates change, and, in a less than
methodic fashion, Coyote destroys the “controlled status quo” of the life Sam
has built in the white culture (135). Coyote interferes with Sam’s business,
practically destroys Sam’s townhouse, and ensures Sam’s involvement with
Calliope, who is the most disruptive element of all. Calliope keeps repeating a
slightly revised version of Coyote’s question, “What do you want?” until Sam
finally acknowledges that he does “want.” Admitting that all his needs have not
been fulfilled is Sam’s first step toward maturity and self-fulfillment. Sam has trouble acknowledging his need for
emotional connection, and he also has trouble understanding that commercial
success does not guarantee feelings of self-worth. That money does not buy
happiness may be a cliché, but the point is that, in his trickster
transformation into a white man, Sam begins to live the American dream as it is
generally understood in the United States. Sam, with his trickster personality,
is a very successful salesperson. He owns a condo in Santa Barbara, he is a
partner at Aaron’s life insurance company, and he has no trouble finding women to
sleep with because “the same protean guile that served him as a salesman served
him also as a seducer” (27). His success at obtaining material rewards
disguises the lack of emotional connections in his life, a common concern in
many contemporary works of literature. Sam only takes a step toward maturity,
honesty, and pride when he risks establishing a bond with Calliope—from whom he
has concealed his true name and ethnicity—by revealing the truth about his
life: I’m a
full-blooded Crow Indian. I was raised on a reservation in Montana. When I was
fifteen I killed a man and I ran away and I’ve spent my life pretending to be
someone I’m not. I’ve never been married and I’ve never been in love and that’s
not something I know how to pretend. I’m not even sure why I’m here, except
that you woke something up in me and it seemed to make sense to run after
something instead of away for a change. If that’s the horrible act of wanting,
then so be it. And by the way, you are sitting on the lap of an ancient Indian
god. (244) It is
significant that Calliope is sitting in Coyote’s lap (while the god pretends to
sleep) when Sam admits the truth about himself. Although it is the trickster
who interferes with Sam’s life, it is “the horrible act of wanting,” or Sam’s
desire for Calliope and her mind-boggling honesty, that propels Sam through the
story. Desire is the true trickster force that alters Sam’s life for the
better. Yet, there is a larger context to Moore’s trickster story. When Sam decides he must run away
from the reserve, he says to his friend Billy Two Irons, “I don’t know how to
be white.” And Billy replies, “How hard can it be?” (111). And,
of course, it is not hard being white in a society that has privileged whites
for generations. In fact, Sam does not find being white difficult at all. He is
successful in every plan he undertakes in the white world. Yet, “Something [is]
missing” (15). He misses his connections with his family and with the people
who know him by his original name. Sam’s entrance into the urban world and his
subsequent dissatisfaction despite monetary success thus reflect the present
mythology that the commercialism of today’s “white world” promotes feelings of
alienation. Moore certainly exploits a stereotypical “Indian” theme in Coyote
Blue, but he also expresses the universal wish to feel connected, to feel
as an essential part of something larger than oneself. In other words, Moore really has done nothing
less than imagine the shape of a character, one who is Native American and who
searches for the same sense of identity and sense of place that many Americans
seek. The only problem might be that Moore imagines that going home for Sam is
simpler than for other people. Yet, in the same way King implies in Green
Grass, Running Water that a sense of place and a sense of identity is
something that must be created through a willful act of the imagination, Moore
also displays an awareness that Sam, too, must invent
a sense of place for himself. In the final chapter, Sam does not simply go home
and revert to some essential “Crowness” that makes
him happy. Moore explains, And
even as he [Sam] left his old name behind with his old life, Sam maintained his
shape-shifter ways, putting on each face as it was needed. Sometimes he was
quick and clever, and other times he was simple, when simple served his
purpose. When he spoke for the Crow to the government, he wore traditional
tribal dress and an eagle feather in his hair. But when he reported to his own
people, he dug out one of his Armani suits and the Rolex. (301) Sam is
a complex character, as full of contradictions as any trickster, or any human
being. He does not revert to an unrealistic primitive ideal. Rather, Sam
acknowledges his own complexities, makes connections with people he loves, and
uses his trickster nature to deal with life’s endless array of problems. Samson
Hunts Alone/Samuel Hunter is not a simple stereotype perpetuated. Sam
represents trickster human nature in all its troublesome potential. In the end, Moore’s Coyote
Blue expresses the endless versatility of trickster characters. Moore may
have thought of the arrow bundle as the key to the novel, but the search for
the “arrow bundle” is perfunctory, to say the least. What really drives the
narrative is Sam’s quest to establish an honest sense of identity and a stable
sense of place. And, significantly, Sam’s quest ends not in a static sense of
identity but in a conscious malleability. Sam retains the trickster ability to
don the masks that allow him to function in both the old and new worlds, a
survival strategy that does not trouble him but, instead, is an ability in
which he revels. The key to an appreciation of Moore’s novel, then, is to realize that, as Barry Lopez
asserts in Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with His Daughter: Coyote
Builds North America, “Coyote is a creature of oral literature and
mutable. There are no sacred texts” (xvi). Owens agrees. In his analysis of
Gerald Vizenor’s trickster texts, Owens notes, “In
the oral tradition a people define themselves and their place within an
imagined order, a definition necessarily dynamic and requiring constantly
changing stories” (238). Moore has appropriated a Native American folkhero to further his own sense of story and culture, but
he is not blind to the political implications of doing so. When Coyote is dying
in Coyote Blue, Sam asks Coyote, “What can I do?” And
Coyote replies, “Tell the stories” (297). The scene is silly and
sentimental, yet the truth is that there is no real reason not to tell, retell,
or even revise Coyote stories. In fact, there are any number
of reasons that authors should perpetuate Coyote myths. The trickster provides
a connection to past mythologies and past ways of dealing with both personal
and social change. As trickster tales so often suggest, sometimes taboos—such
as the onus to be politically correct—must be broken in order to further
cultural development. After all, Lopez has argued that perpetuating
trickster tales renews a “sense of tribal identity” for both the story-teller
and the audience (xvii). To tell a trickster story,
then, is to realize the value of Native American cultures and to revitalize a
sense of identity and place that often seems to be missing from American
society. Moore’s Coyote Blue pokes fun at the
dominant culture and introduces readers to an engagingly irreverent attitude
toward current social dictates. The novel further suggests that despite a
bloodthirsty past, today’s people retain the ability to laugh with one another
even while, through aggressive acts of the imagination, they build a so-called
tribe that includes the best aspects of all cultures. As
Moore quips in the final lines of his novel, “Coyote medicine will do them
white folks some good” (303). For that optimistic outcome, so typical of
trickster texts, one can only hope.
Works Cited Campbell,
Joseph. The Hero With
a Thousand Faces. New York: Pantheon, 1949.
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