Trickster tale

Trickster tales are examples of cultural folklore featuring a mischievous main character who plays tricks on others and generally tries to outwit authority. The trickster is an archetypal figure known as the wise fool and is often portrayed as an animal with human characteristics. Some are heroic figures who rely on their intellect to defeat a more powerful enemy. Others are too cunning for their own good and end up ensnared by their own trickery. The trickster character appears in legends and stories from many of the world's cultures. In many European and African cultures, trickster tales have been used to teach folk wisdom or moral lessons to children. In Native American tales, the trickster is also seen as a hero who plays a role in creating the culture of the people.

Background

The concept of a trickster figure is believed to have originated from the ancient practice of shamanism. Many cultures believed that everything in nature, including animals, possessed a soul, or spirit. Shamans were considered human intermediaries with the spirit world. In hunter-gatherer societies, shamans were believed to be able to communicate with the spirits of animals through sacred rituals.

Some experts view the character of Odysseus from the epic Greek poems The Iliad and The Odyssey as a trickster figure. In the tales, believed written in the eight century BCE, Odysseus solves a series of seemingly impossible problems using his intellect. It is his idea to trick the besieged Trojans into accepting a giant wooden horse filled with hidden Greek soldiers.

Trickster figures are also found in many of the fables purportedly written by the Greek storyteller Aesop in the sixth century BCE. In one, a hungry fox tries to convince a rooster hiding in a tree that a universal truce has been declared between all animals. The fox wants the rooster to come down and share an embrace. When the wary rooster tells the fox that the hunter's dogs are also on the way to celebrate the supposed peace, the fox runs away, declaring that maybe the dogs have not heard of the truce.

In Norse mythology, the god Loki fills the role of trickster figure. The son of giants, Loki is a mischievous, and at times malicious, figure among the Norse gods. In some tales, Loki is a calculating schemer who finds a way to get himself and his fellow deities into and out of trouble. Other legends paint him as an evil force, responsible for the death of the god Baldur, as well as fathering several of the creatures fated to battle the gods at the end of the world.

Overview

In African folklore, trickster tales were often meant to teach young children moral lessons. In some tales, the tricksters were portrayed as weak creatures who used their cunning and intellect to triumph over larger, more powerful foes. In the West African nations of Benin and Nigeria, the tortoise was a popular trickster figure. In central and southern Africa, the rabbit or hare played the role. One of the better-known African trickster figures was the spider Anansi from the myths of Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone in West Africa.

In some myths, Anansi was a creator figure who acted as an intermediary with the sky god Nyame. In one tale, Anansi saw that the people were bored and wanted to bring stories into the world as a gift. He knew that Nyame guarded the stories and asked the god to share them with the people. The god agreed but only if Anansi could present him with four fantastic creatures that lived upon the earth. One by one, Anansi used his cunning to trap the creatures and present them to Nyame. For paying the steep price asked by the god, Anansi was given the stories and earned high praise among the people.

Trickster tales from African folklore made the journey across the Atlantic with the millions of slaves brought to the Caribbean and North America from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The oral traditions of their homeland were transformed into stories that instilled a sense of hope in a people deprived of their freedom. The long-standing themes of resistance and the weak outsmarting the strong carried over into the tales told by African Americans. Anansi evolved into the spider-woman Aunt Nancy. Tales of the African hare became the popular figure Brer Rabbit who made a habit of outwitting the supposedly smarter fox or bear. Some folklorists see traces of a trickster similar to Brer Rabbit in modern cartoon characters such as Bugs Bunny.

In Native American mythology, trickster tales display many of the same characteristics as those from other parts of the world. Animal figures such as the raven, turtle, and raccoon turn up in many stories, as either the perpetrators of devious behavior or the victims of it. Many Native American tricksters were said to have the ability to change shape and some were used to explain how some aspects of the natural world came to be. For example, an Ojibway legend tells how the otter tricked the bear into losing his tail. A Cherokee myth explains that the deer was awarded its antlers in a race when its opponent, the rabbit, was caught cheating.

Native American tricksters were often portrayed in the role of culture hero, a supernatural figure or animal credited with improving the lives of the people with an important cultural discovery or accomplishment. The Wabanaki, Mi'kmaq, and other northeastern tribes tell of the hero and teacher Glooscap, whose name means "liar" because he was said to have tricked an enemy by lying about his secret weakness. In Cree legends, Wisakejak, or Whiskey-Jack, was a mischievous culture hero who was also a benevolent friend to the people.

In many Native American mythologies, the coyote was an important trickster figure. In some cultures, the coyote's reckless behavior was seen as a warning against arrogance and greed. To many native peoples, the coyote fulfilled the role of wise, culture hero. In several legends from the native people of the Great Plains, coyotes and people are starving because they cannot find buffalo to hunt. The coyote searches for the buffalo but finds them held captive by a powerful mythical being. The coyote changes form into a small dog and tricks the being's son into bringing him into their dwelling. Once there, the coyote is able to release the buffalo from captivity, bringing food to the people.

Bibliography

"Anansi Brings Stories to the World." Myths and Legends, myths.e2bn.org/mythsandlegends/origins11717-anansi-brings-stories-to-the-world.html. Accessed 26 Sept. 2017.

Bloom, Harold, and Blake Hobby, editors. The Trickster. Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2010.

"Bugs Bunny: The Trickster, American Style." NPR, 6 Jan. 2008, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17874931. Accessed 25 Sept. 2017.

Erdoes, Richard, and Alfonzo Ortiz, editors. American Indian Trickster Tales. Penguin Books, 1998.

Harris, Trudier. "The Trickster in African American Literature." National Humanities Center, nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/freedom/1865-1917/essays/trickster.htm. Accessed 26 Sept. 2017.

"Native American Tricksters of Myth and Legend." Native Languages of the Americas, www.native-languages.org/faq.htm. Accessed 26 Sept. 2017.

Schlosser, S.E. "Tricksters." American Folklore, 27 Nov. 2016, americanfolklore.net/folklore/tricksters/. Accessed 25 Sept. 2017.

Winters, Riley. "The Enigmatic Loki, a Trickster among Gods in Norse Mythology." Ancient Origins, 21 Dec. 2014, www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-europe/enigmatic-loki-trickster-among-gods-norse-mythology-002484?nopaging=1. Accessed 26 Sept. 2017.