A Coyote Reader. - book reviews

When William Bright was soliciting materials for his new volume, A Coyote Reader, he announced his intentions to include "traditional Coyote stories of Native American peoples," "commentary on the mythic Coyote figure in Native American literature," and "modern literary work in English inspired by Coyote, written by poets both of Native American background . . . and of Anglo background." The resulting volume is a happy fulfillment of those intentions.

A Coyote Reader offers a generous sampling of traditional Coyote stories from several Western and Southwestern tribal groups, most numerously represented by stories from the Karuk culture. Anthropologists, linguists, and folklorists alike will doubtless be pleased with Bright's desire to present ethnopoetic versions of the Karuk stories. Not only does Bright attempt to "capture . . . the poetic structure of oral literature," but in several stories ("Coyote Lays Down the Law," "Coyote Steals a Drink," and "Coyote Eats Grasshoppers," for example) he also attempts to show performance values by using a Tedlockian typography.

In addition to traditional Coyote stories, Bright includes contemporary poetry by both Natives and non-Natives: Peter Blue Cloud, Simon Ortiz, Wendy Rose, and Leslie Marmon Silko are all represented in the volume, and the most notable of the non-Native poets included in the collection is Gary Snyder. The inclusion of poets from these various cultural backgrounds verifies Bright's contention that Coyote is a profoundly rich mythic figure whose attractiveness as poetic trope is not contained by cultural boundaries. Furthermore, the recognition that Native literatures contribute to the fabric of "American" literature is important in a literary milieu that has historically valorized only a Euro-American mythology.

The selections that Bright offers are folded into chapters that begin and end with commentary. Perhaps Bright wishes to be as unobtrusive as possible in presenting the stories, but at times this reader longed for a fuller treatment in the commentary. Bright tempts the reader with the beginnings of analysis only to leave off the subject and move on to the story at hand. For example, Bright says, "It has sometimes been claimed that American Indian myths reflect a primarily male outlook," and elsewhere that "It is not hard to see this story as an allegory of the historical relationship between the Indians of Mexico and their hispanized neighbors." In such cases as these, I found myself wishing that Bright had brought his range and depth of knowledge to bear on the issues he raised.

The commentary is rather uneven; sometimes it is substantive, but other times simply introduces the next story. Always, however, it is rich in extra-textual references, providing a solid bibliographic lead to the reader who wishes to pursue related matters.

If there is a weakness to this volume, it is that Bright strains the biological/zoological and mythical coyote relationship, pressing an etiological argument for the manifestation of the Trickster as "Coyote." Whatever reason the cross-cultural Trickster figure takes the form of a coyote in many Western and Southwestern cultures is ultimately less important than the fact that Coyote does indeed exist. Bright's volume is an important addition to the body of Coyote literature and will perhaps cause some discerning readers to ask with Peter Blue Cloud, "You sure Coyote is a myth?"

COPYRIGHT 1994 Studies in Short Fiction
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group