Mythologies of California and the Southwest

A creature with dog like features but the posture and legs of a human rows a canoe California is another aboriginal home for many different people. Along with this region, the neighboring Southwest was home to yet another diverse population, with their own stories and belief systems. As with Georgia, the natural conditions found in California made this area a good place for people to live. People in the Southwest (including Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and the northern portion of Mexico) lived a very different life in a very different climate. In this lesson, we'll focus on stories that arrive from these neighboring, yet distinct, regions.

Image note: an artistic rendition of Coyote based on the mythology from the Miwok tribe of California. As with many other Indigenous cultures, there was a blurry line between human and animal, so a coyote that stood like a man would be a natural fit for mythological tales.

California and the Southwest: Stories

The stories in this module were taken from Indigenous legends of California and the Southwest and focus on the great trickster figure, Coyote. There are also a number of creation stories, including stories where Coyote plays a role in creation, as well as stories about the great Spider as creator of the world, or the Earth Doctor who created the Earth and its inhabitants. Along with these creations, there are etiological stories that tell how different animals and birds and plants and mountains in California and the Southwest came into existence.

Here are some quotes:

"Then Coyote was very, very proud because he was a blue coyote. He was so proud that as he walked along he looked around on every side to see if anybody was looking at him now that he was a blue coyote and so beautiful. He looked to see if his shadow was blue, too."

"Coyote he made a small rattle by placing tiny pebbles in a gourd and fastened it to the end of his tail. He shook it a while and was much pleased with it. The next morning he started for the snake's house. He shook the rattle on the end of his tail and smiled, and said to himself, 'This is good. When I go into Rattlesnake's house, he will be very much afraid of me.'"

"But Earth Doctor saw that when the sun and moon were not in the sky, all was inky darkness. So he sang a magic song, and took some water into his mouth and blew it into the sky, in a spray, to make little stars. Then he took his magic crystal and broke it into pieces and threw them into the sky, to make the larger stars."

Reading Assignment: Stories

Download the following PDF files and read each one carefully, taking notes and thinking about how these stories compare to others you've read previously.

Reflection: Stories from California and the Southwest

Now that you've read some of the stories from these two regions, think back again to our previous reflection questions. Do the characterizations feel consistent? How do they compare to animal representations from other mythologies we have studied?

Finally, having read through these stories, consider how you would answer the following three questions:

What term means “explaining natural occurrences or phenomena”?
What other famous fable is remarkably similar to the Cherokee myth “How the Terrapin Beat the Rabbit”?
What animal is the most common trickster figure in the Indigenous legends of California and the Southwest?

[CC BY-NC-SA 4.0] UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED | IMAGES: LICENSED AND USED ACCORDING TO TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION - INTENDED ONLY FOR USE WITHIN THE LESSON.