Preface for The Worst Trickster Story Ever Told
Preface
The story they have chosen to tell is wrong. They know it and we know it.
It is time to tell a better story.
* * *
One day, Nanaboozhoo realized that he hadn’t seen any of his coworkers in a very long time. Since his coworkers were also some of his dearest friends, he decided to throw a party and invite them all. He sent out invitations across the land and built a large campfire in preparation. He also gathered good food to eat and a drum group to make music. It was going to be a real shindig.
All of Nanaboozhoo’s coworkers came. There was Iktomi the spider, Nixant, Rabbit, Raven, Coyote, and many more.1 They were all happy to see each other and thanked and praised Nanaboozhoo for bringing them together (although a few from the south privately grumbled to each other that it was a bit chilly in Nanaboozhoo’s part of the world). As was befitting the group, the party was festive, boisterous, full of laughter, and equally full of petty squabbles. They ate and talked and danced and played tricks on each other for a very long time.
As was inevitable, eventually the partygoers found themselves sitting around the campfire swapping old stories. Sometimes the stories were about how they had tricked others, and sometimes they were about how they had been tricked. Sometimes the stories elicited knowing grunts and head nods for the bits of wisdom they imparted or how they explained how the world came to be. Sometimes they were just silly.
“You know who you can have a lot of fun with?” asked Rabbit. “Those bison. They are about as strong as you get, but that’s about the only thing they got going for themselves.”
Several of the other partygoers thought that bison had at least one more thing going for them—they were pretty tasty. However, they kept their mouths shut because they knew that interrupting or trying to talk over Rabbit was pointless.2
Rabbit kept jabbering away. “One day, I saw two bison on opposite sides of the hill. They were completely oblivious to each other. You know how they are. They’re just a bunch of big, blind, lumbering oafs.”3 A handful of partygoers thought about disagreeing with Rabbit but thought better of it because they wanted to hear the story. “Anyway, normally I wouldn’t bother with them because they can’t see where they are stepping, and that can be bad news for someone built as low to the ground as I am. But I was bored and there wasn’t much else to do, and when I saw this opportunity, I knew I had to take it.”
Rabbit gave a half smile as he started warming up to his own story. “The thing about bison is, as dumb as they are, at least they know they are strong. So I went up to the first one, and I said, ‘Hey there, big fella. You look like you have a lot of muscles, but I’ve never met anyone who is more powerful than me.’ He just snorted as if he didn’t hear me, but I know he did. So I went to the second bison, and I said the same thing. He also snorted and pretended not to hear me, but I knew that if I kept it up, I would get under their skins. So I kept going back and forth between them several times and saying things like ‘You’re not so tough’ and ‘I’ve never met a creature so scrawny’ and ‘I’ve pooped stronger loads than you.’ After a while they both would say something back, like ‘Get out of here, pipsqueak’ or ‘I wouldn’t waste my time with someone as small as you’ or—and this was my favorite—‘You don’t want to tussle with this muscle.’ I wonder who taught them that one.”
Rabbit was really starting to laugh at his own story. “So, anyway, I kept going back and forth between these two galoots until I got them real riled up. Finally I got the first bison angry enough that he started stomping his hoofs, and he started yelling at me, ‘Fine, let’s have a test of strength and see who is the strongest.’ I mean seriously, couldn’t he think of any other word other than some derivation of the word ‘strong’? So I said to this guy, ‘Wait right here,’ and then I ran to the second bison, and after I needled him a little more, he was finally mad enough to challenge me. So I got a rope and went to the first bison and said, ‘We are going to have a tug-of-war to see who is the strongest. When I say go, you pull on your end of the rope, and whoever can drag the other over the hill is the strongest.’ Then I went to the second bison and gave him his end of the rope and said the same thing. And then I went to the top of the hill and yelled, ‘Three . . . Two . . . One . . . GO!’”
Rabbit could barely contain himself by now. “When I yelled ‘GO,’ they both thought all they had to do was give one strong tug and I would go flying over the hill. But when they gave that first tug and they both bounced backward, you should have seen the look on their faces! They couldn’t believe it! So then they started really pulling on the rope. They kept fighting against each other, still dumbfounded because they thought it was me! What a couple of imbeciles. And then, every once in a while one of them would pull the other about three-fourths up the hill, but then the one that was losing would find some more strength and start pulling the other one up the hill. They kept going and going and going, not having any idea that they were pulling against each other.”
Rabbit finished laughing before he started speaking again. “It was hilarious for a very long time. But after this went on for most of the day, I got bored and left. Later I heard that these doofuses went on like this for two days. Finally, at the same time they both dropped their end of the rope and yelled, ‘I give up! It’s a tie! You’re as strong as me, Rabbit!’ That’s when they realized that the voice on the other end of the rope wasn’t mine. They walked around the hill and saw each other and discovered they had been tricked! I suppose it was a good thing that I wasn’t there because who knows what they would have tried to do to me if I had been around. But it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because my people are so fast that we could always escape a bison if need be.” This raised a few eyebrows because almost everyone around the campfire had seen a few of Rabbit’s brethren who had been caught under a bison’s hooves.
“Anyway, those silly bison tried to banish me from the watering hole, but I tricked them again . . .” Rabbit tried to continue.
“I have a story to tell,” thundered a voice from another part of the campfire. Heads turned and watched Saynday rise. He closed his eyes and paused for a moment to let the gravitas of his impending words sink in before continuing. “I am the greatest warrior of the Kiowa nation, and I have a story of the utmost importance to tell you.” All the partygoers looked at the perpetually hungry, oft-defeated Saynday and his pitiful moustache and decided that neither of his boasts was true. Still, they were eager to listen to any story that began that way. Saynday boomed again, “This is the great story of my wardrobe malfunction!”
“I was in need of a belt!” Saynday bellowed. He paused for another moment, caught up in his own words, before more meekly stammering, “Or maybe it was a sash. I don’t completely remember. But I needed something like that.”4 Saynday cleared his throat and recovered his momentum. “Anyway, I needed to hold some clothing up. But I didn’t have the materials for a belt or a sash or whatever. So I started thinking about how to solve my problem when I realized I did have something that would work!” Saynday grinned. “All I needed was right there with me the whole time! I was in need of a belt so I decided to use . . .”
Saynday briefly paused again, wondering about the sensibilities of his audience. “I suppose I should be a little careful with my language since these are more modest times.5 Anyway, I decided to use my . . . my thingamabobber. My man rope. You know, my wangdoodle. You know . . .” Saynday said while gesturing toward a portion of himself that you can probably guess.
“We know what you’re talking about,” Raven yelled with faux exasperation (while trying not to laugh). “Get on with the story.”
“Yeah, so anyway, I grabbed my . . .” Saynday was starting to like the nicknames more than the actual name. “My Mr. Pee-Pee and started stretching it out. I mean, it was pretty long already but . . .”
All of a sudden the partygoers heard a huge crash at the edge of the clearing. Everybody got quiet and looked in the direction of the noise. Then many of the partygoers got nervous when they could see a creature of some sort rustling around on the ground, groaning and howling and, so it seemed to the stunned crowd, maybe even . . . swearing?
The creature then jumped to its feet, to the audible gasps of the partygoers. It looked like a man, but unlike any of the ones that the partygoers had ever seen before. It was bedraggled and emaciated and had a very hairy face. But most of all this man was pale. His skin looked like winter, like hard times when there were often few places to go and little to eat.
Everybody was in shock and stood still in silence not knowing what to do, including the pale man. It felt like an eternity passed before someone said anything until . . .
. . . finally, the pale man meekly spoke. “Hey, are you guys Indians?” All the partygoers sighed heavily in unison.
Notes
1. For a brief detailing of some of the trickster figures found in Native America, see Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz, “Introduction,” in American Indian Trickster Tales, by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz (New York: Penguin Books, 1999), xiii–xxi.
2. For a story about how Rabbit can talk too much, see Tim Tingle and Pat Lewis, “Rabbit’s Choctaw Tail Tale,” in Trickster: Native American Tales, a Graphic Collection, ed. Matt Dembicki (Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 2010), 79–88.
3. This story is adapted from Michael Thompson and Jacob Warrenfeltz, “Rabbit and the Tug-of-War,” in Dembicki, ed., Trickster, 63–70.
4. My wife, Kiowa historian Jenny Tone-Pah-Hote, used to tell me that there was a Saynday story like this one. However, she would only tell me that such a story existed, not what the story was. Jenny was a modest woman, and, as you will see, this is the type of story that would easily redden her cheeks were she to tell it. Thus, I don’t fully recall what piece of clothing Saynday needed. I wish I could ask her as I write this in the fall of 2022. Unfortunately, to my everlasting sorrow, she passed away in the summer of 2020 from leukemia. This is why Saynday’s confusion makes sense to me. I still miss Jenny very much.
5. Erdoes and Ortiz state that such modesty was unnecessary back in the day. “It should be noted, too, that there are no ‘dirty’ words in Indian languages. A penis is a penis, not a ‘dick’ or a ‘peter,’ and a vulva is just that, not a ‘twat’ or a ‘snatch.’” Erdos and Ortiz, Trickster Tales, 21.