Studies in American Indian Literatures · 2000 · 13 citations · 0 references
HumanitiesGender StudiesSexuality StudiesAnthropology Of GenderNative American StudiesOral TraditionIndigenous Gender StudiesIndigenous SexualityNative American Gender StudiesNative American Oral TraditionsTrickster TalesTrickster TraditionsCoyote TricksterFemale ProtagonistsIndigenous Trickster TraditionsMale ProtagonistsNative American TricksterRaven TricksterTrickster NarrativesTrickster Tale Variants
Most readers of Native American oral traditions have at least a nodding acquaintance with a trickster?Raven, Coyote, Blue Jay, Iktomi the spi der or Nanabush?and most are aware of the ribaldry often informing trickster stories. Few, however, have considered the implications of Trick sters' sexuality. Fewer still have considered the fact that tricksters are commonly, but not exclusively, male. Of the hundreds of trickster tales I have read, in no more than a few dozen are the trickster protagonists female (and some of these stories can be found in other Native American oral traditions in versions with male protagonists). Moreover, even in those tribes whose trickster stories have female protagonists, such stories are apparently in the minority. These few facts suggest that exploring trickster stories for an understanding of sexuality and gender expecta tions may provide some unique, if not revolutionary, insights into Native American trickster stories while underscoring the richness of the trick ster tradition as a socially formative kind of entertainment (as opposed to the Euroamerican scholarly cliche of Trickster as a sort of Romantic over reacher). With Siobahn Senier, who also considered questions of gendering, I ask why [a trickster story] is gendered and relayed as it is ... and [I]