Coyote Marries Daugther

Coyote had a wife, several pretty daughters, and a young son. He went away out of sight. Then he scratched himself and put gum on the wounds to make them look worse. Going home, he said [to his family] that he had been shot by enemies. He pretended to become very sick. Soon he pretended to be about to die. His family placed him in a brush shelter. He said, “When I die, go to such and such a camp. There will be a man with a white horse. He is better than others. Marry your daughter to him.” Now he seemed to be nearly dead. He kept his eyes nearly closed; but under his clothes he looked out at his daughters. Unae erant magna genitalia. Eam conspexit concupiscens. “Delectabilis erit,” secum dixit.¹

Then he said, “When I die, heap up a large pile of brush and burn me. Go away at once [after putting me on the fire], without looking back. If you look back at me I shall do you injury.” Then he seemed to be at the very point of death. His family made a heap of brush, and began to carry him there. Filiarum una eum dorso suo portante, copulavit cum ea. Puer vidit et dixit, “Soror, pater tecum copulat!” Deinde eum in terram jecit. “0, 0, morior,” ingemuit cum caderet. Deinde uxor eum portavit. Etiam cum ea copulavit. Puer dixit, “Mater, pater meus tecum copulat!” Sed illa respondit, “Tace! ex hoc (acto) tu es.” Puer ergo tacuit. ² Then they laid him on the pile of brush and set fire to it on all sides. Then they went away. The boy looked back, and said, “My mother, my father is rolling off the fire. Now he is crawling away.” She said to him, “Do not look back! Do you not know what he said to us ? He will do you some injury if you look back!”

“But he is crawling,” said the boy. Coyote went to the camp to which they were going. He rode a fine white horse. He wore a quiver of mountain lion skin, with the long tail hanging from it. He looked [altogether] different. His family came there and camped. Then he rode up, as if to look at them. His wife said, “There is the man on a white horse, the one that your father told me to have as son-in-law. Bring your brother-in-law! “ she said to her son. The boy went to get him, but looked at him sharply. He was suspicious. Then Coyote married one of the daughters. Vix dormivit: omne nocte iterum atque iterum copulavit. ³ Next morning the woman said to the boy, “Take your brother-in-law to hunt rock-squirrels.” Coyote had used to hunt these squirrels along a rocky ridge, and used to take his son with him. Now the boy showed him the hunting places. The boy stuck a stick into the holes, and when he shook it the squirrels came out. Coyote did not shoot them; he seized them with his mouth, like a dog. This made the boy suspicious. Then Coyote went to some of the holes without having been shown where they were. This made the boy more suspicious. He thought, “I will learn whether he is my father.” Coyote had marks or holes on his teeth: one from his wife, one from his son, and one from each of his daughters. The boy took him to a hole that extended through the rock, so that he could look through it. When he looked, Coyote was standing the other end with his mouth open, ready to seize the squirrel. The boy saw the marks on his teeth. “There is my mother’s mark, there is my own, there is my eldest sister’s,” he said, and so on. The number was complete.

Then he put his stick into the hole, and shook it so that it rattled. He ran home, while the stick continued to rattle in the hole. Puer sorori dixit, “Pater tuus tibi conjunx est! “Deinde matrona filiam suam rogavit, Quod tibi omne nocte fecit?” “Omne nocte assidue copulavit,” puella respondit.” Est ille,” mater sua dixit.” Ita et mihi faciebat, canis ille turpis.” ⁴ They deliberated how to flee. They went underground a little distance. Then they rose to the sky and became stars. Meanwhile Coyote, standing before the hole, said, “Shake harder! “ He was talking to nobody. At last he discovered this. “You cannot escape from me,” he said; and he followed the tracks of his family. At last the tracks stopped. He was at a loss. Then the boy thought, “I wish my father would look at me!” Coyote looked up. He saw them above. He said, “You are in the sky. You are stars. You will be called Coyote’s family.” The woman answered him, contending with him, “You will be below there. People on the earth will call you Coyote. Early in the morning, or when there is fire in the grass, you will stand and watch for mice and will seize them. At night you will howl. You will be Coyote.”

1: Translation forthcoming. The convention was to translate explicit sexual content into Latin. I offer in the footnotes a rough rendering of that content, suggestions for improvement are most welcome.

2: Translation

3: Translation

4: Translation