Trickster
In
or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and defy conventional behavior.Mythology
Tricksters, as archetypal characters, appear in the myths of many different cultures. Lewis Hyde describes the trickster as a "boundary-crosser".[1] The trickster crosses and often breaks both physical and societal rules: Tricksters "violate principles of social and natural order, playfully disrupting normal life and then re-establishing it on a new basis."[2]
Often, this bending or breaking of rules takes the form of tricks or thievery. Tricksters can be cunning or foolish or both. The trickster openly questions, disrupts or mocks authority. [citation needed]
Many cultures have tales of the trickster, a crafty being who uses tricks to get food, steal precious possessions, or simply cause mischief. In some Greek myths
Frequently the trickster figure exhibits gender and form variability. In Norse mythology the mischief-maker is Loki, who is also a shapeshifter. Loki also exhibits sex variability, in one case even becoming pregnant. He becomes a mare who later gives birth to Odin's eight-legged horse Sleipnir. [citation needed]
In
Trickster or clown
The trickster is a term used for a non-performing "trick maker"; they may have many motives behind their intention but those motives are not largely in public view. They are internal to the character or person.
The clown on the other hand is a persona of a performer who intentionally displays their actions in public for an audience.
In Native American tradition
While the trickster crosses various cultural traditions, there are significant differences between tricksters in the traditions of different parts of the world:
Many native traditions held
ceremonies for fear that they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth.[7]
Native American tricksters should not be confused with the European fictional
In many Native American and First Nations mythologies, the
Wakdjunga in Winnebago mythology is an example of the trickster archetype.
Storytelling.Coyote
The Coyote mythos is one of the most popular among western Native American cultures, especially among indigenous peoples of California and the Great Basin.
According to Crow (and other Plains) tradition, Old Man Coyote impersonates the Creator: "Old Man Coyote took up a handful of mud and out of it made people".[9] He also bestowed names on buffalo, deer, elk, antelopes, and bear. According to A. Hultkranz, the impersonation of Coyote as Creator is a result of a taboo, a mythic substitute to the religious notion of the Great Spirit whose name was too dangerous and/or sacred to use apart from at special ceremonies.[citation needed]
In
As the culture hero, Coyote appears in various mythic traditions, but generally with the same magical powers of transformation, resurrection, and "medicine". He is engaged in changing the ways of rivers, creating new landscapes and getting sacred things for people. Of mention is the tradition of Coyote fighting against monsters. According to Wasco tradition, Coyote was the hero to fight and kill Thunderbird, the killer of people, but he could do that not because of his personal power, but due to the help of the Spirit Chief. In some stories, Multnomah Falls came to be by Coyote's efforts; in others, it is done by Raven.
More often than not Coyote is a trickster, but always different. In some stories, he is a noble trickster: "Coyote takes water from the Frog people... because it is not right that one people have all the water." In others, he is malicious: "Coyote determined to bring harm to Duck. He took Duck's wife and children, whom he treated badly."[citation needed]
In oral stories
- Abenaki mythology: Azeban
- Igbo folklore: Ekwensu
- Afro-Cuban mythology: Eleggua, Eshu
- Akan mythology: Kwaku Ananse
- Brer Rabbit (compare Compère Lapinin the French-speaking Caribbean)
- * from a separate African origin Aunt Nancy, a corruption of Anansi, also spelt 'Anansee', among other spellings
- Sinbad
- Ashanti folklore: Anansi
- Huehuecoyotl
- Babylonian mythology: Lilith
- Bantu mythology: Hare (Tsuro or Kalulu)
- Basque mythology: San Martin Txiki
- Belgian mythology: Lange Wapper
- Macedonian folklore: Hitar Petar(Itar Pejo)
- Caribbean folklore: Anansi
- Puck, puca
- Sun Wukong(Monkey King)
- Chukchi mythology: Kutkh
- Cree mythology: Wisakedjak
- Crow mythology: Awakkule, Mannegishi
- Reynaert de Vos, Tijl Uilenspiegel
- Set, Isis
- Puck, Brownies
- Fijian mythology: Daucina
- Renart the Fox
- Reineke Fuchs, the Pied Piper, Till Eulenspiegel
- Greek mythology: Eris, Prometheus, Hermes, Odysseus, Sisyphus
- Ti Malice
- Hindu mythology: Baby Krishna (stealing butter), Narada, Mohini, Hanuman (shapeshifting and teasing sages).
- Hopi and Zuni mythology: Kokopelli
- Igbo mythology: Mbeku
- kancilin modern orthography
- Inuit mythology: Amaguq
- Briccriu
- Islamic mythology: Iblis, Khidr, Nasreddin
- Italian folklore: Giufà (Sicily), Pulcinella(Naples)
- Kappa, Bake-danuki, Hare of Inaba
- Joha(Sephardic)
- Kazakh folklore: Aldar kose
- Saynday
- Korean folklore: Kumiho, Dokkaebi, Seokga
- Lakota mythology: Iktomi, Heyoka
- Spanish folklore: Pedro Urdemales(Pedro Malasartes in Portuguese)
- Yaw
- Māori mythology: Māui
- Mayan mythology: Maya Hero Twins, Kisin
- Micronesian mythology: Olifat
- Miwok mythology: Coyote
- Nigerian mythology: Agadzagadza
- Norse mythology: Loki
- Norwegian mythology: Espen Askeladd
- Sosruko
- Ohlone mythology: Coyote
- Ojibwe mythology: Nanabozho
- Maui
- Pomo mythology: Coyote
- Koshares
- Romanian mythology: Păcală
- Russian folklore: Ivan the Fool
- San Folklore: ǀKaggen
- Slavic mythology: Veles
- The Trickster of Seville
- Sumerian religion: Enki
- Tibetan folklore: Akhu Tönpa,
- Thai folklore: Sri Thanonchai
- Tumbuka mythology: Kalulu
- Cin-an-ev
- Vietnamese folklore: Trạng Quỳnh, Bang Bạnh - Xã Xệ - Lý Toét, Thằng Bờm, Cuội, Bác Ba Phi
- Ti Malice, Baron Samedi
- Morgan Le Fay, Twm Siôn Cati[11]
- West African mythology: Anansi
- Yoruba religion: Eshu
In literature and popular culture
In modern literature, the trickster survives as a character archetype, not necessarily supernatural or divine, sometimes no more than a stock character.
Often, the trickster is distinct in a story by their acting as a sort of catalyst; their antics are the cause of other characters' discomfiture, but they are left untouched.
For example, many European fairy tales have a king who wants to find the best groom for his daughter by ordering several trials. No brave and valiant prince or knight manages to win them, until a poor and simple peasant comes. With the help of his wits and cleverness, instead of fighting, they evade or fool monsters, villains and dangers in unorthodox ways. Against expectations, the most unlikely candidate passes the trials and receives the reward.
More modern and obvious examples of the same type include Bugs Bunny in the USA and from Sweden the female hero in the Pippi Longstocking stories.
In Internet and multimedia studies
In online environments, there has been a link between the trickster and
Anthropologist James Cuffe has called the Chinese internet character Grass Mud Horse (cǎonímǎ 草泥马) a trickster candidate because of its duplicity in meaning.[15] Cuffe argues the Grass Mud Horse serves to highlight the creative potential of the trickster archetype in communicating experiential understanding through symbolic narrative. The Grass Mud Horse relies on the interpretative capacity of storytelling in order to skirt internet censorship while simultaneously commenting on the experience of censorship in China. In this sense Cuffe proposes the Grass Mud Horse trickster as 'a heuristic cultural function to aid the perceiver to re-evaluate their own experiential understanding against that of their communities. By framing itself against and in spite of limits the trickster offers new coordinates by which one can reassess and judges one's own experiences.'[15]
See also
- Grotesque body
- Juan Bobo of Puerto Rico
- Malandro
- Miwok Coyote and Silver Fox
- Native Americans in the United States
- Structuralist approach to myth
References
- ^ a b c Hyde, Lewis. Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.
- ^ Mattick, Paul (February 15, 1998). "Hotfoots of the Gods". The New York Times.
- ISBN 9780813904030.
- ISBN 978-0-313-33441-2.
- ^ Bleek (1875) A brief account of Bushman folklore and other texts
- .
- ^ Byrd Gibbens, Professor of English at University of Arkansas at Little Rock; quoted epigraph in Napalm and Silly Putty by George Carlin, 2001
- ^ Ballinger (1991), p. 21.
- ^ "Gold Fever California on the Eve- California Indians", Oakland Museum of California
- ISBN 0785817166.
- bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
- ^ Smith, R. L. "Remembering Andy Devine".
- ^ Campbell, J., G. Fletcher & A. Greenhill (2002). "Tribalism, Conflict and Shape-shifting Identities in Online Communities." In the Proceedings of the 13th Australasia Conference on Information Systems, Melbourne Australia, 7–9 December 2002.
- .
- ^ )
Sources
- Gates, Henry (2004), Julie Rivkin; Michael Ryan (eds.), "The Blackness of Blackness: A Critique on the Sign and the Signifying Monkey", Literary Theory: An Anthology, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing
- Earl, Riggins R. Jr. (1993). Dark Symbols, Obscure Signs: God, Self, And Community In The Slave Mind. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books.
- Bassil-Morozow, Helena (2011). The Trickster in Contemporary Film. Routledge.
- Ballinger, Franchot; JSTOR 1184653.
- Ballinger, Franchot (1991). "Ambigere: The Euro-American Picaro and the Native American Trickster". MELUS. 17 (1, Native American Fiction: Myth and Criticism): 21–38. JSTOR 467321.
- Boyer, L. Bryce; Boyer, Ruth M. (1983). "The Sacred Clown of the Chiricahua and Mescalero Apaches: Additional Data". Western Folklore. 42 (1): 46–54. JSTOR 1499465.
- Datlow, Ellen and Terri Windling. 2009. The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales. Firebird.
- California on the Eve - California Indians Miwok creation story
- Joseph Durwin Coulrophobia & The Trickster
- Koepping, Klaus-Peter (1985). "Absurdity and Hidden Truth: Cunning Intelligence and Grotesque Body Images as Manifestations of the Trickster". History of Religions. 24 (3): 191–214. S2CID 162313598.
- Lori Landay Madcaps, Screwballs, and Con Women: The Female Trickster in American Culture 1998 University of Pennsylvania Press
- Paul Radin The trickster: a study in American Indian mythology (1956)
- Allan J. Ryan The Trickster Shift: Humour and irony in contemporary native art 1999 Univ of Washington ISBN 0-7748-0704-0
- Trickster's Way Volume 3, Issue 1 2004 Article 3 "Trickster and the Treks of History".
- Tannen, R. S., The Female Trickster: PostModern and Post-Jungian Perspectives on Women in Contemporary Culture, Routledge, 2007