While Trickster was cleaning his blanket, unexpectedly, he saw a great many plums laying in the water. After carefully noting where they lay, he dove into the water to bring some up, but when he came to the surface, all he had in his hands were small stones. Again he dove into the water, but this time he misjudged its depth and hit his head so hard on a rock that it knocked him out. His limp body floated back to the surface and he drifted on his back until he suddenly came to. When he looked up he saw a plum tree overhanging the bank and realized that he had been chasing after nothing but reflections. "This must be why they say I am foolish," he thought to himself. When he got to the shore he gorged himself on plums. Then he took a belt and put it around his raccoon blanket and filled that with plums.

As he traveled downstream, he came upon an oval lodge. He opened the flap and looked in. There, unexpectedly, were two women and a hoard of children. Trickster took one of the plums and tossed it up in the air so that it fell right through the smoke hole of the lodge. It landed inside with a loud thud. The women grabbed it. Trickster did this many times, until finally one of the women came out, and much to her surprise, saw that a man was standing outside their lodge. "Aha," she said, "my older brother is the one who is doing this." The woman inside said, "Come in, elder brother." So Trickster went inside and gave each of the women a plum. "Where did you find these?" they asked him. "There are many more where these came from, and I would be happy to give you directions there if you want to pick some," said Trickster. "We would like that very much, older brother; but we cannot leave our children alone as they are very disobedient," they said. "Well," replied Trickster, "I will be happy to take care of the children for you." "It is good, older brother," said the women, and Trickster took them outside and told them where to go. "You will find more plums there," he said, "than you can possibly carry. If you see the sky turn red, it will be because of the plums."

No sooner had the women left than Trickster killed all their children. They were raccoons. He singed off their fur and boiled their meat. "Well," said Trickster, "it looks like at long last I have gotten myself a decent meal." After he was done eating, he took one of the raccoon heads and stuck it on the end of a stick. He arranged things so that the head peeped out of the lodge with a smile on its face. Then he resumed his journeys.

Not very far away he came to a hill, and there he ran across a female skunk. Trickster said to her, "Grandmother, I need you to do me a favor." She said, "What would you like me to do for you?" "Grandmother," he said, "I want you to dig a hole right through this hill. I need this right away." "All right," she replied. She was a fast digger, and soon had burrowed well into the hill. Trickster got up and followed her in, urging her to hurry. She dug furiously, but Trickster would keep saying, "Hurry, sister, hurry!" She kept digging at a frenetic pace, and Trickster yelled, "Sister, hurry! the round vulva." Suddenly she stopped digging. "What did you say? The round vulva?" she asked. "No, grandmother," replied Trickster, "I said, 'Hurry up, tear the earth up!' that is all." As she was digging, her back was towards him and her tail was up, so that he could see her vulva. While she was digging, Trickster said, "Hurry, sister! A vulva -- a round one." She turned and said, "What did you say?" Trickster said, "Just, 'Hurry up, I'm getting warm', is all that I said." Twice more he spoke to her in this way, and every time she asked him what he said, he came up with a plausible lie. Soon she had dug a hole through the entire hill, and when she was done, Trickster gathered up some grass and covered the entrance and exit holes with it. Then he went down to the base of the hill by the road and waited.

In time the two women came walking down the road. They were not happy: they had not found a single plum, as Trickster had taken them all. When Trickster was certain that they had seen him in the distance, he got up and went into the hill. The women walked up to their lodge in a bad mood, and saw one of the children peeping out with a grin on his face. This made his mother very angry, so she slapped him across the face, but much to her horror his head went rolling on the ground. "Oh, our children!" they cried. "It must have been Trickster who did this. That was him that we saw going into that hill."

Now Trickster came down to them but in the guise of another person. He had completely blackened his face, as if in mourning. "Sisters," he said, "why are you crying." They exclaimed, "Trickster has killed and eaten all our children!" "Ah yes," said the man, "whenever I hear about the things he had done, I want to get him. If I knew where he was, I would make him pay!" The women pointed and said, "We saw a man go into that hill, and we are certain that he was Trickster." "Well then, sisters," he replied, "I'm going right up that and let him have it! Show me just where you saw him." So they took him up the hill, and sure enough, there was a fresh hole dug in the side of the slope. "Now he is going to get it!" said the man, and he went into the hole. There was a great commotion and the sound of blows being struck. They could hear someone groaning, and soon the man emerged with blood all over him. His nose was bloody and bruised, but what they did not know is that he had done it to himself. "Well," said the man, "I went in after him and there was quite a fight. He is big and fought fiercely. I suppose that is why they say he is one of the great ones; but I killed him. His body is laying there inside, so you can go and drag him out. He is dead, so you have nothing more to fear form him." At first they turned back, since they had not seen anyone, but Trickster reassured them and urged them to go in farther. While they were cautiously advancing, Trickster got some dry grass and stuff it in the hole, then ran around to the other side and did the same at that hole. He lit both ends on fire, and before long the raccoons inside and been overcome and their fur completely singed off. "It looks like I will be eating some fat today," he said. He took the raccoons down to the water's edge and washed them off thoroughly. Then he began to boil them. He had cooked himself a fine meal. [1]

Commentary. "it fell right through the smoke hole" -- an inversion is found in the episode in which Trickster throws plums as offerings to the raccoons inside the lodge -- ordinarily, the mortals make use of the smoke hole to hoist up offerings to the spirits (of emblematic deerskins, typically). When animal spirits accept an offering, they become obliged to go to earth and be hunted as food. However, the recipients of the offering leave and their children end up being taken as food where they live. When they leave, it is not to offer themselves, but to get more of what they were offered. Those seeking the aid of a spirit will fast and go up a hill to exhibit themselves as worthy of pity. In this story, the spirit being comes down the hill with his face blackened and not with any view to fasting, but to having a feast. The raccoons secure the "aid" of a spirit without having to ask for it, and the "aid" turns out to be a fatal trick of which they are the victims.

"the sky turn red" -- Radin says that the sky turning red presages death, but the opposite is the case: the red color of clouds or the sky disappears when someone dies (see 1, 2), showing that we have another inversion from the expected norm. Red normally is the color of life. Radin remarks that the episode in which the child's head is put on the stake and made to look like he is greeting them, "This is a Winnebago war custom which, however, they ascribe to their enemies." In any case, Native Americans were never known for slapping their children, so the raccoon's behavior would seem very odd.

"a female skunk" - spirits typically live in hills (1, 2, 3), but the thought that their caverns are excavated for them by skunks is truly comic.

"blackened his face" -- also odd is the fact that it is Trickster, rather than the women, who blackens his face in apparent mourning. [2]

"he lit both ends on fire" -- in hunting raccoons or other animals that may hide in holes, the usual course is to chase them into a hole, then smoke them out, killing them when they emerge. Trickster does this backwards: the raccoons go hunting for the hunter, believing him to be cornered in a hole. The hunter-avenger then goes in to kill himself, forcing the raccoons to go into the hole to retrieve the actual hunter. Instead of being smoked out, they are, as it were, "smoked in." Then the real hunter has to go in and retrieve their bodies. The final inversion occurs when Trickster takes the food to the water and washes it thoroughly, an action for which raccoon's are famous.

Comparative Material. The closest parallel is an Arapaho story, which is almost identical to the present Trickster tale. The only significant difference is that the raccoons have been replaced by she-bears, otherwise the sequence of actions is essentially the same. [3]

In another Arapaho tale, the role of Trickster is played by a cannibal. "A man once went into some tents and told the women there were many plums across the river, and they should go and pick them. He would stay, and in the mean time watch their babies. So they went: and while they were gone, the man cut off the babies' heads, and left them in their cradle swings. The bodies he took away. Presently the women came back and told some of their girls to go in and see how the babies were. They came running out, and said that only the heads were in the swings. The women came crying: and when they looked, they saw the man at a distance. They pursued him; and when he saw them coming, he wished there were a big hole there. At once the hole was there. He ran into the hole; and when the women came there, they sat around the hole and cried. The man, finding some paint in the hole, painted his face, and then came out and asked them why they were crying. The women, not knowing him, said a man and killed their babies, and they thought he was in that hole. He came out, and said they should go in and see. They did so; and when they were in the hole, the man threw fire in, and thus killed them. He then got out the bodies, built a large fire, laid the bodies around it, and roasted them, in order to eat them. Just then a Fox came there, and said he was sick and wanted to get something to eat. The man proposed to the Fox that they go on a hill and then run towards the fire. Whoever should get there first should eat first. To this the Fox agreed; and he got there first, and ate up all the bodies. When the man got there, he found nothing, and went home." [3.1]

The Gros Ventre story has the episode where the trickster traps the women in a hole. "Then he got up and ran off, all the women running after him. He said, 'I wish there were a hole I could enter.' Then there was a hole and he went in. He came out on the other side. He found white clay. He put some over his right eye. He took a stick, peeled the bark off so that it looked white, and laid it across his arm. Then he went back to where the women were, and asked them what they were doing. They told him. Then he abused Nix'ât. He said, 'He is always doing such things. Why do you not dig him out? Then you can pound him to pieces.' Then all the women crawled into the hole. He blocked the entrance with wood, and set it on fire. Then he smothered them." [3.2]

The Ponca trickster cycle, as summarized by Radin, has a strong parallel to the initial episode: "Ictinike mistakes reflection of plum tree in water for the tree itself and dives into water for plums." Then he "kills young raccoons entrusted to his care." [4]

The story is also found among the neighboring Menominee. One day Manabush came to a stream. There he saw a myriad of cherries floating on its surface, so he jumped into the water to get as many as he could before they floated away. However, he landed on a large submerged rock, which was very painful. He pulled himself out of the water and lay on his back to recuperate, but when he looked up, he saw that above him were the fruit laden branches of a cherry tree. At least in consolation for his foolishness, he was able to get his fill of cherries from the tree itself. [5]

The Assiniboine have a parallel to the episode of the reflected plums in one of the stories about their own trickster figure:

Fisher has escaped with some of Sitconski's meat. Sitconski sees Fisher in the water, dives after him, but misses him. He discovers that it is only Fisher's reflection, and finds Fisher on a tree. Fisher offers to give him some meat if he shuts his eyes and opens his mouth, then drops a knife and kills him.

Inktumni plunges into the water to get berries, but the real berries are above him and he has been deceived by their reflection. [6]

The Assiniboine Fisher episode more resembles the several stories in which some animal steals Trickster's meat. The Assiniboines also have a parallel to the end of the story:

Sitconski kills his sister's children. The women pursue him. He builds a tunnel and suffocates them in it. [7]

Sitconski is the same as Inktumni.

For the episode in which Trickster dives into the lake because he is fooled by a reflection, see the corresponding Oto myth summarized in the Markings on the Moon.

A story is told of Old Man, a trickster figure among the Blackfeet. One day Old Man saw the reflection of berries in the water. He dove in, but could not find the berries, so he tied rocks to his ankles and jumped in again. This time he almost drowned. Exhausted, he collapsed under the shade of some bushes; but when he looked up, there he saw the berries dangling above him. He got so mad that he clubbed the tree until every berry was knocked to the ground. This is why, ever since, people hit such bushes with sticks to collect the berries. [8]

In another Blackfoot story, Old Man persuades two women to go fetch some animal that he killed, but it was a trick. All they found was some buffalo hair from his robe and some of Old Man's blood which he spread on the snow, leading them to think that coyotes had carried off the kill. Meanwhile, Old Man kills and eats their two babies, leaving their heads in their cradles. When the women come back, he shuts them in the lodge and runs away down a hole in the ground. The two women wait for him to come out, but he exits, disguised, from another hole. He tells the women that he will go down the hole and kill Old Man, and after feigning a great fight, he returns to tell them that Old Man is dead. He asks them to fetch the body, but while they are down the hole, he seals it up and suffrocates them with smoke. [9]

The neighboring Anishinaabe have a story with many shared elements. Manabozho killed the King of the Serpents. He fled for his life in close pursuit by his grandsons. He made it to the mountains where he met a badger whom he persuaded to dig a hole into the side of a hill. He did so, and Manabozho persuaded him to dig another hole out to the other side. The snakes finally caught up and waited patiently in front of the badger burrow. One day Manabozho got tired of the company of the badger and killed him. He went out the back hole and revisited the body of the King of Serpents, which he skinned and donned on his own person. He then approached the other side of the mountain, and when the snakes saw him they scattered. He killed many of them, however. [10]

The nearby Kickapoo have a parallel to the reflection episode in which the fruit is replaced by an animal. One day Wiza'ka'a came to a deep creek were he saw a deer under the water. He was hungry, so he decided to grab the deer. He jumped in and felt around for the animal but could not seem to get a grip on him. Then Wiza'ka'a thought of tying a stone around his neck and jumping in. Soon he found himself drowning, and after quite a struggle, managed to get the stone off his neck. When he struggled to the shore, there he saw a deer standing in the grass nearby. Only then did he realize that he had seen a mere reflection in the water. [11]

The reflection episode has an interesting version among the Chiricahua Apache. Coyote had cooked a mess of prairie dogs, but while he was sleeping, Mountain Lion stole all the good ones. Coyote was so furious that he threw the remainder in every direction. He then went to take a drink, when he looked in the water and saw a prairie dog. He thought to himself that it would be good eating so he dove in after it, but all he got for his trouble was a belly full of water. Then he lay down on his back to rest and suddenly noticed the prairie dog that had landed in the branches above. He had to confess to himself that he was quite the fool. [12]

In a Hopi story we have the two main episodes greatly transformed and juxtaposed. After Coyote stole Fox's prairie dog meal [story], Fox went after him with the intent of killing him. When he found him, Coyote was pretending that he was holding up an overhanging cliff -- "You fool," he said to Fox, "can't you see that if I let go, this overhang with crush us both. Hold this up while I go get a log to use as a prop." Fox foolishly obliged, and Coyote was long gone before Fox realized that he'd been had. So Fox followed his trail and came upon Coyote while he was sitting by a tree stump overlooking a stream. The sun was setting and made a red reflection on the water. Fox was about to seize Coyote when his victim suddenly said, "You fool, can't you see the fine red meat in the water? Better get it before it floats away! I'll hold your tail while you get in there and pull it up." So Fox obliged, but while he was under, Coyote tied a heavy rock to his tail, and Fox drowned. [13]

Kroeber in a footnote says, "This tale is found among the Gros Ventre, Omaha-Ponka (J. O. Dorsey, Contr. N. A. Ethn., VI, 562), and, according to Meeker, who thinks it is of Arapaho origin (Journ. Am. Folk Lore, XV, 84), among the Sioux, Winnebago, and Chippewa. For diving into the water for the reflection of an object, see Russell, Expl. Far North, 214 (Cree), Hoffman, Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn., XIV, 165 (Menomini), Russell, Journ. Am. Folk Lore, XI, 264 (Jicarilla Apache)." [14]

In a Zapotec version collected by Paul Radin, the victim mistakes a reflection of the moon for a wheel of cheese. "Rabbit, the instead of going where coyote was (waiting), on the contrary, went in another direction and ate up the cheese alone. After coyote had gotten tired of waiting for him he went to look for him. After two days he met rabbit sitting at the opening of a well. "Say, friend," he said to him, "what are you doing here?" "Why did you deceive me?" "Say, my friend, that man followed me even here. He came to seize the cheese. Out of fear (I threw it in here); look, see, there it is?" As it was then night and there was a moon in the middle of the sky, unquestionably one saw the reflection of the moon over the water. It looked like an entire cheese. When coyote saw the reflection of the moon over the water he believed that certainly it was a cheese that he saw. Then he spoke to rabbit, "How can we get it out?" Then rabbit said, "Tie yourself to the end (head) of this rope. I will lower you slowly and then when you have seized the cheese I will pull you up." "Good," said coyote. Then that very person tied the rope around his stomach and began to lower him. When he was in about halfway down the well rabbit purposely let go the rope and he fell to the (bottom of) the well. While rabbit was dying of laughter, poor coyote perished there from swallowing (taking) too much water." [15]

In a very similar Mayan version, the plums are replaced by the moon. One day Hare was going about and no matter where he went, Coyote was always following him around. Now Coyote was a rather dull-witted guy, so Hare decided to play a trick on him. He stopped at a pool and began drinking. Coyote came up immediately and asked, "What are you doing Hare?" "I'm trying to drink down this pond -- can't you see all that cheese down there? Maybe if you helped me, since you're so much bigger, we can reach the bottom." So Coyote began drinking as quickly as he could. Meanwhile, Hare went off for a walk. Coyote kept drinking and drinking until his stomach began to swell and his entire abdomen ached beyond description. Finally, he had to quit. He left in agony, wondering how he could ever have gotten to the cheese at the bottom of the pond. [16]

Links: Raccoons, Trickster, The Sons of Earthmaker, Skunks.

Links within the Trickster Cycle: §11. Trickster Eats the Laxative Bulb, §13. Trickster Loses His Meal.

Stories: featuring Trickster as a character: The Trickster Cycle, Trickster Gets Pregnant, Trickster's Warpath, Trickster's Anus Guards the Ducks, Lake Winnebago Origin Myth, The Mission of the Five Sons of Earthmaker, Baldheaded Warclub Origin Myth, Trickster Soils the Princess, Trickster, the Wolf, the Turtle, and the Meadow Lark, Soft Shelled Turtle Gets Married, The Medicine Rite Foundation Myth, Trickster Concludes His Mission, The Abduction and Rescue of Trickster, The Elk's Skull, The Markings on the Moon, The Spirit of Gambling, The Woman who Became an Ant, The Green Man, The Red Man, Trickster Takes Little Fox for a Ride, Trickster Loses His Meal, Trickster's Tail, A Mink Tricks Trickster, Trickster's Penis, Trickster Loses Most of His Penis, The Scenting Contest, The Bungling Host, Mink Soils the Princess, Trickster and the Children, Trickster and the Eagle, Trickster and the Geese, Trickster and the Dancers, Trickster and the Honey, Trickster's Adventures in the Ocean, The Pointing Man, Trickster's Buffalo Hunt, Trickster Eats the Laxative Bulb, Trickster Visits His Family, The Coughing Up of the Black Hawks, The Petition to Earthmaker, Warughápara, Hare Secures the Creation Lodge; featuring skunks as characters: The Skunk Origin Myth, The Bungling Host, Hare Recruits Game Animals for Humans, The Boy and the Jack Rabbit; featuring raccoons as characters: The Abduction and Rescue of Trickster, The Raccoon Coat, Raccoon and the Blind Men, The Spirit of Maple Bluff, The Were-fish, Lake Wâkcikhomîgra (Mendota): the Origin of Its Name, Bladder and His Brothers, Grandfather's Two Families; mentioning plums: Midjistéga.

Themes: Trickster takes care of someone else's children, but causes their death: Trickster and the Children; someone kills children, then sets them upright in front of their lodge with smiles on their faces so that their parents will think that they are greeting them: A Man's Revenge; the red of the sky disappears when someone is about to die (inverse theme): Chief of the Heroka, Red Man; the sky turning red indicates misfortune: Rich Man, Boy, and Horse; red as a symbolic color: The Journey to Spiritland (hill, willows, reeds, smoke, stones, haze), The Gottschall Head (mouth), The Chief of the Herok'a (clouds, side of Forked Man), The Red Man (face, sky, body, hill), Spear Shaft and Lacrosse (neck, nose, painted stone), Redhorn's Father (leggings, stone sphere, hair), The Sons of Redhorn Find Their Father (hair, body paint, arrows), Wears White Feathers on His Head (man), The Birth of the Twins (turkey bladder headdresses), The Two Boys (elk bladder headdresses), Rich Man, Boy, and Horse (sky), The Blessings of the Buffalo Spirits (Buffalo Spirit), Bluehorn Rescues His Sister (buffalo head), Wazûka (buffalo head headdress), The Baldheaded Warclub Origin Myth (horn), The Brown Squirrel (protruding horn), Bear Clan Origin Myth (funerary paint), Wonághire Wâkcik Clan Origin Myth (funerary paint), Deer Clan Origin Myth (funerary paint), Thunderbird Clan Origin Myth (stick at grave), Pigeon Clan Origins (Thunderbird lightning), Trickster's Anus Guards the Ducks (eyes), Hare Retrieves a Stolen Scalp (scalp, woman's hair), The Race for the Chief's Daughter (hair), The Daughter-in-Law's Jealousy (hair), Redhorn's Sons (hair), Redhorn Contests the Giants (hair), The Woman's Scalp Medicine Bundle (hair), A Wife for Knowledge (hair), He Who Eats the Stinking Part of the Deer Ankle (hair), The Hotcâgara Contest the Giants (hair of Giantess), A Man and His Three Dogs (wolf hair), The Red Feather (plumage), The Man who was Blessed by the Sun (body of Sun), Red Bear, Eagle Clan Origin Myth (eagle), The Shell Anklets Origin Myth (Waterspirit armpits), The Twins Join Redhorn's Warparty (Waterspirits), The Roaster (body paint), The Man who Defied Disease Giver (red spot on forehead), The Wild Rose (rose), The Medicine Rite Foundation Myth (warclub), Îtcorúcika and His Brothers (ax & packing strap), Hare Kills Flint (flint), The Twins Retrieve Red Star's Head (edges of flint knives), The Mulberry Picker (leggings), The Seduction of Redhorn's Son (cloth), Yûgiwi (blanket); someone makes an insulting remark to an animal, then pretends he said something else that sounds similar: Hare Kills Wildcat, Holy One and His Brother; a spirit assumes the form of another person: Old Man and White Feathers, Trickster, the Wolf, the Turtle, and the Meadow Lark; someone tricks an enemy into a hole in order to kill and eat him: Hare Kills Wildcat; someone stuffs dry grass down the opening of a hole in which a person is trapped, then lights it on fire: Hare Kills Wildcat.

Notes:

[1] Paul Radin, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology (New York: Schocken Books, 1956) 28-31.

[2] Radin, The Trickster, 57-58 ntt. 70-73.

[3] Caspar Edson, "Nih'âtcâ and the Bear-Women," in George A. Dorsey and Alfred L. Kroeber, Traditions of the Arapaho (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997 [1903]) Story 49, pp. 101-103. Cf. the somewhat different variant, Cut Nose, "Nih'âtcâ and the Bear-Women," Traditions of the Arapaho, Story 50, pp. 103-105.

[3.1] "11. The Cannibal and the Fox", in H. R. Voth, "Arapaho Tales", Journal of American Folk-Lore 25 (1912): 43-50 [48].

[3.2] Assiniboine, "15. Nix'ât's Adventures, (a) With the Mice's Sun-dance," in Alfred Louis Kroeber, Gros Ventre Myths and Tales, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History (New York: Trustees of the American Museum of Natural History, 1907) Volume 1, Part 3, p. 72.

[4] Radin, The Trickster, 129, #14-15; the Ponca trickster cycle is found in James Owen Dorsey, Cegiha Texts, in Contributions to North American Ethnology (Washington, D. C.: 1890) vol. 6.

[5] Dorothy Moulding Brown, Manabush: Menomini Tales, Wisconsin Folklore Booklets (Madison: 1948) 4.

[6] Radin, The Trickster, 98-99, #12-13. These tales are collected in R. H. Lowie, The Assiniboine, in The Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History (New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1909) 4:239-244.

[7] Radin, The Trickster, 102, #36.

[8] Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians, compiled and translated by Clark Wissler and D. C. Duvall (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995 [1908]) Story 12, p. 29.

[9] Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians, Story 17, pp. 33-34.

[10] "Manabozho, or the Great Incarnation of the North," in Henry R. Schoolcraft, Schoolcraft's Indian Legends, ed. Mentor L. Williams (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1991 [1956]) 77-79.

[11] Kickapoo Tales, collected by William Jones, trs. by Truman Michelson. Publications of the American Ethnological Society (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1915) IX:13-14.

[12] Morris Edward Opler, Myths and Tales of the Chiricahua Apache Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994 [1942]) 39.

[13] Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz (edd.), American Indian Trickster Tales (New York: Penguin-Putnam, Inc., 1998) 37-38.

[14] Traditions of the Arapaho, 103, nt. 1.

[15] Paul Radin, Zapotec Texts: Dialect of Juchitan-Tehauno, International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 12, #3. (July, 1946): 152-172 [159-160].

[16] Glenn Welker, "Rabbit and The Coyote" at the Indigenous Peoples Literature Website, http://www.indigenouspeople.net/rabbcoy.htm