What Does Trickster Mean

In American Indian tales, the trickster is someone who is portrayed as mischievous, greedy, self-serving, and thieving. He is stupid and cowardly but also wise, clever, and occasionally heroic. Trickster is also considered to be godlike and sacred to American Indians which is why most of these anecdotes have a moral or lesson for those who hear them. Old Man Coyote is probably the most popular of the trickster characters and the most ill-behaved. In the tale, “Better Luck Next Time,” Coyote is up to no good again when he comes across a turtle in distress. Dialogue between Coyote and Water Turtle displays the Coyote to be liminal and foolish. The author uses dialogue to tell this story in a light-hearted and funny tone to teach the lesson that

even the cunning Coyote is capable of being tricked and that too much confidence can be a bad thing.
Towards the end of this tale, the discourse is very back and forth and shows just how thoughtless and overly confident Old Man Coyote is. The author writes:
“ ’Then I’ll drop you into the nearest stream and the water will dissolve your shell and you’ll drown and then I’ll eat you!’ ‘Ow, ow, ow, please, please don’t do that!’ cried Water Turtle. ‘It would kill me. I’d drown. My shell would melt. Water would be the death of me. Please, dear, dear Coyote, don’t put me in the stream.’ ‘Who is stupid now?’ Coyote laughed. ‘You dumb Water Turtle, you’ve given yourself away!’ …He dropped Water Turtle into the stream. Water Turtle stuck his head out above the surface. He was grinning. He shouted: ‘Thank you, thank you, dear Coyote, you’ve brought me home. You’ve saved my life!’ ” (Erdoes and Ortiz 41)
In the dialogue between Coyote and Water Turtle, it is clear that the Coyote is very confident of himself when he tells the turtle he will eat it. The Coyote behaves unwisely by telling the turtle his plan to drop him in the stream instead of simply tricking him as he usually does to his victims. The statement of his plan gave the Water Turtle the opportunity to reverse the situation and trick Coyote. This conversation clearly confirms that Coyote is too confident. Furthermore, it shows that he is liminal in the sense that he is in between wise and foolish and also between heroic and villainous. The line between wise and foolish is a thin one when it comes to Coyote and his actions. In many other trickster tales the Coyote is clever in regards to tricking people to get what he wants, however, in this specific account he shows himself to be unwise by being too cocky and therefore the Water Turtle manipulates Coyote into saving his life. I could also argue that Coyote is liminal because while he set out to kill the turtle, Coyote actually saves him. In this case, Old Man Coyote is in the intermediate state of being a champion and also a villain.
Through the interchange it can be seen that Water Turtle is incredibly similar to the Coyote and other tricksters.

I believe that the Water Turtle has possibly come across tricksters just like Coyote and has learned how to outsmart them through experience. He says, “My shell would melt” when Coyote threatens to put him in the stream. Obviously, the turtle knows his shell cannot actually melt but is only making the Coyote think it can. Like tricksters, the turtle needs something and uses the stupidity of others to get what he wants. He comes across some fool (Coyote) and with a goal in mind, he gets said fool to do his bidding. Had the Coyote been in this particular situation, he would have done the exact same thing. The Water Turtle turns the tables on Coyote and manipulates him just he has learned from other

tricksters.
Another example of a case I could dispute is that the Coyote actually subconsciously knows that the turtle is in trouble.

Old Man Coyote is notorious for being extraordinarily devious and would not have survived for so long if he wasn’t. Coyote recognizes that it is a water turtle because he specifically calls it a water turtle when he says, “You dumb Water Turtle, you have given yourself away!” To the American Indians Old Man Coyote was a sort of all-knowing deity. He is foolish now and again but surely Coyote would not be so naïve to consider that a turtles shell cannot crack and that it can be melted by water. I believe that Coyote may have only played a fool and let the Water Turtle merely think he was tricking him. Throughout trickster tales Coyote is acknowledged for being self-serving, therefore knowingly saving the water turtle may have soiled his good trickster name. The Coyote would not be a trickster if he paraded around being heroic all the time; that would make him merely a hero. Old Man Coyote is the perfect trickster because he is on the edge of hero and villain, he is not one or the other, he is both

simultaneously.
In “Better Luck Next Time,” the Coyote trickster is overly confident, seemingly foolish, and liminal. It could be said that the moral of this story is not to be too confident. Coyote’s cockiness gets the best of him and leads him to be tricked by Water Turtle. In my opinion, Water Turtle outsmarts him because he has experience dealing with tricksters like Coyote. However, it could be that Coyote only lets the turtle think he is tricking him and is simply acting foolish to help the Water Turtle without appearing too heroic. Coyote demonstrates that he is bordering the line between being a hero and a villain, he is cowardly and valiant at the same time. In this instance Old Man Coyote is the unsung hero of the story for whether he meant to or not, he saved the Water Turtle’s life.