Skip to main content

Coyote the Creator and the Curriculum

We all know that Coyote is our ancestor and creator god, who formed the earth, and made people from things like feathers and twigs.  And that, sometimes, Coyote was a trickster.  All you have to do is to look around, and you will see that somebody had a sense of humor.  


Oh, we have to admit that not everyone sees it that way.  There are people who trace their creation stories to places other than the great Southwest, who have other creation stories.  Quite a few, actually:  Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Fundamentalist Legislators in at least seven states.  


None of them mentions Coyote.  In fact, many of them take Coyote's name in vain.  Foul stuff, that!  Cursing Coyote and scientists in the same breath!  


You really cannot blame the people in Texas and Oklahoma and Tennessee and Florida and New Mexico and the other places that want to set the record straight about how the earth came to be, and the origins of human life, and all that, for ignoring Coyote.  They think that primitive people out West did the best they could, but that a myth is a myth.  They say we don't live there, anymore!


They believe--those who trace their Norwegian and Italian ancestries back to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob--that they live in a three-storied universe, with earth as the middle layer, and heaven above, and hell below.  They believe, and say it is a fact, that God and angels live overhead, and Satan and demons live down below, and that they, in the middle, are tempted by both to do good and evil, and that when they die they will change from living in the middle layer to either heaven above or hell below, and all that.  


That is why it is so frustrating to hear scientists talk about a Big Bang, or all that prattle about evolution.  The least we should expect is for public school teachers to teach our kids about Coyote, and how we were made from sticks and feathers, if not instead of "scientific fact", then at least alongside it.  You know, as an alternative sort of science, sort of.  


As for that three-storied universe stuff, with the Garden of Eden and angels and imps and Noah's ark and all those stories, well . . . there is nothing wrong with mythology, so long as you don't take it literally.  And who would?  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Friends-- My step-father of 35 years died this morning. His name was Conrad Royksund. He was 86 years old. He was born into poverty on a farm near Puyallup, WA. He was the first member of his family to attend college and earned a PhD from the University of Chicago. He paid his way through all of that by fishing in Alaska. He spent his professional career as a college professor. I met him when I was just 3 years old and don't actually have any memories of my life befor e he was in it. He was intimidatingly smart, funny as hell, and worked his ass off. He taught me to meet people with kindness and decency until I was certain they could not be trusted. He taught me to meet ideas with carving knives until I was certain they could. I will remember him as one of the bravest, most curious, and funniest people I have ever met. He left this world with a satisfied mind. We are so grateful. Dan Hubbard
1 comment
Read more

Nice to Run Into You Again

We do not see things in enormous time-frames.  We human beings are fairly new at figuring things out for ourselves.  For instance, some  people today still think of the earth as a newly created thing, perhaps ten thousand years old.  Earth is actually about four-and-a-half billion years old.   That is to say, the earth is 450,000 times older than the Adam and Eve story, and the universe is three times older than that! I recall first hearing that continents were slowly drifting around the earth, and that there quite likely had been several times when the continents were squeezed together.  But people could stand on the edge of their own continents, and not see Africa or Asia getting closer.  It took at least fifty years to figure things out. We called our continent something special. But sure enough, there have been numerous times during several-billion year history of the earth, when supercontinents formed, and eventually drifted off. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Sea is Rising

Let us just step back:  two hundred and fifty years ago, or so, the ships of England and Spain had drifted onto a whole new continent, as they saw it, from far north to a savagely cold south; pole to pole, as if there were such things. Millions of people already lived here, some of them still hunters and gatherers; some of them very wealthy, indeed!  Gold and silver stolen from the southern Americas funded Spanish and English dreams. There was land, lots of land, under starry skies above, rich land, and oil and coal and iron ore.  The whole western world learned how to build industries not on simple muscle power, but on steam and oil.  We farmed, too, of course.  All we needed was cheap labor--slave labor from Africa, mostly, so the ships came with slave labor.  Chinese labor built railroad beds where there had been rock cliffs. Europeans, long used to killing each other for good, religious reasons, brought their religious savagery with them. ...
Post a Comment
Read more