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

That's all we want: fairness! Not more guns and more war! Fairness!

The five police officers who were killed in Dallas are certainly not the officers who killed innocent citizens. There is more than enough tragedy to go around. "What is happening to our country?", Mari asked this morning. I had no answer.  We do have an answer.  We do not want to say it. There are lots of answers, all of them pertinent. We are a racist society, like most human societies. We are a society in the midst of enormous changes-- social, political, economic--and we do not know what to do about it. We are divided unsustainably into absurdly rich, and an enormous number of crumbling middle class families, and poor. We have guns everywhere; military guns, guns just for killing people, cheap guns, heroes carrying guns into churches and supermarkets, idiots who think guns ought to be allowed in bars and schools and ball games and beauty parlors and political rallies. Our political process is almost useless. There are good people in Congress, but there...
Post a Comment
Read more

On Watching a Formerly Sane Man Descend into Abject Religion

If you read the previous post, you know the apparatus, pictured here, is a torture machine. There are ten of them in our house, purportedly to circulate air to dry out all the problems caused by a water leak. We live in Tucson:  it has not rained in Tucson since the Gadsden Purchase. A mudslide the size of the one in Washington State could course through our neighborhood and it would be bone-dry and stone-hard before it quit moving. I suspect it is the CIA, and probably the Border Patrol! We are, after all, only about a hundred miles from the border. I fully expect a large suburban assault vehicle to pull up to the house, and for lots of people with UPPER CASE LETTERS on their shirts to interrogate us, and I will have to explain that all the drugs I use come from Walgreens and Total Wine. But it won't work.  Our minds are going. We are getting short with each other and, if they promise to turn off the fans, I will confess to having invented the Arab...
Post a Comment
Read more