The Trickster: A Study In American Indian Mythology by Paul Radin

Author:Paul Radin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Normanby Press
Published: 2015-11-05T23:00:00+00:00

III—WINNEBAGO MYTHOLOGY AND LITERARY TRADITION

LIKE most American Indian tribes, the Winnebago divided their prose narratives into two types: those that dealt with a past that was irretrievably gone and which belonged to the realm of things no longer possible or attainable by man or spirits; and those which dealt with the present workaday world. The first is called waikan, what-is-sacred, and the second worak, what-is-recounted. No waikan could be told in the summertime or, at least, when the snakes were above ground. Waikan could not end tragically, that is, the hero could not be represented as dying or being killed except temporarily. Such an ending was, of course, conditioned by the fact that the heroes of a waikan were always divine beings, and divine beings among the Winnebago were regarded as immortal unless they belonged to the category of evil beings. The worak, in contrast, could be told at any time and had to end tragically. No worak could ever become a waikan, but a waikan could, under certain circumstances, be placed in the category of a worak. The heroes of the worak were always either human beings or, very rarely, divine beings who had thrown in their lot with man.

The heroes of the waikan were either spirits and deities like Thunderbird, Waterspirit, Sun, Morning Star, or vague semi-deities like Trickster, He-who-wears-human-heads-as-ear-pendants (also called Red Horn) and Bladder, or animals like Hare, Turtle, Bear, Wolf. These animals were, however, really regarded as spirits. The Winnebago made a clear distinction, at least the Winnebago ‘theologians’ did, between the animal-deity who presided over all the animals of a given species and the concrete animals themselves. It is those presiding animal-deities who appear in the waikan. Certain of the animals belong to a special category, for instance, Hare, Turtle and possibly Bear, for there is some reason for believing that the first two at least were once deities who have secondarily lost their primary divine traits.

Like their close kinsmen, the Iowa, and their more distant relatives, the Ponca, as well as their non-Siouan speaking neighbours, the Ojibwa and Menominee, the Winnebago had a marked tendency to group the adventures of their heroes into large units, into cycles. The most important of these myth-cycles were those connected with Trickster, Hare, Red Horn, the Twins and the Two Boys.{190} Perhaps it is best to give a summary of the contents of the Red Horn and Twin cycles in order to contrast the episodes found therein with those of Hare and Trickster. For the Hare cycle, see pages 63-91.

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