The Trickster Among Us

a review after reading

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich

In some tribes the trickster is associated with the coyote who is believed to trick the learner into the lesson.  Through the antics of the coyote, especially Wyle E. Coyote we learn what not to do.  We see the disastrous outcome and we learn to laugh at our own misfortunes as well as his. 

Unless our name is Kaczyinsky, we are not going to think of blowing up our enemies or in the case of Wyle E. Coyote our possible dinner without seeing Wyle E. with his soot blackened face and that oh, so mystified expression.  If nothing else, we learned not to do anything without thinking through all the possible outcomes.  How many of us who watched Roadrunner cartoons will now step out on a ledge without thinking, "Hey, maybe this ledge is not safe.?

A lot of the time the rabbit is also the trickster figure.  We see this in cartoons as well with Bugs Bunny and other similar characters.  Countless times the rabbit comes out ahead of Elmer Fudd.  He eats farmer Fudd's carrots.  He turns hunter Fudd's gun barrel around on himself. 

Think of the Tortoise and the Hare.  The rabbit attempts to trick the turtle by taking a nap and letting the turtle think he's going to win when he knows he will wake up and out run him easily.  What he doesn't count on is the perseverance of the turtle.  From this we learn to stick it out and the little guy can win.  We needed the example of the hare making a fool of himself to learn to keep our mind on what we are doing.

  We see the trickster everywhere, not only in Native American folklore but in stories from almost every other group as well.  In Ireland it's leprechauns.  In Scotland it's brownies and elves.  To the Mestizo Indian, it's Mescalito.  In Greek mythology, it was Pan.  In Hawaii it's the Menehunes.  In medieval Jewish tales he's called the dybbuk. 

Stefano DiMera, a character on the popular soap Days of Our Lives is a trickster character along with his adopted daughter Kristin.  These two are rich and powerful and enjoy manipulating the personal lives of most of the other characters.  From these two we learn about power corrupting.  We also learn that all the money and power in the world won't buy us happiness.  Without evil characters on a soap, we would have no plot and learn no life lessons.

We even find the trickster in science fiction tales of the future.  Q on Star Trek the Next Generation is the ultimate trickster.  Q is described as being a "Mischievous Omniscient Being."  His character fluctuates back and forth between good and evil.  Sometimes he's judge, sometimes protector.  Sometimes he's sadistic tormentor and at other times he's benevolent despot. In one episode he torments the humans at the beginning and by the end of the show, he has taught them (sometimes just Picard,) an important life lesson. Q satisfies our desire to see an all powerful being who is not totally evil.  While being a work of fiction like a dream, he doesn't pose a threat to us.

I believe that not only is Nanapush in Love Medicine, a trickster, but Pauline is more so, the only difference being that she doesn't know it.  Don't we learn life lessons from her evil and her stupidity?  Perhaps the Great Spirit is using Pauline to teach us to be kind to each other. 

The trickster is everywhere.  Perhaps you had a Nanapush-trickster-type grandfather.  In my case, it was my grandmother.  Who is the trickster in your family?