Vizenor and the trickster tales

Gerald Vizenor
(information about himself and his works)
http://www.hanksville.org/storytellers/vizenor/

Vizenor's video on the trickster tales helped me to go into further depth about understanding the tales themselves.  However, he states that every trickster tale has certain characteristics that qualify them as a trickster. I find this to not be entirely true while studying a couple of trickster tales from the book American Indian Trickster Tales by Erdoess and Ortiz.  Vizenor's definition of a trickster tale states that they are truthful stories that give meaning to contradictions, love and humor to mortality and flaws.  Tricksters always have a mythical character but they are never an evil character whom plays on human disorder.  He also says that these tricksters can do whatever they want but in the end they came to nothing.  In order to study his definition on the trickster tales I analyzed the tales by Nanbuzho and Whiskey Jack;  more specifically, "Why Women Have Their Moon Time."

The tale "Why Women Have Their Moontime," explains why things are the way they are with women.  (I don't wanna go into specifics in telling the story, so I will just give the main themes in comparison to Vizenor).  The contradiction holds true in this tale- the love/ hate relationship that is encountered with Coyote and his grandma.  This is the main similarity in Vizenor's definition and the tale.  The tale as a whole leaves a painful effect that  happens to every woman.  However, Vizenor emphasized that the trickster comes to nothing in these tales and I did not see that in this tale.  It actually happens that the /trickster ends up winning in this story by cursing every woman with a moon time because of grandma's selfish actions.

The second tale I analyzed was, "Why We Work so Hard to Make Maple Sugar."  This tale showed compassion and foreshadowing.  Foreshadowing that he loves his people and would do anything for them.  It also shows the consequences that could happen to people, whether they happen or not.  This part in particualr fit Vizenor's definition.  Human disorder comes into action in terms of consequences.  Humans decide whether or not they do something based on the consequences alone.  In some ways this inhibits people from doing what they want, and in others it helps keep people in line.  It is a sense of morale that helps keep people civil.

Although I had a brief summation of what Vizenor's thoughts on the american trickster were, I think the two tales I analyzed had some similarities and differences in Vizenor's definition.  I do not think that one can set an absolute guideline to what a trickster tale is, but I do think he described most of them very well.  In order to be more precise one would have to study almost every tale and come up with their own thoughts, ultimately, that owuld change depending upon the person who is interpretting these tales.