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{{short description|Literary archetype}}
{{otheruses}}
{{other uses}}
] as depicted in an 1869 children's book by ]]]
In ] and the study of ] and ], a '''trickster''' is a character in a story (], ], spirit, ] or ]) who exhibits a great degree of ] or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and defy conventional behavior.


==Mythology==
] as depicted in an 1869 children's book by ].]]
Tricksters, as ] characters, appear in the myths of many different cultures. ] describes the trickster as a "boundary-crosser".<ref name=Hyde>Hyde, Lewis. ''Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art''. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.</ref> The trickster crosses and often breaks both physical and societal rules: Tricksters "violate principles of social and natural order, playfully disrupting normal life and then re-establishing it on a new basis."<ref name=Mattick>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/02/15/reviews/980215.15mattict.html|last=Mattick|first=Paul|title=Hotfoots of the Gods|work=]|date=February 15, 1998}}</ref>


Often, this bending and breaking of rules takes the form of tricks and thievery. Tricksters can be ] or foolish or both. The trickster openly questions, disrupts and mocks authority.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}}
In ], and in the study of ] and ], a '''trickster''' is a ], ], ], man, woman, or ] animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and norms of behaviour.


Many cultures have tales of the trickster, a crafty being who uses tricks to get food, steal precious possessions, or simply cause mischief. In some Greek myths ] plays the trickster. He is the patron of thieves and the inventor of lying, a gift he passed on to ], who in turn passed it on to ].<ref name=Hyde/> In ] folktales, the trickster and the ] are often combined.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}}
While the trickster crosses various cultural traditions, there are significant differences between tricksters in the traditions of many ] and those in the Euro-American tradition:


] cuts the hair of the goddess ].]]
<blockquote>"Many native traditions held ]s and tricksters as essential to any contact with the ]. People could not pray until they had laughed, because ] opens and frees from rigid preconception. Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacred ] for fear that they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth".<ref>Byrd Gibbens, Professor of English at ]; quoted ] in '']'' by George Carlin, 2001</ref></blockquote>


Frequently the trickster figure exhibits gender and form variability. In ] the mischief-maker is ], who is also a ]. Loki also exhibits sex variability, in one case even becoming pregnant. According to "The Song of Hyndla" in The ], Loki ] who later gives birth to Odin's eight-legged horse ].{{citation needed|date=August 2020}}
Native tricksters should not be confused with the Euro-American fictional ]. One of the most important distinctions is that "we can see in the Native American trickster an openness to life's multiplicity and paradoxes largely missing in the modern Euro-American moral tradition".<ref>Ballinger 1992, p.21</ref>


In ] folklore, a personified rabbit, known as ], is the main trickster figure.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Baker |first=Houston A. |title=Long Black Song: Essays in Black American Literature |publisher=University Press of Virginia |year=1972 |isbn=9780813904030 |pages=10–14}}</ref> In West Africa (and thence into the Caribbean via the slave trade), the spider (see ]) is often the trickster.<ref>{{cite book|last=Haase|first=Donald|title=The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|pages= |year=2008|isbn=978-0-313-33441-2|url= https://archive.org/details/unset0000unse_w7y9/page/31 }}</ref> In southern African a ] is often the trickster, usually taking the form of a ].<ref name="Bleek">Bleek (1875) </ref><ref name="eland">{{cite journal |last1=Lewis-Williams |first1=David |title=The mantis, the eland and the meerkats |journal=African Studies |date=1997 |volume=56 |issue=2 |pages=195–216 |doi=10.1080/00020189708707875 |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/00020189708707875}}</ref>
==Mythology==
The trickster deity breaks the rules of the gods or nature, sometimes maliciously (for example, ]) but usually, albeit unintentionally, with ultimately positive effects. Often, the rule-breaking takes the form of tricks (eg. ]) or thievery. Tricksters can be ] or foolish or both; they are often funny even when considered sacred or performing important cultural tasks. An example of this is the sacred ], whose role is to play tricks and games and by doing so raises awareness and acts as an equalizer.


==Trickster or clown==
In many cultures, (as may be seen in ], ], or ] folktales, along with ]/] lore), the trickster and the ] are often combined. To illustrate: ], in ], stole ] from the gods to give to humans. He is more of a culture hero than a trickster. In many Native American and First Nations mythologies, the ] (]) or ] (], coastal ], ] and ]) stole fire from the gods (]s, ], and/or ]) and are more tricksters than culture heroes. This is primarily because of other stories involving these spirits: Prometheus was a ], whereas the ] and ] are usually seen as jokesters and pranksters.
The ''trickster'' is a term used for a non-performing "trick maker"; they may have many motives behind their intention but those motives are not largely in public view. They are internal to the character or person.


The ] on the other hand is a ] of a performer who intentionally displays their actions in public for an audience.
Frequently the Trickster figure exhibits gender and ] variability, changing gender roles and engaging in ] Such figures appear in Native American and First Nations mythologies, where they are said to have a ] nature. Loki, the Norse trickster, also exhibits gender variability, in one case even becoming pregnant; interestingly, he shares the ability to change genders with ], the chief Norse deity who also possesses many characteristics of the Trickster. In the case of ]'s pregnancy, he was forced by the Gods to stop a giant from erecting a wall for them before 7 days passed; he solved the problem by transforming into a mare and drawing the giant's magical horse away from its work. He returned some time later with a child he had given birth to--the eight-legged horse ], who served as Odin's steed.


==Native American tradition==
In some cultures, there are dualistic myths, featuring two ]s creating the world, or two ]es arranging the world — in a complementary manner. ] are present in all inhabited continents<ref>Zolotarjov 1980: 54</ref> and show great diversity: they may feature culture heroes, but also demiurges (exemplifying dualistic ] in the latter case), or other beings; the two heroes may compete or collaborate; they may be conceived as neutral or contrasted as good versus evil; be of the same importance or distinguished as powerful versus weak; be brothers (even twins) or be not relatives at all.<ref>Zolotarjov 180: 40–43</ref>
While the trickster crosses various cultural traditions, there are significant differences between tricksters from different parts of the world:


<blockquote>Many native traditions held ]s and tricksters as essential to any contact with the ]. People could not pray until they had laughed, because ] opens and frees from rigid preconception. Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacred ] for fear that they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth.<ref>Byrd Gibbens, Professor of English at ]; quoted ] in '']'' by George Carlin, 2001</ref></blockquote>
===Coyote===
The Coyote mythlore is one of the most popular among Native American cultures. Coyote is a ubiquitous being and can be categorized in many types. In ], Coyote appears as the ] himself; but he may at the same time be the messenger, the ], the trickster, the fool. He has also the ability of the transformer: in some stories he is a handsome young man; in others he is an animal; yet others present him as just a power, a sacred one.
According to Crow (and other Plains) tradition, Old Man Coyote impersonates the Creator, "Old Man Coyote took up a handful of mud and out of it made people".<ref></ref> His creative power is also spread onto words, "Old Man Coyote named buffalo, deer, elk, antelopes, and bear. And all these came into being". In such myths Coyote-Creator is never mentioned as an animal; more, he can meet his animal counterpart, the coyote: they address each other as "elder brother" and "younger brother", and walk and talk together. According to A. Hultkranz, the impersonation of Coyote as Creator is a result of a taboo, a mythic substitute to the religious notion of the Great Spirit whose name was too dangerous and/or sacred to use apart from a special ceremony.


Native American tricksters should not be confused with the European fictional ]. One of the most important distinctions is that "we can see in the Native American trickster an openness to life's multiplicity and paradoxes largely missing in the modern Euro-American moral tradition".{{sfnp|Ballinger|1991|p=21}} In some stories the Native American trickster is foolish and other times wise. He can be a hero in one tale and a villain in the next.
In Chelan myths, Coyote belongs to the animal people but he is at the same time "a power just like the Creator, the head of all the creatures". Yet his being 'just like the Creator' does not really mean being 'the Creator': it is not seldom that Coyote-Just-Like-Creator is subject to the Creator, Great Chief Above, who can punish him, send him away, take powers away from him, etc. In the Pacific Northwest tradition, Coyote is mostly mentioned as a messenger, or minor power, "Coyote was sent to the camp of the chief of the Cold Wind tribe to deliver a challenge; Coyote traveled around to tell all the people in both tribes about the contest." As such, Coyote "was cruelly treated, and his work was never done."


In many Native American and First Nations mythologies, the ] (]) or ] (]) stole fire from the gods (]s, ], and/or ]). Both are usually seen as jokesters and pranksters. In Native American creation stories, when Coyote teaches humans how to catch salmon, he makes the first fish weir out of logs and branches.<ref name=Hyde/>
As the culture hero, Coyote appears in various mythic traditions. His major heroic attributes are transformation, traveling, high deeds, power. He is engaged in changing the ways of rivers, standing of mountains, creating new landscapes and getting sacred things for people. Of mention is the tradition of Coyote fighting against monsters. According to Wasco tradition, Coyote was the hero to fight and kill Thunderbird, the killer of people, but he could do that not because of his personal power, but due to the help of the Spirit Chief; Coyote was trying his best, he was fighting hard, and he had to have fasted ten days before the fight, so advised by Spirit Chief 8. In many Wasco myths, Coyote rivals the Raven (Crow) about the same ordeal: in some stories, Multnomah Falls came to be by Coyote's efforts; in others, it is done by Raven.


Wakdjunga in ] mythology is an example of the trickster archetype.
More often than not Coyote is a trickster, but he is always different. In some stories, he is a noble trickster, "Coyote takes water from the Frog people... because it is not right that one people have all the water." In others, he is mean, "Coyote determined to bring harm to Duck. He took Duck's wife and children, whom he treated badly."


] (Wìsakedjàk in ], Wīsahkēcāhk(w) in ] and Wiisagejaak in ]) is a trickster figure in ] and ] Storytelling.
==Archetype==<!-- This section is linked from ] -->
{{see|List of modern day tricksters}}


===Coyote===
The Trickster is an example of a ]. In modern literature the trickster survives as a character archetype, not necessarily supernatural or divine, sometimes no more than a ].
{{Main article|Coyote (mythology)}}
]
The Coyote mythos is one of the most popular among western Native American cultures, especially among ] and ].


According to ] (and other Plains) tradition, Old Man Coyote impersonates the Creator: "Old Man Coyote took up a handful of mud and out of it made people".<ref></ref> He also bestowed names on buffalo, deer, elk, antelopes, and bear. According to A. Hultkranz, the impersonation of Coyote as Creator is a result of a taboo, a mythic substitute to the religious notion of the Great Spirit whose name was too dangerous and/or sacred to use apart from at special ceremonies.{{citation needed|date=July 2015}}
In later folklore, the trickster is incarnated as a clever, mischievous man or creature, who tries to survive the dangers and challenges of the world using trickery and deceit as a defense. For example many typical ]s have the King who wants to find the best groom for his daughter by ordering several trials. No brave and valiant prince or knight manages to win them, until a poor and simple peasant comes. With the help of his wits and cleverness, instead of fighting, he evades or fools monsters and villains and dangers with unorthodox manners. Therefore the most unlikely candidate passes the trials and receives the reward. More modern and obvious examples of that type are ] and ] (]) (''see'' ]).


In ] myths, Coyote belongs to the animal people but he is at the same time "a power just like the Creator, the head of all the creatures." while still being a subject of the Creator who can punish him or remove his powers.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Voices of the Winds: Native American Legends|last1=Edmonds|first1=Margot|author2=Ella E. Clark|publisher=Castle Books|year=2003|isbn=0785817166|page=|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780785817161/page/5}}</ref> In the Pacific Northwest tradition, Coyote is mostly mentioned as a messenger, or minor power.
The trickster is an enduring archetype that crosses many ] and appears in a wide variety of popular ]. For a modern humanist study of the trickster archetypes and their effects on society and its evolution, see ''Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art'' by ].


As the culture hero, Coyote appears in various mythic traditions, but generally with the same magical powers of transformation, resurrection, and "medicine". He is engaged in changing the ways of rivers, creating new landscapes and getting sacred things for people. Of mention is the tradition of Coyote fighting against monsters. According to Wasco tradition, Coyote was the hero to fight and kill ], the killer of people, but he could do that not because of his personal power, but due to the help of the Spirit Chief. In some stories, ] came to be by Coyote's efforts; in others, it is done by Raven.


More often than not Coyote is a trickster, but always different. In some stories, he is a noble trickster: "Coyote takes water from the Frog people... because it is not right that one people have all the water." In others, he is malicious: "Coyote determined to bring harm to Duck. He took Duck's wife and children, whom he treated badly."{{citation needed|date=September 2016}}
==The trickster's literary role in dismantling oppressive systems==


==Oral stories==
Modern African American literary criticism has turned the trickster figure into one example of how it is possible to overcome a system of oppression from within. For years, ] was discounted by the greater community of American literary criticism while its authors were still obligated to use the language and the rhetoric of the very system that relegated African Americans and other minorities to the ostracized position of the cultural “other.” The central question became one of how to overcome this system when the only words available were created and defined by the oppressors. As ] explained, the problem was that “the master’s tools never dismantle the master’s house.”<ref>Lorde, Audre, “Age, Race, Class, and Sex,” ''Literary Theory: An Anthology'', Eds. Julie Rivkin, Michael Ryan (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 859.</ref>
{{main|List of fictional tricksters#Tricksters in folktale and mythology}}] in '']'': Tom Fashion, pretending to be Lord Foppington, parleys with Sir Tunbelly Clumsey in a 19th-century illustration by ].]]


<!-- keep alphabetical -->
In his writings of the late 1980s, ] presents the concept of ]. Wound up in this theory is the idea that the “master’s house” can be “dismantled” using his “tools” if the tools are used in a new or unconventional way. To demonstrate this process, Gates cites the interactions found in African American narrative poetry between the trickster, the ], and his oppressor, the Lion.<ref>Gates, Henry, “The Blackness of Blackness: A Critique on the Sign and the Signifying Monkey,” ''Literary Theory: An Anthology'', Eds. Julie Rivkin, Michael Ryan (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 990. </ref> According to Gates, the “Signifying Monkey” is the “New World figuration” and “functional equivalent” of the Esu trickster figure of African Yoruba mythology.<ref>''Ibid.'', 988-989.</ref> The Lion functions as the authoritative figure in his classical role of “King of the Jungle.”<ref>''Ibid.'', 991. </ref> He is the one who commands the Signifying Monkey’s movements. Yet the Monkey is able to outwit the Lion continually in these narratives through his usage of figurative language. According to Gates, “he Signifying Monkey is able to signify upon the Lion because the Lion does not understand the Monkey’s discourse…The monkey speaks figuratively, in a symbolic code; the lion interprets or reads literally and suffers the consequences of his folly…”<ref>''Ibid.'', 991.</ref> In this way, the Monkey uses the same language as the Lion, but he uses it on a level that the Lion cannot comprehend. This usually leads to the Lion’s “trounc” at the hands of a third-party, the Elephant.<ref>''Ibid.,'' 990.</ref> The net effect of all of this is “the reversal of status as the King of the Jungle.”<ref>''Ibid.,'' 991.</ref> In this way, the “master’s house” is dismantled when his own tools are turned against him by the trickster Monkey.
* ]: ]
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* Costa Rican folklore and literature: ] (Uncle Rabbit)
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* ]n mythology: ], ]
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<!-- keep alphabetical -->


==Literature and popular culture==
Following in this tradition, critics since Gates have come to assert that another popular African American folk trickster, ], uses clever language to perform the same kind of rebellious societal deconstruction as the Signifying Monkey. Brer Rabbit is the “creative way that the slave community responded to the oppressor’s failure to address them as human beings created in the image of God.”<ref>Earl, Jr., Riggins, R., ''Dark Symbols, Obscure Signs'' (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1993), 131.</ref> The figurative representative of this slave community, Brer Rabbit is the hero with a “fragile body but a deceptively strong mind” that allows him to “create own symbols in defiance of the perverted logic of the oppressor.”<ref>''Ibid.'', 131.</ref> By twisting language to create these symbols, Brer Rabbit not only was the “personification of the ethic of self-preservation” for the slave community, but also “an alternative response to their oppressor’s false doctrine of anthropology.”<ref>''Ibid.'', 158.</ref> Through his language of trickery, Brer Rabbit outwits his oppressors, deconstructing, in small ways, the hierarchy of subjugation to which his weak body forces him to physically conform.
In modern literature, the trickster survives as a character archetype, not necessarily supernatural or divine, sometimes no more than a ].


Often, the trickster is distinct in a story by their acting as a sort of catalyst; their antics are the cause of other characters' discomfiture, but they are left untouched. ]'s ] is an example of this.
Before Gates, there was some precedent for the analysis of African American folk heroes as destructive agents of an oppressive hierarchical system. In the 1920s and 1930s, ] and ] engaged in an epistolary correspondence.<ref>North, Michael, ''The Dialect of Modernism: Race, Language, and Twentieth-Century Literature'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 77.</ref> Both writers signed the letters with pseudonyms adopted from the ] tales; Eliot was “];” Pound was “].” Pound and Eliot wrote in the same “African slave” dialect of the tales. Pound, writing later of the series of letters, distinguished the language from “the Queen’s English, the language of public propriety.”<ref>''Ibid.'' </ref> This rebellion against proper language came as part of “collaboration” between Pound and Eliot “against the London literary establishment and the language that it used.”<ref>''Ibid.''</ref> Although Pound and Eliot were not attempting to overthrow an establishment as expansive as the one oppressing the African American slave community, they were actively trying to establish for themselves a new kind of literary freedom. In their usage of the ] trickster figures’ names and dialects, they display an early understanding of the way in which cleverly manipulated language can dismantle a restrictive hierarchy.
Another once-famous example was the character ] on the early USA children's television show "Andy's Gang". A cigar-puffing puppet, Froggy induced the adult humans around him to engage in ridiculous and self-destructive hi-jinks.<ref>Smith, R. L. "".</ref>


For example, many European ]s have a king who wants to find the best groom for his daughter by ordering several trials. No brave and valiant prince or knight manages to win them, until a poor and simple peasant comes. With the help of his wits and cleverness, instead of fighting, they evade or fool monsters, villains and dangers in unorthodox ways. Against expectations, the most unlikely candidate passes the trials and receives the reward.{{citation needed|date=November 2024}}
African American literary criticism and folktales are not the only place in the American literary tradition that tricksters are to be found combating subjugation from within an oppressive system. In ''When Brer Rabbit Meets Coyote'', the argument is posited that the Brer Rabbit stories were derived from a mixture of African and ], thus attributing part of the credit for the formation of the tales and wiles of Brer Rabbit to “Indian captivity narratives” and the rabbit trickster found in ] mythology.<ref>Brennan, Jonathan, “Introduction: Recognition of the African-Native American Literary Tradition,” ''When Brer Rabbit Meets Coyote'' (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 73; Baringer, Sandra K., “Brer Rabbit and His Cherokee Cousin: Moving Beyond the Appropriation Paradigm,” ''When Brer Rabbit Meets Coyote'' (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 116.</ref> In arguing for a merged “African-Native American folklore,” the idea is forwarded that certain shared “cultural affinities” between African Americans and Native Americans allowed both groups “through the trickster tales…survive European American cultural and political domination.”<ref>Brennan, “Introduction…,” 72-73.</ref>


More modern and obvious examples of the trickster archetype include ], the ] from Lewis Caroll's ], Jerry from ], ] from the Batman series, and ].<ref>https://storygrid.com/trickster-archetype/</ref><ref>https://vocal.media/geeks/a-filmmaker-s-guide-to-trickster-archetypes</ref>
==Tricksters in various cultures==
{{Col-begin}}
{{Col-1-of-2}}
*] ... ]
*] ... ]
*] ... ] (or Compere Lapin) and ], a corruption of ] (Anansee)
*] ... ]
*] ... ]
*] ... ]
*] ... ]
*] mythology ... the ] (Tsuro or Kalulu)
*] ... ]
*] ... ]
*] ... ], ], ], ]
*] ... ], ] (the Monkey King)
*] mythology . . . ]
*] ... ], ]
*] ] ... ], ]
*] ... ]
*] ... ] (The Wily Ants)
*] ] ... ] the Fox
*] ... ]
*] ... ], ] Fuchs
*] ... ], ], ], ], ], ]
*] ... ] (]), (])
*] ... ], ], ], ], ].
*] ... Baby ] stealing ]
*] and ] ... ]


==Online and multimedia==
{{Col-2-of-2}}
In online environments, there has been a link between the trickster and ]. Some have said that a trickster is a type of online community character.<ref>Campbell, J., G. Fletcher & A. Greenhill (2002). "Tribalism, Conflict and Shape-shifting Identities in Online Communities." In the ''Proceedings of the 13th Australasia Conference on Information Systems'', Melbourne Australia, 7–9 December 2002.</ref><ref>Campbell, J., G. Fletcher and A. Greenhill (2009). "", ''Information Systems Journal'' (19:5), pp. 461–478. {{doi|10.1111/j.1365-2575.2008.00301.x}}.</ref>
*]n ] ... ], or ] in modern grammar

*] ... ]
] James Cuffe has called the Chinese internet character ] (''cǎonímǎ'' 草泥马) a trickster candidate because of its duplicity in meaning.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Cuffe|first=James B.|url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781351727501|title=China at a Threshold: Exploring Social Change in Techno-Social Systems|date=2019-11-28|publisher=]|isbn=978-1-315-18322-0|edition=1|location=Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge, 2020. {{!}} Series: Contemporary liminality|pages=83 |doi=10.4324/9781315183220|s2cid=213224963 }}</ref> Cuffe argues the Grass Mud Horse serves to highlight the creative potential of the trickster archetype in communicating experiential understanding through symbolic narrative. The Grass Mud Horse relies on the interpretative capacity of storytelling in order to skirt internet censorship while simultaneously commenting on the experience of censorship in China. In this sense Cuffe proposes the Grass Mud Horse trickster as 'a ] cultural function to aid the perceiver to re-evaluate their own experiential understanding against that of their communities. By framing itself against and in spite of limits the trickster offers new coordinates by which one can reassess and judges one's own experiences.'<ref name=":0" />
*] ... ], ], ]
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*] ... ]
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*] ... ]
*] ... ], ], ]
*] ... ]
*] ... ]
*] dancing ... ] -
*] ... ]
*] ... Uncle Tompa
*]...]
*] ... Txaamsm, Raven, 'Wiigyet (Big Man)
*] ... ]
*] ... ], ], ]
*]n mythology ... ]
*] ... ]
{{Col-end}}


==See also== ==See also==
<!-- Please keep entries in alphabetical order & add a short description ] -->
*]
* ]
*]
* ] of Puerto Rico
*]
* ]
*]
* ]
*]
* ]
igbo trickster mbekwu
* ]
<!-- please keep entries in alphabetical order -->


==Notes== ==References==
{{reflist}} {{reflist}}


==References== ==Sources==
{{refbegin|30em}}
*Franchot Ballinger, ] '''' American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 1, The Literary Achievements of Gerald Vizenor (Winter, 1985), pp. 55-59 doi:10.2307/1184653
*{{citation|last=Gates|first=Henry|title=The Blackness of Blackness: A Critique on the Sign and the Signifying Monkey|journal=Literary Theory: An Anthology|editor1 = Julie Rivkin|editor2= Michael Ryan|location=Oxford|publisher= Blackwell Publishing|year= 2004}}
*Franchot Ballinger '''' MELUS, Vol. 17, No. 1, Native American Fiction: Myth and Criticism (Spring, 1991 - Spring, 1992), pp. 21-38 doi:10.2307/467321
*{{cite book|last=Earl| first=Riggins R. Jr. |title=Dark Symbols, Obscure Signs: God, Self, And Community in the Slave Mind|location=Maryknoll, New York|publisher= Orbis Books|year= 1993}}
*L. Bryce Boyer, Ruth M. Boyer '''' Western Folklore, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Jan., 1983), pp. 46-54 doi:10.2307/1499465
*{{cite book|last=Bassil-Morozow|first= Helena|title=The Trickster in Contemporary Film|publisher=Routledge|year= 2011}}
* ] creation story
*{{cite journal|first1=Franchot|last1=Ballinger|first2=Gerald|last2=Vizenor|author-link2=Gerald Vizenor|jstor=1184653|title=Sacred Reversals: Trickster in Gerald Vizenor's 'Earthdivers: Tribal Narratives on Mixed Descent'|journal=American Indian Quarterly|volume=9|number=1, ''The Literary Achievements of Gerald Vizenor''|year=1985|pages=55–59|doi=10.2307/1184653}}
* Joseph Durwin ''''
*{{cite journal|first=Franchot|last=Ballinger|jstor=467321|title=Ambigere: The Euro-American Picaro and the Native American Trickster|journal=MELUS|volume=17|number=1, ''Native American Fiction: Myth and Criticism''|year=1991|pages=21–38|doi=10.2307/467321}}
*George P. Hansen ''The trickster and the Paranormal'' (2001)
*{{cite journal|first1=L. Bryce|last1=Boyer|first2=Ruth M.|last2=Boyer|jstor=1499465|title=The Sacred Clown of the Chiricahua and Mescalero Apaches: Additional Data|journal=Western Folklore|volume=42|number=1|year=1983|pages=46–54|doi=10.2307/1499465}}
*{{cite journal | last = Koepping| first = Klaus-Peter | year = 1985| month = Feb| title = Absurdity and Hidden Truth: Cunning Intelligence and Grotesque Body Images as Manifestations of the Trickster | journal = History of Religions | volume = 24 | issue=3 | pages = 191-214 | url = http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0018-2710(198502)24%3A3%3C191%3AAAHTCI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-C }}
* Datlow, Ellen and Terri Windling. 2009. ''The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales.'' Firebird.
*Lori Landay '''' 1998 University of Pennsylvania Press
* ] creation story
* Joseph Durwin ''''
*{{cite journal | last = Koepping| first = Klaus-Peter |year=1985| title = Absurdity and Hidden Truth: Cunning Intelligence and Grotesque Body Images as Manifestations of the Trickster | journal = History of Religions | volume = 24 | issue=3 | pages = 191–214 | jstor = 1062254| doi = 10.1086/462997 | s2cid = 162313598 }}
*Lori Landay '''' 1998 University of Pennsylvania Press
* Paul Radin ''The trickster: a study in American Indian mythology'' (1956) * Paul Radin ''The trickster: a study in American Indian mythology'' (1956)
*Allan J. Ryan '''' 1999 Univ of Washington ISBN 0774807040 *Allan J. Ryan '''' 1999 Univ of Washington {{ISBN|0-7748-0704-0}}
* Trickster’s Way Volume 3, Issue 1 2004 Article 3 TRICKSTER AND THE TREKS OF HISTORY * Trickster's Way Volume 3, Issue 1 2004 Article 3 "Trickster and the Treks of History".
*Tannen, R. S., ''The Female Trickster: PostModern and Post-Jungian Perspectives on Women in Contemporary Culture'', Routledge, 2007
* {{cite book |last=Zolotarjov |first=A. M. |chapter=Társadalomszervezet és dualisztikus teremtésmítoszok Szibériában |editor=Hoppál, Mihály |title=A Tejút fiai. Tanulmányok a finnugor népek hitvilágáról |pages=29–58 |publisher=Európa Könyvkiadó |location=Budapest |year=1980 |language=Hungarian |isbn= 963 07 2187 2}} Chapter means: “Social structure and dualistic creation myths in Siberia”; title means: “The sons of Milky Way. Studies on the belief systems of Finno-Ugric peoples”.
{{refend}}


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printed by Max Crawford

Latest revision as of 01:35, 13 December 2024

Literary archetype For other uses, see Trickster (disambiguation).
The trickster figure Reynard the Fox as depicted in an 1869 children's book by Michel Rodange

In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story (god, goddess, spirit, human or anthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and defy conventional behavior.

Mythology

Tricksters, as archetypal characters, appear in the myths of many different cultures. Lewis Hyde describes the trickster as a "boundary-crosser". The trickster crosses and often breaks both physical and societal rules: Tricksters "violate principles of social and natural order, playfully disrupting normal life and then re-establishing it on a new basis."

Often, this bending and breaking of rules takes the form of tricks and thievery. Tricksters can be cunning or foolish or both. The trickster openly questions, disrupts and mocks authority.

Many cultures have tales of the trickster, a crafty being who uses tricks to get food, steal precious possessions, or simply cause mischief. In some Greek myths Hermes plays the trickster. He is the patron of thieves and the inventor of lying, a gift he passed on to Autolycus, who in turn passed it on to Odysseus. In Slavic folktales, the trickster and the culture hero are often combined.

Loki cuts the hair of the goddess Sif.

Frequently the trickster figure exhibits gender and form variability. In Norse mythology the mischief-maker is Loki, who is also a shapeshifter. Loki also exhibits sex variability, in one case even becoming pregnant. According to "The Song of Hyndla" in The Poetic Edda, Loki becomes a mare who later gives birth to Odin's eight-legged horse Sleipnir.

In African-American folklore, a personified rabbit, known as Brer Rabbit, is the main trickster figure. In West Africa (and thence into the Caribbean via the slave trade), the spider (see Anansi) is often the trickster. In southern African a ǀKaggen is often the trickster, usually taking the form of a praying mantis.

Trickster or clown

The trickster is a term used for a non-performing "trick maker"; they may have many motives behind their intention but those motives are not largely in public view. They are internal to the character or person.

The clown on the other hand is a persona of a performer who intentionally displays their actions in public for an audience.

Native American tradition

While the trickster crosses various cultural traditions, there are significant differences between tricksters from different parts of the world:

Many native traditions held clowns and tricksters as essential to any contact with the sacred. People could not pray until they had laughed, because laughter opens and frees from rigid preconception. Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacred ceremonies for fear that they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth.

Native American tricksters should not be confused with the European fictional picaro. One of the most important distinctions is that "we can see in the Native American trickster an openness to life's multiplicity and paradoxes largely missing in the modern Euro-American moral tradition". In some stories the Native American trickster is foolish and other times wise. He can be a hero in one tale and a villain in the next.

In many Native American and First Nations mythologies, the Coyote spirit (Southwestern United States) or Raven spirit (Pacific Northwest) stole fire from the gods (stars, moon, and/or sun). Both are usually seen as jokesters and pranksters. In Native American creation stories, when Coyote teaches humans how to catch salmon, he makes the first fish weir out of logs and branches.

Wakdjunga in Winnebago mythology is an example of the trickster archetype.

Wisakedjak (Wìsakedjàk in Algonquin, Wīsahkēcāhk(w) in Cree and Wiisagejaak in Oji-Cree) is a trickster figure in Algonquin and Chipewyan Storytelling.

Coyote

Main article: Coyote (mythology)
Coyote often has the role of trickster as well as a clown in traditional stories.

The Coyote mythos is one of the most popular among western Native American cultures, especially among indigenous peoples of California and the Great Basin.

According to Crow (and other Plains) tradition, Old Man Coyote impersonates the Creator: "Old Man Coyote took up a handful of mud and out of it made people". He also bestowed names on buffalo, deer, elk, antelopes, and bear. According to A. Hultkranz, the impersonation of Coyote as Creator is a result of a taboo, a mythic substitute to the religious notion of the Great Spirit whose name was too dangerous and/or sacred to use apart from at special ceremonies.

In Chelan myths, Coyote belongs to the animal people but he is at the same time "a power just like the Creator, the head of all the creatures." while still being a subject of the Creator who can punish him or remove his powers. In the Pacific Northwest tradition, Coyote is mostly mentioned as a messenger, or minor power.

As the culture hero, Coyote appears in various mythic traditions, but generally with the same magical powers of transformation, resurrection, and "medicine". He is engaged in changing the ways of rivers, creating new landscapes and getting sacred things for people. Of mention is the tradition of Coyote fighting against monsters. According to Wasco tradition, Coyote was the hero to fight and kill Thunderbird, the killer of people, but he could do that not because of his personal power, but due to the help of the Spirit Chief. In some stories, Multnomah Falls came to be by Coyote's efforts; in others, it is done by Raven.

More often than not Coyote is a trickster, but always different. In some stories, he is a noble trickster: "Coyote takes water from the Frog people... because it is not right that one people have all the water." In others, he is malicious: "Coyote determined to bring harm to Duck. He took Duck's wife and children, whom he treated badly."

Oral stories

Main article: List of fictional tricksters § Tricksters in folktale and mythology
Trickster subplot in The Relapse: Tom Fashion, pretending to be Lord Foppington, parleys with Sir Tunbelly Clumsey in a 19th-century illustration by William Powell Frith.

Literature and popular culture

In modern literature, the trickster survives as a character archetype, not necessarily supernatural or divine, sometimes no more than a stock character.

Often, the trickster is distinct in a story by their acting as a sort of catalyst; their antics are the cause of other characters' discomfiture, but they are left untouched. Shakespeare's Puck is an example of this. Another once-famous example was the character Froggy the Gremlin on the early USA children's television show "Andy's Gang". A cigar-puffing puppet, Froggy induced the adult humans around him to engage in ridiculous and self-destructive hi-jinks.

For example, many European fairy tales have a king who wants to find the best groom for his daughter by ordering several trials. No brave and valiant prince or knight manages to win them, until a poor and simple peasant comes. With the help of his wits and cleverness, instead of fighting, they evade or fool monsters, villains and dangers in unorthodox ways. Against expectations, the most unlikely candidate passes the trials and receives the reward.

More modern and obvious examples of the trickster archetype include Bugs Bunny, the Cheshire Cat from Lewis Caroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Jerry from Tom and Jerry, Joker from the Batman series, and Pippi Longstocking.

Online and multimedia

In online environments, there has been a link between the trickster and Internet trolling. Some have said that a trickster is a type of online community character.

Anthropologist James Cuffe has called the Chinese internet character Grass Mud Horse (cǎonímǎ 草泥马) a trickster candidate because of its duplicity in meaning. Cuffe argues the Grass Mud Horse serves to highlight the creative potential of the trickster archetype in communicating experiential understanding through symbolic narrative. The Grass Mud Horse relies on the interpretative capacity of storytelling in order to skirt internet censorship while simultaneously commenting on the experience of censorship in China. In this sense Cuffe proposes the Grass Mud Horse trickster as 'a heuristic cultural function to aid the perceiver to re-evaluate their own experiential understanding against that of their communities. By framing itself against and in spite of limits the trickster offers new coordinates by which one can reassess and judges one's own experiences.'

See also

References

  1. ^ Hyde, Lewis. Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.
  2. Mattick, Paul (February 15, 1998). "Hotfoots of the Gods". The New York Times.
  3. Baker, Houston A. (1972). Long Black Song: Essays in Black American Literature. University Press of Virginia. pp. 10–14. ISBN 9780813904030.
  4. Haase, Donald (2008). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 31. ISBN 978-0-313-33441-2.
  5. Bleek (1875) A brief account of Bushman folklore and other texts
  6. Lewis-Williams, David (1997). "The mantis, the eland and the meerkats". African Studies. 56 (2): 195–216. doi:10.1080/00020189708707875.
  7. Byrd Gibbens, Professor of English at University of Arkansas at Little Rock; quoted epigraph in Napalm and Silly Putty by George Carlin, 2001
  8. Ballinger (1991), p. 21.
  9. "Gold Fever California on the Eve- California Indians", Oakland Museum of California
  10. Edmonds, Margot; Ella E. Clark (2003). Voices of the Winds: Native American Legends. Castle Books. p. 5. ISBN 0785817166.
  11. Carradice, Phil (16 June 2011). "Twm Sion Cati – the Welsh Robin Hood". BBC. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
  12. Smith, R. L. "Remembering Andy Devine".
  13. https://storygrid.com/trickster-archetype/
  14. https://vocal.media/geeks/a-filmmaker-s-guide-to-trickster-archetypes
  15. Campbell, J., G. Fletcher & A. Greenhill (2002). "Tribalism, Conflict and Shape-shifting Identities in Online Communities." In the Proceedings of the 13th Australasia Conference on Information Systems, Melbourne Australia, 7–9 December 2002.
  16. Campbell, J., G. Fletcher and A. Greenhill (2009). "Conflict and Identity Shape Shifting in an Online Financial Community", Information Systems Journal (19:5), pp. 461–478. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2575.2008.00301.x.
  17. ^ Cuffe, James B. (2019-11-28). China at a Threshold: Exploring Social Change in Techno-Social Systems (1 ed.). Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge, 2020. | Series: Contemporary liminality: Routledge. pp. 83 . doi:10.4324/9781315183220. ISBN 978-1-315-18322-0. S2CID 213224963.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)

Sources

  • Gates, Henry (2004), Julie Rivkin; Michael Ryan (eds.), "The Blackness of Blackness: A Critique on the Sign and the Signifying Monkey", Literary Theory: An Anthology, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing
  • Earl, Riggins R. Jr. (1993). Dark Symbols, Obscure Signs: God, Self, And Community in the Slave Mind. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books.
  • Bassil-Morozow, Helena (2011). The Trickster in Contemporary Film. Routledge.
  • Ballinger, Franchot; Vizenor, Gerald (1985). "Sacred Reversals: Trickster in Gerald Vizenor's 'Earthdivers: Tribal Narratives on Mixed Descent'". American Indian Quarterly. 9 (1, The Literary Achievements of Gerald Vizenor): 55–59. doi:10.2307/1184653. JSTOR 1184653.
  • Ballinger, Franchot (1991). "Ambigere: The Euro-American Picaro and the Native American Trickster". MELUS. 17 (1, Native American Fiction: Myth and Criticism): 21–38. doi:10.2307/467321. JSTOR 467321.
  • Boyer, L. Bryce; Boyer, Ruth M. (1983). "The Sacred Clown of the Chiricahua and Mescalero Apaches: Additional Data". Western Folklore. 42 (1): 46–54. doi:10.2307/1499465. JSTOR 1499465.
  • Datlow, Ellen and Terri Windling. 2009. The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales. Firebird.
  • California on the Eve – California Indians Miwok creation story
  • Joseph Durwin Coulrophobia & The Trickster
  • Koepping, Klaus-Peter (1985). "Absurdity and Hidden Truth: Cunning Intelligence and Grotesque Body Images as Manifestations of the Trickster". History of Religions. 24 (3): 191–214. doi:10.1086/462997. JSTOR 1062254. S2CID 162313598.
  • Lori Landay Madcaps, Screwballs, and Con Women: The Female Trickster in American Culture 1998 University of Pennsylvania Press
  • Paul Radin The trickster: a study in American Indian mythology (1956)
  • Allan J. Ryan The Trickster Shift: Humour and irony in contemporary native art 1999 Univ of Washington ISBN 0-7748-0704-0
  • Trickster's Way Volume 3, Issue 1 2004 Article 3 "Trickster and the Treks of History".
  • Tannen, R. S., The Female Trickster: PostModern and Post-Jungian Perspectives on Women in Contemporary Culture, Routledge, 2007

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