Hopi Coyote Tales

Istutuwutsi

by Ekkehart Malotki

This volume brings together twenty-one traditional tales recently retold by Hopi narrators. Complete with English translations and original Hopi transcriptions on facing pages and a bilingual glossary. Hopi Coyote Tales is important to an understanding of the Hopi language and folklore.

To nomadic hunters such as the Navajo, who competed with him on the open range, Coyote was by turns a formidable trickster, a demonic witchperson, and a god. As sedentary planters, the Hopis tended to reduce Coyote to the level of a laughable fool. In these tales Coyote is a friendly bumbler whose mistakes teach listeners what tricks to avoid. Time after time he is hurt or killed for failing to understand a situation correctly. The collection is as amusing as animal fables should be, as simply told, and as instructive.

Published as a companion volume to Father Berard Haile's Navajo Coyote Tales, Hopi Coyote Tales is a valuable contribution to cross-cultural studies.

Ekkehart Malotki, who with Michael Lomatuway'ma compiled and translated this collection, is a language scholar at Northern Arizona University. Lomatuway'ma, a Third mesa Hopi from Hotevilla and a library assistant at Northern Arizona, provided many of the stories. A special feature are the illustrations, based on Indian petroglyphs, by Anne-Marie Malotki. The introduction is by Karl W. Luckert, a professor of religious studies at Southwest Missouri State University.

— ©1984