The comanche figures of wolf (the idealist who creates perfect things) and coyote (the one who soils creation) would have been very good for this. I find their schema very useful, it’s like “first, things were perfect, then something messed it up”. I guess many of us, especially here, are born with this intuitive sense that the world was supposed to be a reasonable place designed by reasonable people, and so we need to be told, “No, that’s a reasonable thing to hope for, darling, but something happened. Things got messed up. You’ll have to adjust.”
For some tribes, the First People include a noble, heroic figure, such as the Wolf among the Comanche, who foresees the coming of humanity and plans a perfect, ideal world for them—until his brother coyote enters the scene as marplot (Bright 1993, 20)
In these cultures, Coyote is often described as the trickster figure.
“Wolf was wholly beneficent; his acts of original creation made all things perfect and good. Coyote, the mischievous Till Eulenspiegel of Shoshonean folklore, was the spoiler of all things, however. His was the role of the transformer who undid the good works of his big brother. He brought hardship, travail and effort into the lives of men. He represented the force of Evil as we [Euro-Americans] see it—and yet the Shoshones in no way thought of him and his relationship with Wolf as a conflict of good and evil. Coyote was not bad, he was no more than wantonly mischievous” (Wallace and Hoebel 1948, 193–94).
~ The First Domestication. Pierotti, Fogg (2017)
Somewhere I’ve got a draft of a story about how wolf made the world to be a perfect reflection of wolf’s will alone, and so wolf was free of any obligations to anyone, but then all of that got screwed up when a second being (coyote) came into existence and started doing its own thing and spreading around. Since then, everyone has had to live under the curse of Other People, and all of the rules and borders and negative externalities that come with that. But of course, if wolf had gotten their way, you and I wouldn’t exist.
wolf made the world to be a perfect reflection of wolf’s will alone, and so wolf was free of any obligations to anyone, but then all of that got screwed up when a second being (coyote) came into existence and started doing its own thing and spreading around.
Something about Tolkien I noticed this month: Despite Tolkien being an extremely widely read conlanger who wrote in detail about fantasy cultures, he hasn’t really introduced a single new word to the english language. I find this very concerning. Ada Palmer has introduced many words that I think may have a life outside of her work (utopian, bash, sensayer, nurturist), so what is Tolkien doing? Is there some kind of attachment to impracticality deep in his thoughts that keeps him from doing it? It doesn’t seem like that’s it, as both “Mathom” and “Eucatastrophe” would be useful to have around (I may try to hoist eucatastrophe given that the lack of that word may be the reason positive singularities are rarely depicted)
He’s done something stronger than that: he has taken words that existed before, and replaced whatever meanings they may have had with his own. Elf, dwarf, orc, … these now indelibly bear his mark.
The comanche figures of wolf (the idealist who creates perfect things) and coyote (the one who soils creation) would have been very good for this. I find their schema very useful, it’s like “first, things were perfect, then something messed it up”. I guess many of us, especially here, are born with this intuitive sense that the world was supposed to be a reasonable place designed by reasonable people, and so we need to be told, “No, that’s a reasonable thing to hope for, darling, but something happened. Things got messed up. You’ll have to adjust.”
~ The First Domestication. Pierotti, Fogg (2017)
Somewhere I’ve got a draft of a story about how wolf made the world to be a perfect reflection of wolf’s will alone, and so wolf was free of any obligations to anyone, but then all of that got screwed up when a second being (coyote) came into existence and started doing its own thing and spreading around. Since then, everyone has had to live under the curse of Other People, and all of the rules and borders and negative externalities that come with that. But of course, if wolf had gotten their way, you and I wouldn’t exist.
In this sense, it was coyote who made humans.
See also: Eru and Melkor.
Something about Tolkien I noticed this month: Despite Tolkien being an extremely widely read conlanger who wrote in detail about fantasy cultures, he hasn’t really introduced a single new word to the english language. I find this very concerning. Ada Palmer has introduced many words that I think may have a life outside of her work (utopian, bash, sensayer, nurturist), so what is Tolkien doing? Is there some kind of attachment to impracticality deep in his thoughts that keeps him from doing it? It doesn’t seem like that’s it, as both “Mathom” and “Eucatastrophe” would be useful to have around (I may try to hoist eucatastrophe given that the lack of that word may be the reason positive singularities are rarely depicted)
He’s done something stronger than that: he has taken words that existed before, and replaced whatever meanings they may have had with his own. Elf, dwarf, orc, … these now indelibly bear his mark.