COYOTE WAS LIVING WITH two wives. He had a son by the older one and some young children by the younger wife. The young wife was jealous of the older son. She thought he would get the chieftainship from Coyote, so she tried in different ways to tell stories that reflected poorly on the older son. She told Coyote the boy was trying to sleep with her. Coyote didn’t believe her at first. He liked the boy very much. But after a while he was suspicious.
One day the young woman went out to hunt for partridge. She asked the boy to go with her but he said he didn’t want to. He told her to take one of the younger boys in the village. But she said he was the best hunter and finally he went with her. He shot a partridge for her and then they went back to the village. The young woman pulled up her dress on the way and scratched all around her lower parts until they were bleeding.
That night Coyote wanted to lie down with her, but she said she was too sore. “I’m all cut up from fighting with your son.” Coyote looked at her wounds. She said she had struggled with his son in the woods and that he had raped her.
The next day a great crowd of people came visiting in canoes. Coyote was very well known and liked. “My friends,” he said, “tomorrow we will go to the islands to collect eggs for my son. We will have a feast for him.” Whatever Coyote said, they would do.
The next day Coyote said to his son, “You must go too.”
“No,” said his son. “I don’t want any eggs.” But Coyote made him go. They paddled toward a big island, Coyote in the back and the son in the bow. “Is that the island?” asked the boy. “Yes,” answered Coyote. But even though they paddled hard they never seemed to get any closer. Coyote was blowing on the island when they got near, pushing it farther out to sea. Finally they got there and Coyote and his son began gathering eggs. Then Coyote suggested to his son that he should go inland. “The best eggs are farther inland. Go ahead.” When the boy was at a distance Coyote jumped in his canoe and paddled away.
“Father! Father! You are leaving me. Wait!”
“You have been making a wife of your stepmother,” said Coyote over his shoulder, and he paddled away. So the boy was left on the island.
One day the boy met a Gull. “Oh, grandchild, what are you doing over here alone?” said the Gull.
“My father left me here.”
“You can’t get back by yourself but maybe I can carry you over.” The boy climbed on the bird’s back but he was too heavy. Gull could barely stay in the air.
“Go out to the big end of the island,” said the Gull. “There is someone there to help you.”
The boy did as he was told. At the far end of the island he found a Fish with two horns on his head.
“Why are you all alone?”
“My father left me here.”
“I will take you over to the mainland. Just get on my back and hold on to my horns.”
Before they left, Fish asked if the weather was clear. He was afraid of thunder. “Are there any clouds?”
“No,” said the boy.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am sure.”
The Fish gave the boy a stone. “If you see clouds hit me with the stone and I will go faster. Are you sure there are no clouds?” The boy said the sky was clear.
So they set out. The Fish moved very fast, but every once in a while the boy would give him a rap with the stone and he would go faster.
Soon it began to cloud up. “Are you sure there are no clouds?” asked the Fish. “No,” said the boy, “it is clear.” And he hit the Fish again with the stone. The clouds were really coming up now and the Fish thought he heard thunder but the boy said no. Just then they reached the mainland and as the boy jumped for shore a lightning bolt struck and smashed the Fish to pieces.
The boy wandered for a long time. One day he found a lodge. Fox was sitting inside it with a small kettle cooking over a fire. “Come inside,” she said. The boy stepped inside. “Grandchild,” said Fox, “what are you doing here?”
“My father left me.”
“Well, your father is very strong and clever, but I will try to help you get back. First sit down and eat. You look very hungry.”
During this time the boy’s mother was mourning the loss of her son. She would go into the woods and cry all day and when she came home at night Coyote would throw burning ashes in her face. Day after day this happened.
Fox guided the boy through the woods toward his village and one day they came to a place where fish hooks were hanging down out of the sky. You couldn’t go through there without getting caught. Fox turned herself into a small animal and climbed up into the sky. She jerked the hooks up and told the boy to jump by quickly. He got by.
A little farther on they came to a place where two big dogs were guarding the path. It was a narrow place between high rocks. There was no way to get around. Fox turned herself and the boy into weasels and they began popping up here and there in the rocks and then quickly disappearing. The dogs began barking fiercely at them. They teased the dogs like this until they were frantic and their owner came out and killed them for making so much noise over nothing. Every time he looked in the rocks he didn’t see anything.
One night Fox and the boy stayed with two women. Fox warned him to be careful because the women were cannibals. They would try to kill him. Fox gave the boy a knife. That night one of the women got in bed with him. As soon as she felt the knife she got up and went back to her own bed. Next morning Fox and the boy left.
While the boy was coming home, his mother continued to mourn for him. When she went into the woods to cry, some birds would always say, “Mother, I am coming back.” At first she thought it was her son and she looked up to meet him, but then she saw it was only the birds. This made her even sadder. When she went home Coyote threw hot ashes in her face. She grew sadder and sadder. When she went into the woods to cry she paid no attention to the birds who were singing “Mother, I am coming back.”
One day, after many trials, the boy came near the place in the woods where his mother was crying. “Mother, I’m coming back,” he shouted as he came toward her, but she would not look up, thinking it was only the birds. He walked up to her and lifted her face in his hands. “Mother, what has caused your face to be burned?”
“Your father did it. He says my son will never come back.”
“Well, you go to the village and tell Coyote I have come back.”
So she went back to tell Coyote.
As she approached, Coyote saw her coming and picked up coals from the fire to throw on her. “Your son will never come back,” he cried out. “Yes, he is back now,” she answered. Coyote was so surprised he dropped the ashes. When he looked up there was his son.
“You have been cruel to me and to my mother, all for nothing. You left me on an island. I am back. Now I shall be cruel to you. All the days of your life you will crawl on the ground.” He turned Coyote into a Frog. Then he said to his mother, “My mother, you shall be the best looking bird in the world. People will never kill you. You shall be the robin.” Then he turned his mother into a robin.
Today the frog creeps on the ground and no one kills the robin. Coyote’s son did it.