Coyote and the Creation, Mescalero Apache Text excerpted from Chiricahua Apache Texts, with Ethnological Notes |
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Ethnological Notes
Morris Opler
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 | Coyote and the Creation, Mescalero Apache Text |  |
Ethnological Notes Morris Opler
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Ethnological Note i
[Opler provides a discussion of this story in his account of the Mescalero Coyote cycle, ethnological note 1 to Mescalero text 1--MEC]
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Ethnological Note 1
There are a number of circumlocutory phrases to indicate that one is speaking of a bear, for bear is an animal from which the Apache believes a painful disease may be contracted. To utter the regular word for bear is to run the risk of seeing the bear shortly afterwards and of catching the sickness. The informant from whom these texts were taken is generally reputed to have some supernatural power from bear. At least he is one of the few Apache on the reservation who will hunt or touch bear. It is for this reason, perhaps, that he actually used the word for bear in the next line.
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Ethnological Note 2
At this point the culture hero, Child of the Water, takes possession of the body and mind of Coyote and talks and works through him. The substance of these lines is that the things of the earth are to change. When Coyote approaches and speaks to the animals [who have to this point spoken one universal language and displayed human qualities] they will assume the form and habits which they retain to this day.
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Ethnological Note 4
The voice of Child of the Water is telling Coyote that he has reached the south side of the farther lake.
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Ethnological Note 5
In this phase of creation Coyote is merely the instrument. The power which is working through him is that of Child of the Water. The voice or power, by repeating these names to Coyote, causes him to think about them and, in that way, to create them.
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Ethnological Note 6
These varieties are not named in English. The terms given are literal translations of the Mescalero Apache words.
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Ethnological Note 8
The voice is addressing the plants just created through the medium of Coyote as explained in ethnological note 5 to this text above.
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Ethnological Note 9
Again the voice is addressing the beings just created through the medium of Coyote. See ethnological notes 5 and 8 to this text, above.
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Ethnological Note Ethnological Note
The last four names are literal translations of the Mescalero Apache terms.
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Ethnological Note Ethnological Note
All of these names except "lizard [var.]" are literal translations of the Mescalero Apache terms. When such a translation is not possible. "lizard [var.]" has been used.
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Ethnological Note Ethnological Note
Here Coyote is forced to change his own appearance and condition just as he has transformed other plants and animals.
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Ethnological Note Ethnological Note
This reference to a heavenly father is probably the result of Christian influence. The older Apache refer to the source of their personal supernatural power by a word that can be roughly translated Giver of Life. Now this word and another of Spanish derivation sometimes are used in a vague way to allude to a creator. It is probably to this creator that Child of the Water addresses the sentence. I am satisfied that the conception is a recent one. Child of the Water is here asserting that the task of creation has been delegated to him by one in the sky. In the story of his birth, Child of Water's mother is given as White Painted Woman, and, as his name indicates, his father is the water. See Chiricahua text 1: "The Child of Water".
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Ethnological Note Ethnological Note
The lines which follow give an inventory of many of the ways in which herbs are used by the Mescalero to cure and the ceremonial gestures and practises which accompany such use.
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Ethnological Note Ethnological Note
The "hail club" was a type of war club in which a rock with many protruberances was used as the head. Great importance is laid on the proper handling of plants to be used as medicine, even to the detail of the type of rock for crushing them.
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Ethnological Note Ethnological Note
When the roots of a plant only are to be used for medicine or ceremony, the top parts are supposed to be replaced in the ground. "Face medicine" is one of the plants which are supposed to be so handled. White Painted Woman is here asking the plant not to take revenge on those who disobey this injunction from carelessness or ignorance.
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Ethnological Note Ethnological Note
This maybe the tiger water lily. It will be noted that the Mescalero terms for which no English word is correspondent have been translated literally. See ethnological note 8 above.
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Ethnological Note Ethnological Note
The informant explained that this phrase means: "When they have drunk you four times mixed with pollen."
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Ethnological Note Ethnological Note
This is a fairly complete summary of the rocks and mineral substances sacred to the Mescalero.
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Ethnological Note Ethnological Note
The informant later told me that at this point he should have inserted an account of the giving of the Girl's Puberty rite to the Mescalero by White Painted Woman. According to him the rite was granted to counteract partially the disease and misfortune that were in store for mankind.
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Ethnological Note Ethnological Note
Apparently somewhere in the preceding lines, White Painted Woman completed her remarks and Child of the Water began to talk. There is, however, no indication in the text of where this took place.
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Ethnological Note Ethnological Note
It is said by the Mescalero that Child of the Water will return to them some day. Since Child of the Water has been freely equated with Christ in recent years, it is quite possible that this is due to Christian influence and is the Apache version of the second coming of Christ.
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