Wikipedia

Trickster

For other uses, seeTrickster (disambiguation).

Inmythologyand the study offolkloreandreligion,atricksteris a character in a story (god,goddess,spirit,humanoranthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree ofintellector secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and defy conventional behavior.

The trickster figureReynard the Foxas depicted in an 1869 children's book byMichel Rodange

Mythology

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Tricksters, asarchetypalcharacters, appear in the myths of many different cultures.Lewis Hydedescribes the trickster as a "boundary-crosser".[1]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."[2]

Often, this bending or breaking of rules takes the form of tricks or thievery. Tricksters can becunningor foolish or both. The trickster openly questions, disrupts or mocks authority.[citation needed]

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 mythsHermesplays the trickster. He is the patron of thieves and the inventor of lying, a gift he passed on toAutolycus,who in turn passed it on toOdysseus.[1]InSlavicfolktales, the trickster and theculture heroare often combined.[citation needed]

Lokicuts the hair of the goddessSif.

Frequently the trickster figure exhibits gender and form variability. InNorse mythologythe mischief-maker isLoki,who is also ashapeshifter.Loki also exhibits sex variability, in one case even becoming pregnant. Hebecomes a marewho later gives birth to Odin's eight-legged horseSleipnir.[citation needed]

InAfrican-Americanfolklore, a personified rabbit, known asBrer Rabbit,is the main trickster figure.[3]In West Africa (and thence into the Caribbean via the slave trade), the spider (seeAnansi) is often the trickster.[4]In southern African aǀKaggenis often the trickster, usually taking the form of apraying mantis.[5][6]

Trickster or clown

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Thetricksteris 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.

Theclownon the other hand is apersonaof a performer who intentionally displays their actions in public for an audience.

In Native American tradition

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

Many native traditions heldclownsand tricksters as essential to any contact with thesacred.People could not pray until they had laughed, becauselaughteropens and frees from rigid preconception. Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacredceremoniesfor fear that they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth.[7]

Native American tricksters should not be confused with the European fictionalpicaro.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".[8]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, theCoyote spirit(Southwestern United States) orRaven spirit(Pacific Northwest) stole fire from the gods (stars,moon,and/orsun). 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.[1]

Wakdjunga inWinnebagomythology is an example of the trickster archetype.

Wisakedjak(Wìsakedjàk inAlgonquin,Wīsahkēcāhk(w) inCreeand Wiisagejaak inOji-Cree) is a trickster figure inAlgonquinandChipewyanStorytelling.

Coyote

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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 amongindigenous peoples of Californiaandthe Great Basin.

According toCrow(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".[9]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]

InChelanmyths, 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.[10]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 killThunderbird,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 Fallscame 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]

In oral stories

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Main article:List of fictional tricksters § Tricksters in folktale and mythology
TrickstersubplotinThe Relapse:Tom Fashion, pretending to be Lord Foppington, parleys with Sir Tunbelly Clumsey in a 19th-century illustration byWilliam Powell Frith.
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In modern literature, the trickster survives as a character archetype, not necessarily supernatural or divine, sometimes no more than astock 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'sPuckis an example of this. Another once-famous example was the characterFroggy the Gremlinon 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.[12]

For example, many Europeanfairy taleshave 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 same type includeBugs Bunnyin the USA and fromSwedenthe female hero in thePippi Longstockingstories.

In Internet and multimedia studies

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In online environments, there has been a link between the trickster andInternet trolling.Some have said that a trickster is a type of online community character.[13][14]

AnthropologistJames Cuffe has called the Chinese internet characterGrass Mud Horse(cǎonímǎThảo nê mã ) a trickster candidate because of its duplicity in meaning.[15]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 'aheuristiccultural 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.'[15]

See also

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References

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  1. ^abcHyde, 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.ISBN9780813904030.
  4. ^Haase, Donald (2008).The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales.Greenwood Publishing Group. pp.31.ISBN978-0-313-33441-2.
  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 atUniversity of Arkansas at Little Rock;quotedepigraphinNapalm and Silly Puttyby 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.ISBN0785817166.
  11. ^Carradice, Phil(16 June 2011)."Twm Sion Cati - the Welsh Robin Hood".bbc.co.uk.Retrieved18 March2021.
  12. ^Smith, R. L. "Remembering Andy Devine".
  13. ^Campbell, J., G. Fletcher & A. Greenhill (2002). "Tribalism, Conflict and Shape-shifting Identities in Online Communities." In theProceedings of the 13th Australasia Conference on Information Systems,Melbourne Australia, 7–9 December 2002.
  14. ^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.
  15. ^abCuffe, 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 [71–86].doi:10.4324/9781315183220.ISBN978-1-315-18322-0.S2CID213224963.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: location (link)

Sources

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  • 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.JSTOR1184653.
  • 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.JSTOR467321.
  • 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.JSTOR1499465.
  • Datlow, Ellen and Terri Windling. 2009.The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales.Firebird.
  • California on the Eve - California IndiansMiwokcreation story
  • Joseph DurwinCoulrophobia & 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.JSTOR1062254.S2CID162313598.
  • Lori LandayMadcaps, Screwballs, and Con Women: The Female Trickster in American Culture1998 University of Pennsylvania Press
  • Paul RadinThe trickster: a study in American Indian mythology(1956)
  • Allan J. RyanThe Trickster Shift: Humour and irony in contemporary native art1999 Univ of WashingtonISBN0-7748-0704-0
  • 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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