Reading Notes: Southwestern and California Legends, Part A

Southwestern and California Legends:

Coyote, Tortillas, and Mesquite Beans: This story is part of the Southwestern and California Legends unit. Story source: Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest by Katharine Berry Judson (1912).

Coyote and Tortillas:

• A long time ago, a river in Arizona rose extremely high and spread over all of the land
• An Indian woman was walking along the side of the river with a basket of fresh tortillas over her head
• She was wading in the river that reached up to her waste
• The Coyote was nearby and was afraid of the water
• He climbed in a cottonwood tree to see farther down the river
• The woman came up the trail and when she neared the Coyote, he called out to her and demanded that she give him some of her tortillas
• The woman responded and said no because they were for somebody else
• The Coyote said that if the woman didn't come to him with the tortillas, the Coyote would shoot her
• The woman thought that this threat was true, so she came to the tree that the Coyote was in and told him that he must come down from the tree to get them
• The Coyote came down the tree as far as he dared, but he was afraid of the deep river water
• The woman laughed at his fear of getting wet
• The woman stood on a stump in the water and told the Coyote that she was standing on the ground
• It looked from the Coyote's perspective that the water was only up to her ankles, however it was still up to her waist
• Even after looking at the water, the river seemed shallow and safe
• He jumped in 
• However, the water was deep and the Coyote drowned
• The woman just walked away

Coyote and the Mesquite Beans

• After the waters of the flood had gone down, the Elder Brother told the Coyote to not touch the black bug or eat the mesquite beans
• He explained that it was dangerous to harm anything that survived the flood
• The Coyote went on, but immediately came across a black bug and ate it
• He continued walking and saw mesquite beans
• He stopped and looked at the beans for a while, telling himself that he would only taste one and not eat any more
• Rather than eating one, the Coyote ate all of them 
• The bugs and beans swelled up in the Coyote's stomach and killed him

(Coyote portrait. Source: Wikimedia Commons)

- The Coyote played a role of a greedy trickster and was punished after committing his greedy acts, even after being warned about the consequences.