About power

There is a strange notion of power in the Indian trickster tales, specially surrounding the figure of the Trickster. For a modern western mind, it is usually very hard to conceive that the same character could be wise and almost all-powerful sometimes and a plain fool with barely any power whatsoever in others.

In the creation tales, like the Yokut tale “The Beginning of the World” or the Miwok story “How people were made”, the Trickster is a god-like character with magical powers, capable of making the earth and the people. It is somewhat odd, however, that even in the creation tales, the characters are never almighty. Unlike the Jew-Christian god, the creator-trickster has always some material to start working from. In “The Beginning of the World” the setting already includes the earth covered by water, Eagle, Coyote and a turtle. In other stories, the sun and the moon are stolen, but never created. Nature is always preceding the creator, instead of being created by him.

Another interesting feature of the trickster tales is that power can belong to just about anyone, both individually and as a community. A pueblo can be the owner of the sun and the moon, a man in a village can have magical powers or a possible bag which will make him rich. And the trickster, of course, will use every resource at hand to get those things from the people. The trickster is always powerful, but usually his power lies precisely in the resourcefulness and cleverness used to gain even more power.


I think this notion is in tune with the Indian worldview, and with the comical aspect as well. Everyone has an equal chance of possessing magic and richness, and of stealing it away from others as well. Magic, being part of the natural world, is usually freely given and shared; a man with the ability to produce meat out of nowhere will share its secret with the trickster every time. However, magic itself can be a way of tricking the trickster. All those stories where the trickster is warned never to use a magic trick more than four times, teach that greediness will take all the power away. And so, we can laugh at Veeho when he ends up stuck in a tree, or with a wounded back. The want of power is nothing but a part of the cosmic comedy.