(5) TRICKSTER – MONKEY & COYOTE

 

 

“Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah

Some call me the gangster of love…

‘Cause I’m a picker, I’m a grinner

I’m a lover and I’m a sinner

I play my music in the sun

I’m a joker, I’m a smoker

I’m a midnight toker

I sure don’t want to hurt no one”

 

I don’t know – the lyrics of the Steve Miller Band’s The Joker just seemed apposite to trickster heroes (or Dionysian heroes for that matter, although there’s a large overlap between the two), just as the lyrics to Queen’s theme for Flash seem apposite to more conventional savior heroes (or Apollonian ones).

Tricksters need little introduction as archetypal characters, except to note there’s enough of them for their own top ten – or at least two top ten lists, one for trickster heroes and one for trickster villains, as it is the nature of tricksters to break rules and cross boundaries, including between heroism and villainy, even if they tend to prefer mischief to outright evil. If a villain uses deception and manipulation as well as brute force, they tend to have something of a trickster nature to them – including arguably my top mythic villain, Satan. I’ve already featured heroes and villains in my Top 10 Heroes & Villains of Mythology that could be characterized as tricksters – most demonstrably two that are counterparts to each other, Odin and Loki in Norse mythology.

 

“And the nature of Monkey was…irrepressible!”

 

Tricksters can be “god, goddess, spirit, human” or anthropomorphic animal spirits. Indeed, the last tend to be the best tricksters or at least my favorites, hence the two I’ve included as representative for this entry – Su Wukong, the Monkey King of the Chinese Buddhist legendary tract Journey to the West, and Coyote, the leading trickster of Native American mythology (albeit the Raven figure comes close as it plays the same role in other cultures).

“As one of the most enduring Chinese literary characters, Wukong has a varied and highly debated background and colorful cultural history. His inspiration might have come from an amalgam of influences, generally relating to religious concepts.”

Apparently, sources or influences for Su Wukong include Taoism and legends about monkeys or gibbons from the Chu kingdom of China onwards, but it’s hard not to suspect some influence from the Hindu god Hanuman.

“The Coyote mythos is one of the most popular among western Native American cultures, especially among indigenous peoples of California and the Great Basin”.

Personally, I like to trace a line of descent from the Coyote figure in native American mythology to Wile. E. Coyote in Looney Tunes cartoons – heck, he’s even in the same geographic area. (I also do another bit tracing his line of descent from Sisyphus as hero of existential philosophy). Of course, poor Wile E. Coyote is out-tricked by the Roadrunner (perhaps reflecting the same avian trickster spirit as Raven) or is just too tricky for his own good.

 

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR IS THAT TRICK-TIER?)