The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology

Description

The myth of the Trickster —ambiguous creator and destroyer, cheater and cheated, subhuman and superhuman— is one of the earliest and most universal expressions of mankind. Nowhere does it survive in more starkly archaic form than in the voraciously uninhibited episodes of the Winnebago Trickster Cycle, recorded here in full. Anthropological and psychological analyses by Radin, Kerényi, and Jung reveal the Trickster as filling a twofold role: on the one hand he is “an archetypal psychic structure” that harks back to “an absolutely undifferentiated human consciousness, corresponding to a psyche that has hardly left the animal level” (Jung); on the other hand, his myth is a present-day outlet for the most unashamed and liberating satire of the onerous obligations of social order, religion, and ritual. [From Amazon] PREFATORY NOTE BY PAUL RADIN ix Part One THE TRICKSTER MYTH OF THE WINNEBAGO INDIANS I.The Winnebago Trickster Cycle 3 II.Notes to Pages 3-53 54 Part Two SUPPLEMENTARY TRICKSTER MYTHS I.The Winnebago Hare Cycle 63 II.Notes to Pages 63-91 92 III. Summary of the Assiniboine Trickster Myth 97 IV. Summary of the Tlingit Trickster Myth 104 Part Three THE NATURE AND MEANING OF THE MYTH BY PAUL RADIN I. The Text 111 II. Winnebago History and Culture 112 III. Winnebago Mythology and Literary Tradition 118 IV. The Winnebago Hare Cycle and its Cognates 124 V. The Winnebago Trickster Figure 132 VI.The Attitude of the Winnebago toward Wakdjunkaga 147 VII.The Wakdjunkaga Cycle as a Satire 151 VIII.The Wakdjunkaga Cycle and its Relation to other North American Indian Trickster Cycles 155 Part Four THE TRICKSTER IN RELATION TO GREEK MYTHOLOGY BY KARL KERENYI, TRANSLATED BY R. F. C. HULL I.First Impressions 173 II.Style 177 III. Parallels 180 IV. Nature of the Trickster 184 V.His Difference from Hermes 188 Part Five ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRICKSTER FIGURE BY C. G. JUNG, TRANSLATED BY R. F. C. HULL 195