"Coyote's Eyes: Native Cognition Styles"

by Terry Tafoya,
(Extracted from the Journal of American Indian Education)

LONG TIME AGO, when mountains were the size of salmon eggs, Coyote was going along, and saw that Rabbit was doing something. Now, this Rabbit was a Twati, an Indian doctor, and as Coyote watched, Rabbit sang his spirit song, and the Rabbit's eyes flew out of his head and perched on a tree branch. Rabbit called out, "Whee-num, come here,'' and his eyes returned to their empty sockets.

This greatly impressed Coyote, who immediately begged Rabbit to teach him how to do this.

Rabbit said no.

Coyote begged.

Rabbit said no.

"Oh, please," cried Coyote.

"No," replied Rabbit.

"But it's such a wonderful trick! Teach me."

"No."

"But I'll do exactly as you say!"

"I will teach you, " said Rabbit, "but you must never do this more than four times in one day, or something terrible will happen to you." And so Rabbit taught Coyote his spirit song, and soon Coyote's eyes flew up and perched on a tree.

"Whee-num, Come here!" called Coyote, and his eyes returned to him.

Now Rabbit left, and Coyote kept practicing. He sent his eyes back and forth to the tree four times. Then he thought, "I should show off this new trick to the human People, instead of just doing it for myself."

So Coyote went to the nearest Indian village, and yelled out for all the people to gather around him. With his new audience, Coyote sang the Rabbit's song and the crowd was very impressed to see his eyes fly out of his head and perch on the branch of a tree.

"Whee-num!'' Coyote called out. His eyes just sat on the tree and looked down at him. The Indian people started to laugh.

''Come here!" shouted Coyote. His eyes just looked at him.

''Whee-num!" Just then a crow flew by, and spotting the eyes, thought they were berries. The crow swooped down and ate them.

Now Coyote was blind, and staggered out of the village, hoping to find new eyes. He heard the sounds of running water, and felt around, trying to find the stream. Now, around flowing water, one finds bubbles, and Coyote tried to take these bubbles and use them for eyes. But bubbles soon pop, and that's what Coyote discovered.

Next Coyote felt around and discovered huckleberries, so he took those and used them for his eyes. But huckleberries are so dark, everything looked black. Now Coyote was really feeling sorry for himself.

''Eenee snawai, I'm just pitiful," Coyote cried.

"Why are you so sad?" asked a small voice, for little mouse had heard him.

"My dear Cousin," said Coyote, "I've lost my eyes . . . I'm blind, and don't know what to do."

"Snawai Yunwai, " replied Mouse, " You poor thing. I have two eyes, so I will share one with you." Having said this, Mouse removed one of his eyes and handed it to Coyote. Now Coyotes are much larger than mice, and when Coyote dropped Mouse's eye into his socket, it just rolled around in the big empty space. The new eye was so small it only let in a tiny amount of light. it was like looking at the world through a little hole.

Coyote walked on, still feeling sorry for himself, just barely able to get around with Mouse's eye. 'Eenee snawai, I'm just pitiful," he sobbed.

"Why are you crying, Coyote?" asked Buffalo in his deep voice.

"Oh, Cousin. " began Coyote, "all I have to see with is this tiny eye of Mouse. It's so small it only lets in a little bit of light, so l can barely see."

"Snawai Yunwai, " replied Buffalo, " You poor thing. I have two eyes, so I will share one with you. " Then Buffalo took out one of his eyes and handed it to Coyote. Now Buffaloes are much larger than Coyotes, and when Coyote tried to squeeze Buffaloes eye into his other socket, it hung over into the rest of his face. So large was Buffalo's eye that it let in so much light, Coyote was nearly blinded by the glare . . . everything looked twice as large as it ordinarily did. And so, Coyote was forced to continue his journey, staggering about with his mismatched eyes.

It would be most appropriate in terms of Native American cognitive development that I relate this story and simply close. However, due to the linear and discursive nature of conventional American education, it is necessary that the Standard Average European world view (SAE) suggested by Whorf, be maintained.

For that reason, let me attempt to explicate one of the meanings of the story concerning Coyote's eyes in terms of developing certain cognitive schemes and establishing methods for Piaget's assimilation and accommodation. You see Coyote, in his normal state, represents a bit of everything. He must not be understood by knowing only one legend, but in the context of the many legends he and his counterparts in other tribes appear. What is a Coyote story for my tribe may well be recognized as a Raven story for more northern native groups, as a rabbit story for southeastern tribes or by specific tribal names, such as the Ojibway's Nanabusk, or the Gitkasan's Wy-get. These characters are good and evil; tricksters and tricked; saviors and tormentors; smart and stupid . . . in short, they are "Everyman" portrayals. They are of course, much more. But part of the SAE paradigm is the reductionist tendency to be able to comprehend only an isolated element from the whole.

Coyote does not see the world particularly well with his original eyes. In the story under review, he acts improperly in terms of Native American standards. He demands the song of Rabbit, even though this is simply not done. There are strong conventions among most tribes that songs are sacred personal possessions that can be given or shared, but the manner in which they are obtained is not the way in which Coyote proceeds. He decides to show off his new "trick, " for to the unsophisticated Coyote this power is not something to he respected. but simply another addition for the purpose of self-aggrandizement. It would be interesting, were I dealing with comparative literature, or ethno-metaphysics, rather than educational psychology, to compare Coyote's "trick" with what those of India call "Siddhi" (Sanskrit) in the sense that one attempting to advance in personal development should not be distracted by "gifts" which are merely by-products of consciousness evolution, and not the goal.

To brag about one's self and abilities for most Tribes is considered to be most ill-mannered, which is why Coyote's audience laughs at him when his display fails. Coyote's loss of eyes is merely the physical acting out of what his experience has already been in the sense of being blind to proper behavior.

It must be understood that one of the functions of Native American legends is to provide "schemes" or models of behavior for tribal members. One can see the character Mouse representative of specific qualities quite apart from his actions in this particular legend. A Mouse is concerned with the small things in life . . . the everyday activities that deal with survival and maintenance. If one drops a Mouse in the middle of a room, it will immediately run to a wall, because it seeks sheltering. A Mouse keeps its eyes right around it, concentrating only on its immediate surroundings.

The Buffalo is a very special being in many Indian tribes. It symbolizes extreme generosity, since traditionally it supplied so many of the needs for Plains and other Indian people. The Buffalo's flesh provided food; its hide provided material for teepees and robes; its horns provided containers; the bones made scrapers and other tools; the tallow provided candles, etc.

Both of these schemes of dealing with life have their advantages and disadvantages. The negative side of the Buffalo figure is that one can give away too much of oneself . . . just as in the European folktales, Old Mother Hubbard has given to so many that her own cupboard was bare. Generosity is considered a virtue by Native American tribes, but it is a virtue that must be moderated by common sense so an individual and his/her family are not neglected.

In the same way, while it would be terribly limiting to only see the world through the eyes of a Mouse, one must be a Mouse at times in order that the petty everyday tasks of living are successfully dealt with. In a complementary fashion, although not mentioned in this specific legend (the story, incidentally, lasts much longer, and the legend included in this paper is only a segment of the whole), the Eagle represents seeing from a great distance. When one sees with the eyes of an Eagle, one removes oneself from immediate surroundings, so patterns and directions can be determined with one glance. But one must learn to balance being an Eagle with being a Mouse, else in soaring one loses contact with the world, and one's everyday, mundane duties decay from lack of attention.

Thus even though Coyote has accommodated the elements of Mouse and Buffalo into his strategies, he is not very successful because he has not learned balance. To be a whole human being (one might say, a complete Coyote), one must learn to switch back and forth between the eyes of not only Mouse and Buffalo, but those of Eagle, Bear, Cougar, and all the other animals of legend.

This is one reason why the circle is so often associated with Indian tribal philosophy. The same symbol which to astronomers represents Earth, has been used by native people for the same purpose many thousands of years before Carl Sagan was born. This is the circle with a cross in the center, representing the four directions, and thus the entire creation. This circle symbolizes balance, the desired harmony for which the Native American child is taught to strive.

The difficulty in getting this across is that I have had to rob the reader from the "Ah-hah!'' experience by summing up conclusions in neat packages. As Larry Bird, young Keres explains, "'You don't ask questions when you grow up. You watch and listen and wait, and the answer will come to you. It's yours then, not like learning in school." (1) In having to deal with "product," I have had to deny the reader the "process" of coming to my conclusion on his/her own terms. This is one reason why some of our Elders don't want our legends and teachings written down, or even illustrated, since depicting Coyote means we have denied the child the opportunity to develop his/her own visual imagery or the trickster.

To understand the developmental model by which the child achieves his/her schemes, one must look at the structure of child rearing practices common to many tribal groups. Carolyn Attneave and I have illustrated this in the attached figures. One of the difficulties that people of different cultures have in discussing structures with those who maintain an SAE is that English is usually the medium of exchange, and even though the same words are used, they have different meaning. For example, Attneave discusses some of the misconceptions that therapists have in defining family systems usually called ''extended."(2)

Figure 1 illustrates a "Typical Genealogical Family Tree," as ordinarily encountered in anthropology kinship structures. It's the one most people would recognize. Connections are focused on age groups and immediate kinship relations. Figure 2 shows "Typical Anglo-European Extended Family Systems." Here we find a structure that most SAE viewpoints would understand, although this specific format is unfamiliar. The center of the diagram shows the 'nuclear family'. Where the most significant "others" are bound together by physical proximity. There are two distinct family. groups, of paternal and mature nature, which overlaps to some extent with the nuclear family. There is little interaction of connective-ness between the two larger groups, with the exception of major social events, such as weddings and funerals. Thus we find second cousins are at a considerable distance from the central siblings. Godparents exist beyond ordinary spheres of either major family group.

Figure 3 illustrates the "Typical American Indian Extended Family System." The circle as a traditional symbol is utilized to frame not the nuclear family, which is relatively unimportant, but to centralize all siblings. In many Native American languages, cousins are referred to as brother and sister. The immediate circle after the siblings is not the circle of Parents, but rather the Grandparents. This reflects the positions of the Grandparents as caregivers and providers of training and discipline. Note that the Grandparents' role is not limited to what is called a 'grandparent' in English, but is opened up to include other relations such as "grand aunt," and could be extended to include what in the figure 2 illustration would call "godparents." On the outer frame circle are the parents' role, which include not only the biological parents, but those who have a sibling relation to the biological parents. Depending upon tribal orientation, a paternal uncle to the central sibling might have prime responsibilty for supervising and assisting the children, or it might be a maternal aunt. The biological parents of the central siblings would then have specific principle responsibility over their nieces and nephews, rather than their own genetic children.

While this may be somewhat confusing to the SAE worldview, it is very well understood by the Native Americans. As Attneave points out:

"This Indian child is aware of a special relationship to the biological parents but has in addition special and meaningful relationships to the other parents as well. It is a family system that tolerates loss or adapts to separation from one or more significant adults far more healthily than the prototypical middle-class nuclear family, since while the child may grieve for a lost parent, there are already established bonds to several others."

Legends and stories form the basis for traditional teaching paradigms, but it must be emphasized that this is not the same style of teaching one discovers in "school." Barre Toelken relates an incident he observed of a Navajo elder responding to a child's question about why it snows on Montezuma Canyon. The elder responded by telling him a story about a boy who discovered a strange flaming abject and cared for it until the Holy People came to reclaim it:

They would not allow him to keep even a part of it, but instead put him to a series of tests. When he was successful at these tests, they promised they would throw all the ashes from their fireplaces into Montezuma Canyon each year. 'Sometimes they fail to keep their word, and sometimes they throw down too much; but in all they turn their attention towards us regularly, here in Montezuma Canyon" (4)

When the boy had heard the story, he accepted that that had explained why it snowed in Montezuma Canyon, but not why it snowed in Blanding, another part of the Navajo area.

The old man quickly replied, "I don't know. You'll have to make up your own story for that." To the anthropologist (Toelken) who had witnessed this exchange, the old man later commented that "It was too bad the boy did not understand stories," and he explained that this was not really a story about the historical origin of Snow in Montezuma Canyon or in any other place but a story about the properly reciprocal relationship between man and other beings. He attributed the boy's failure to grasp the story to the influence of white schooling.(5)

This reminds one of a line from Christopher Fry; "We have wasted Paradox and Mystery on you, when all you wanted was Cause and Effect.'' If one checks on the origins of the terms "Paradox" and "Mystery," one discovers that paradox means beyond or contrary to opinion (OED), and that mystery means to close (the lips or eyes). And this is very much a pan [editor -- ??] of Native American teaching: that one's knowledge must be obtained by the individual, regardless of what current beliefs may be, and the gaining of that knowledge does not come from only listening to elders, or seeing what others have done. Indeed, for those many tribes that participate in the spirit or vision quest, the isolation of the individual is a common denominator. The seeker must open up himself to himself . . . the medicine person will supervise and offer occasional advice, but the insights and comprehensions must be achieved internally. In what might be termed a "disassociation of self," or "spiritual intervention," depending upon one's paradigm, a power comes to the seeker if all conditions are met, to guide him/her into further development.

This whole orientation is what is so enormously difficult to convey to those of SAE perspective, and why it is nearly impossible to do a highly structured analysis of Native American teaching and philosophy. Even the best done works, such as Ortiz, focus more on formal structuralism rather than meaning

While society and language certainly established the parameters of thought, none the less for those native people of traditional orientation, individual comprehension of the world was most important. To understand this contrast, it may be necessary to examine the foundation of the Whorf SAE. According to Scallon:

"Whorf (1956) suggested a Standard Average Euopean world view (SAE) which was characterized by attention to objects (objectification), the treatment of time as linear, objective, and countable, a mind-dualism and so forth. These things he attributed to the habitual use of languages of the Indo-European family, especially the world languages of Europe."(6)

If one is to consider conventional education, it seems to have developed upon the lines of a relatively old Christian tradition. Before the printing press existed, those training for scholarly roles wrote down word for word what a master or teacher read from his text. This text, of course, was most importantly the Bible, and one might suggest from an anthropological perspective that this may explain the inherent belief among those of the SAE world view the validity of the printed page regardless of what one's senses may tell one. An individual's own experience becomes secondary to what the accepted point of view may be, which is of course, precisely what the "Book" says. The Bible, and other "holy scriptures'' represent the word of "God" and are therefore beyond argument, and must be accepted as an act of faith. Due to the halo effect, this connotation of validity becomes transferred to secular texts as well, and as a result, I must "prove' my thesis by quoting "writers" who have published materials that says what I am saying.

In a fascinating article entitled "The Literate Two-Year-Old: the Fictionalization of Self," Scallon and Scallon compare their two-year-old daughter who had already been socializing into the SAE with the literate and oral behaviors of a Chipewyan ten-year-old girl. They identify the orientation of the Chipewyan culture towards literacy as "Qur'anic rather than what we call essayist literacy" (7) to use the terms developed by Scribner and Cole's (1978) work.

Part of the difficulty of analyzing the Chipewyan action is confusing literacy with what the Scallon's call "orality."