Reading Notes W2 Coyote Cooks His Daughter (Cupeño), Part B

Summary
Coyote lives with his wife and daughter in a nice brush house at the foot of a mountain. He notices that they have no food put away so he decides that him and his daughter will go hunting for something to eat, while his wife stays at home and gathers the grass for cooking. After searching all day and finding nothing to eat for him and his family, Coyote grabs his daughter and kills her with a pine stick. Coyote then takes her home, where his wife is waiting, and begins to cut up and prepare his daughter for cooking. Once he begins boiling his daughter, her spirit arises from the pot and begins to repeat the phrase "Pine tree, stick, pine tree, grass stick, jingle-ingle-ingle." (Cupeńo 54) She repeats this phrase three or four times, and while coyote continues to cook, her mother hears her daughter's spirit talking to her and realizes that coyote had indeed killed their daughter. At this point the old woman Coyote gathers up all the grass she had collected, and uses it to burn the house down with the terrible Coyote in it. The story ends "So all that house of theirs burned. And Coyote burned, he burned up. And he died." (Cupeño 55)

This reading was a little confusing to me, and I had to read it a few times, still not completely understanding the meaning behind it.

On one hand I see that this character Coyote, shows us how desperate people can get when they are starving. I think it is a little extreme to actually kill and eat your own daughter, but there is no doubt that hunger, both literally and figuratively, can make people do some pretty crazy things to get what they want.

I think the story also does a good job of showing us that no sin goes unpunished. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction and Coyote very quickly learns that when his wife realizes what he had done to her daughter.

I also think that the fire was a good way for the story to end. In Native American culture, fire represents cleansing and renewal, and out of those ashes will come new growth and ideas. So this fire that tore through their nice brush house at the foot of the mountain burned with it all of the good, bad, and ugly of that family, and gave a fresh start to their spirits, where hopefully growth can take place from those ashes.