Coyote Fails As Initiate

COYOTE FAILS AS INITIATE ⁹

In the beginning when animals were created and named, the carnivorous animals and birds fasted for their prey. For four days they fasted from food and drink. The third day Coyote got very hungry. He took sacred meal and went into the outer room and threw it into the water and drank it. That same day Wildcat said to Coyote, "You are getting thirsty." "No; I am not. Sister, if you want to drink, take sacred meal and go into the outer room and drink. That's what I did, and that's why I am not thirsty." So Wildcat went into the outer room and took sacred meal and put it in water and drank. She came back into the inner room.

On the fifth day those who had fasted were allotted the animals that were to be their prey. Coyote and Wildcat were told that they could get their living with hardship and great labor (because they had broken the fast), but the others would never fail. So Mountain Lion was chief of all the animals for he had completed all the observances of the fast.

p. 9

Footnotes

8:9 Informant 1. Notes, p. 206.