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Source: Based on a tale reported by Grenville Goodwin in 1939
One day Slim Coyote started out to Sun's house.
When he got
there Sun was
not home, but his
wife was. "Where is my cousin Sun_" he asked.
Sun's wife said that he
had gone out and was
not home yet.
Coyote saw Sun's tobacco bag hanging up on the side of the
house. "I came to
smoke and talk with my cousin," said Slim Coyote, "so give me a smoke
while I'm waiting.
He won't mind, he's my cousin." Coyote was talking to Sun's wife as if she
were his mother-in-law.
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She handed him the tobacco bag, and he used it
to fill his own little
buckskin bag. Then he quickly hid his bag and rolled a cigarette, so that
he actually got off with a lot of Sun's tobacco without her noticing.
"Since my cousin hasn't come back yet, I guess I won't wait after all,"
Coyote told her, and started home.
Pretty soon Sun arrived. "whose been here and gone again_" he asked,
looking at his
depleted tobacco bag.
"Somebody who said he was your cousin," answered
his wife. She
told him what had happened, and Sun was very angry.
"I'll get that
fellow," he said. He
went out front where he had Black Wind Horse tied, and saddled him up
and set off after
Coyote. Black Wind Horse could fly, and when he traveled he made a noise
like lightening.
A light rain started to fall and covered up Coyote's tracks, but Sun
could still follow
the thief by the ashes from his cigarette.
It kept raining, and pretty
soon the tobacco
Coyote had with him started to grow. Soon it was putting out leaves then
flowers. At last
it ripened and dried, and the wind scattered the seeds everywhere.
When
the Sun saw this,
he gave up chasing Coyote and went home.
When Coyote got back to the Apache camp where he was living, he kept his
tobacco for
himself and wouldn't give any away.
The Apache held a council on how to
get Coyote's
tobacco away from him, and they decided to pretend to give him a wife.
"We're going to give you a wife," they told him.
Coyote said,
"You're trying to fool
me."
"No we're not," they said, "we're really going to give you a wife."
They set up
a new wickiup for Coyote, dressed a young boy as a girl, and told the
boy not to let
Coyote touch him until just before dawn. They made a bed in the new
wickiup, and Coyote felt
so good that he gave them all his tobacco .
Just about dusk the boy dressed as a girl went over and sat down beside
Coyote in his new
wickiup. Slim Coyote was so excited he could not stand up but just
crawled around on the
ground. "why don't you come to bed_" he said to his bride. "Let's hurry
and go to bed."
But the boy just sat there.
After a while, when Coyote was more and more
impatient, the
boy lay down by him but not close to him. "I want you to lie close,"
Coyote said, and
tried to touch the boy.
But the boy said, "Don't!" and pushed Coyote's
hand away.
This kept up all night, until just before dawn Coyote made a grab and
caught hold of the
boy's penis. He let go right away and jumped back.
"Get away from me,
get back from me;
you're a boy not a girl," he said. Then Coyote got up and called the
people. "You
lied to me," he said. "You didn't give me a wife at all. Give me my
tobacco back!"
But no matter how loudly he yelled, they wouldn't do it. This is the way
the people first
got tobacco.
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