Cheating Racing "Cheating narratives should be distinguished from Native American stories featuring team running, including the many popular tales which celebrate the triumphs of a 'relay' team.
More On Cheating "See The Fast Thinker (Anderson, 1994) for a discussion of fast thinking racers who use their wits to defeat a champion runner. This Chumash narrative fits into this genre, which is sometimes described as 'cheating' racing tales. Coyote could never have defeated the mighty Swordfish, for example, in an honest contest" (page 30, footnote 8)
Drowning is like Sleep "Suluemeait described Coyote not only as a sorcerer" but also as a "doctor" who helped Hawk recover from the shock of being revived from dead (Blackburn, December, 189).
Coyote healed Hawk with a milk diet and getting him to talk about his ordeal. Interestingly, Hawk described the state of being dead by drowning as like sleep. See the personality of Enememe (He Who Sleeps) in Enememe's Friends (Anderson, 1996) for further discusison of sleep symbolism in Chumash mythology"(page 34, footnote 29 )
Davenport-Johnson-Timbrook: A paper called "The Chumash and the Swordfish" was written by Demorest Davenport (Univ California: Santa Barbara), and John Johnson and Jan Timbrook (Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History). This article dates the Chumash swordfish fishing at 4,000 years old, and note that myths and ceremonies developed along with this fishery, in which religious beliefs ("shamanism") played a role. The paper discusses the Chumash narratives in which the Swordfish are described driving whales ashore, to the benefit of the humans who used them for food and other purposes. "Evidence of swordfish attacking whales has been documented worldwide, which suggests that the Chumash "myth" was well founded." (From abstract of the Fourth California Islands Symposium, published by Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, 1994).
Relay racing appears in Native American mythology throughout the Americas. These tales involve no deception, and instead feature successful efforts of a team of runners. The Karok preserved a classic example of (baton-passing) relay racing in their story entitled "How Animals Brought Fire to Man" (Fisher, California, 46). The moral of this story is that a group of individuals with varying talents can overcome more powerful rivals through collective efforts. The baton (fire0 is passed sequentially from Coyote to Mountain Lion, to Bear, to Rabbit, Squirrel, and finally to Frog. In the end, the relay team won the race" (footnote 2, page 29).
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The Fast Thinker (Kootenai myth)
