Navajo Ma'ii stories, like all good literature, have the capacity to articulate several things at once; they are like complex narrative puns in which each level reverberates richly with the others. Most easily distinguished is the entertainment level, a basic feature that any good story needs in order to be interesting enough for people to bear telling it again. On this level, Coyote is usually shown doing something selfish, immoral, stupid, competitive, aggressive, or angry - all of these being categories of behavior discouraged by standard Navajo rules of deportment. He gets his comeuppance, and the story often ends with an apparently explanatory note. Although these ending tags are usually what attracts the attention of non-Indians, who seem to find in them an acceptable ground for considering Navajos childish and nonscientific, they are seldom if ever the reason for the existence of the story, for hardly anyone older than a small child actually "believes" them to be real explanations. Indeed, the same Navajo narrator will tell stories that feature conflicting explanations for natural phenomena and declare that they are all alike. Clearly then, something other than mere explanation is at stake in these stories. Learn more in this article, made available by The World & I Online.
