"Everyone who tells these stories does so in a slightly different way, but the real hearts and cores remain relatively unchanged."
— The Introduction to the book, written April 1968
In 1974, the Navajo Curriculum Center enlisted Robert A. Roessel to create a book collecting Coyote Stories to teach Navajo students of their heritage and share oral stories, all of which have existed for generations. The book contained 14 stories, slight modernizations of preexisting stories, depicting the Native American character Coyote.
Coyote is a trickster, and not a very pleasant one. He kills, steals, lies, cheats, and maims to get his (often petty) wants, and manages to win just as many times as he's defeated. These stories were frequently told at ceremonies, and during the winter season. While a few are Just So Stories, the majority of them seek to provide an example of socially unacceptable behavior, passing Coyote's misfortunes as a result of his actions into legend.
In the same decade as this collection was published, an animated adaptation
containing many of the same stories (and a few more) was created.
Tropes featured in a few of the many Coyote Stories include:
- Animorphism: 'Coyote and the Woman' features the titular woman turning into a bear to look for Coyote, slowly growing fangs to hunt with over the course of the night.
- Anti-Role Model: Coyote's role in the stories is to provide an example of a person with no manners or morals, to be frequently shown up for his vices again and again by the other animals.
- Arc Number: As four is an important number to the Navajo, the number shows up pretty much any time a number is needed in these stories.
- Auto Cannibalism: Coyote and the Wildcat features Coyote feeding Wildcat his own intestines as a prank.
- Beast Fable: Featuring the animals that live on Navajo lands, each representing a different type of person.
- Blood Magic: Porcupine has a method of creating meat out of nothing, pricking his nose and spreading his blood on bark. When Coyote tries the same, he fails miserably.
- Death Is Cheap: A few stories feature Coyote's death, most notably having his throat slit from inside by Horned Toad. Coyote and the Lizards feature the titular lizards reviving him after he dies playing their game, explaining at least one instance.
- Eye Scream: 'Coyote Loses His Eyes' is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, although he doesn't so much lose them as willingly tear them out to play a game with birds.
- Faking the Dead: Skunk and Coyote fake the latter's death to attract his enemies, so he may kill them all at once.
- The Farmer and the Viper: Porcupine needs to cross a river and enlists Doe's help to carry him across, much as in The Scorpion and the Frog. However, in this one, he crawls into her anus and rides inside her that way. Doe is rightfully wary about this, but ultimately trusts him, and is killed from inside for her efforts.
- Graceful Loser: Not often. But at the end of 'Coyote and Badger', when all his attempts to defeat Badger so he may have his wife fails, he finally just asks the wife if she would like to be with him instead of Badger. She flatly tells him no, and he leaves her with no further issue.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Jealousy is one of Coyote's many vices. He sets his own children on fire trying to copy erroneous advice Deer gave him on how to make his children pretty like her own.
- Interspecies Romance: 'Coyote and the Woman' features Coyote becoming involved with a 'woman', implied to be human, although some illustrations depict her as another species.
- Just So Stories: While most are meant to provide morals, a few off-handedly explain parts of Coyote's biology, such as explaining the black streaks on his face as being ash burns.
- A Lighter Shade of Grey: 'Coyote and the Giant' makes Coyote heroic for once by pitting him against a literal Baby Eater, and allowing his trickery to come out on top by breaking the giant's leg.
- Pet the Dog: 'Coyote and the Beaver People', after learning the cost for losing the Beaver's game is to be skinned, he politely insists the beaver who lost to him doesn't need to, despite knowing they'll be okay.
- Predation Is Natural: The stories pull no punches about Coyote's predation. A few victims, such as Rabbit, manage to outsmart him, but he kills quite a few people in the stories. Slightly averted in that Coyote is meant to be an Anti-Role Model and we never see any other, better predators hunting.
- Smelly Skunk: Skunk uses his spray in his tail to blind a crowd of animals, playing the trope more realistically than most stories.
- Soul Jar: 'Coyote and the Woman' reveals that Coyote has a method to protect himself from death by hiding his heart in his tail, allowing himself to live after the rest of his body is destroyed, as happens frequently.
- Swallowed Whole: 'Coyote and Horned Toad' relates the story of Coyote angrily devouring Horned Toad, and promptly being punished for it. Horned Toad stomps about inside him and threatens his organs, finally slitting his throat to escape.
- The Trickster: One of the archetypal. Coyote is a trickster figure to many Native American mythologies, and these stories feature the Navajo interpretation of him.
- Those Wily Coyotes: The Ur-Example, depicting stories from those who lived in America pre-colonialism and characterizing the native coyote as a foolish trickster.
