Reading Activities With How Coyote Stole Fire

How Coyote Stole Fire A Native American Tale

Pre-Reading Activity:  Take a look at this Prezi: http://prezi.com/dersplrfxzl0/native-american-oral-tradition/, which puts Native American Oral Tradition into perspective and will orientate the students before diving into the story.  It offers information on Native American Oral Tradition, which is essential in grasping this mystical tale.

During-Reading Activity: Be aware for the human’s song and be thinking about how you could create your own!  At the beginning of the folktale, Coyote hears the Humans "singing a sad song about their lost loved ones." What do you think this song sounded like? What stories and feelings do you think the Humans sang about? What kind of tempo or beat do you think the song had? Work with a partner to create the lyrics to a "sad song" that the Humans might have sung at this point in the folktale. Maybe you will even want to perform this song for your classmates.  Graded on participation, creativity, relativity, and must include a chorus and at least three other verses.

Post- Reading Activity: Students should write their own myths, much like the one told in the tale of the coyote.  A few examples might include how the world got air or water, or maybe how a particular animal or color appeared on the Earth.  It will have to be at least one written page and is to be completed in groups no larger than four people.  There must be a thorough explanation of where, when, and how.  Grading will be done based on participation, creativity, and minimum length of one page.

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 How Coyote Stole Fire

A Native American Tale

Long ago, when man was newly come into the world, there were days when he was the
happiest creature of all. Those were the days when spring brushed across the willow tails, or
when his children ripened with the blueberries in the sun of summer, or when the goldenrod
bloomed in the autumn haze.
But always the mists of autumn evenings grew more chill, and the sun's strokes grew
shorter. Then man saw winter moving near, and he became fearful and unhappy. He was afraid
for his children, and for the grandfathers and grandmothers who carried in their heads the
sacred tales of the tribe. Many of these, young and old, would die in the long, ice-bitter months
of winter.
Coyote, like the rest of the People, had no need for fire. So he seldom concerned
himself with it, until one spring day when he was passing a human village. There the women
were singing a song of mourning for the babies and the old ones who had died in the winter.
Their voices moaned like the west wind through a buffalo skull, prickling the hairs on Coyote's
neck.
"Feel how the sun is now warm on our backs," one of the men was saying. "Feel how it
warms the earth and makes these stones hot to the touch. If only we could have had a small
piece of the sun in our teepees during the winter."
Coyote, overhearing this, felt sorry for the men and women. He also felt that there was
something he could do to help them. He knew of a faraway mountain-top where the three Fire
Beings lived. These Beings kept fire to themselves, guarding it carefully for fear that man
might somehow acquire it and become as strong as they. Coyote saw that he could do a good
turn for man at the expense of these selfish Fire Beings.
So Coyote went to the mountain of the Fire Beings and crept to its top, to watch the
way that the Beings guarded their fire. As he came near, the Beings leaped to their feet and
gazed searchingly round their camp. Their eyes glinted like bloodstones, and their hands were
clawed like the talons of the great black vulture.
"What's that? What's that I hear?" hissed one of the Beings.
"A thief, skulking in the bushes!" screeched another.
The third looked more closely, and saw Coyote. But he had gone to the mountain-top
on all fours, so the Being thought she saw only an ordinary coyote slinking among the trees.
"It is no one, it is nothing!" she cried, and the other two looked where she pointed and
also saw only a grey coyote. They sat down again by their fire and paid Coyote no more
attention.
So he watched all day and night as the Fire Beings guarded their fire. He saw how they
fed it pine cones and dry branches from the sycamore trees. He saw how they stamped
furiously on runaway rivulets of flame that sometimes nibbled outwards on edges of dry grass.
He saw also how, at night, the Beings took turns to sit by the fire. Two would sleep while one
was on guard; and at certain times the Being by the fire would get up and go into their teepee,
and another would come out to sit by the fire.
Coyote saw that the Beings were always jealously watchful of their fire except during
one part of the day. That was in the earliest morning, when the first winds of dawn arose on the
mountains. Then the Being by the fire would hurry, shivering, into the teepee calling, "Sister,
sister, go out and watch the fire." But the next Being would always be slow to go out for her
turn, her head spinning with sleep and the thin dreams of dawn.
Coyote, seeing all this, went down the mountain and spoke to some of his friends
among the People. He told them of hairless man, fearing the cold and death of winter. And he
told them of the Fire Beings, and the warmth and brightness of the flame. They all agreed that
man should have fire, and they all promised to help Coyote's undertaking.
Then Coyote sped again to the mountain-top. Again the Fire Beings leaped up when he
came close, and one cried out, "What's that? A thief, a thief!"
But again the others looked closely, and saw only a grey coyote hunting among the
bushes. So they sat down again and paid him no more attention.
Coyote waited through the day, and watched as night fell and two of the Beings went
off to the teepee to sleep. He watched as they changed over at certain times all the night long,
until at last the dawn winds rose.
Then the Being on guard called, "Sister, sister, get up and watch the fire."
And the Being whose turn it was climbed slow and sleepy from her bed, saying, "Yes,
yes, I am coming. Do not shout so."
But before she could come out of the teepee, Coyote lunged from the bushes, snatched
up a glowing portion of fire, and sprang away down the mountainside.
Screaming, the Fire Beings flew after him. Swift as Coyote ran, they caught up with
him, and one of them reached out a clutching hand. Her fingers touched only the tip of the tail,
but the touch was enough to turn the hairs white, and coyote tail-tips are white still. Coyote
shouted, and flung the fire away from him. But the others of the People had gathered at the
mountain's foot, in case they were needed. Squirrel saw the fire falling, and caught it, putting it
on her back and fleeing away through the tree-tops. The fire scorched her back so painfully
that her tail curled up and back, as squirrels' tails still do today.
The Fire Beings then pursued Squirrel, who threw the fire to Chipmunk. Chattering
with fear, Chipmunk stood still as if rooted until the Beings were almost upon her. Then, as she
turned to run, one Being clawed at her, tearing down the length of her back and leaving three
stripes that are to be seen on chipmunks' backs even today. Chipmunk threw the fire to Frog,
and the Beings turned towards him. One of the Beings grasped his tail, but Frog gave a mighty
leap and tore himself free, leaving his tail behind in the Being's hand---which is why frogs
have had no tails ever since.
As the Beings came after him again, Frog flung the fire on to Wood. And Wood
swallowed it.
The Fire Beings gathered round, but they did not know how to get the fire out of Wood.
They promised it gifts, sang to it and shouted at it. They twisted it and struck it and tore it with
their knives. But Wood did not give up the fire. In the end, defeated, the Beings went back to
their mountain-top and left the People alone.
But Coyote knew how to get fire out of Wood. And he went to the village of men and
showed them how. He showed them the trick of rubbing two dry sticks together, and the trick
of spinning a sharpened stick in a hole made in another piece of wood. So man was from then
on warm and safe through the killing cold of winter.