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Pop Goes the Carrot
Indian stories told down through the ages.
COYOTE STORY: The Coyote story that has the wildest recognition among the Coquille Indians is “Pop Goes the Carrot.” Sometimes it is called “How the Salmon got Greasy Eyes” but that title illustrates the pitfall that Lopez noted: a 20th century emphasis on mythic stories as explanations for natural phenomena. In any case, “Pop Goes the Carrot” is a delightfully bawdy story that takes Coyote through many adventures; its story line, told to us by Tony Tanner and by Wilfred Wasson, goes as follows:
Coyote was walking up Big Creek when he encountered some young salmon females and impregnated them. When the other animals found out, they became angry with him and drove him out. He found himself in a hailstorm, so he looked for shelter and hid in a hollow tree. Like the animals, the tree became angry with Coyote and after the storm was over it wouldn’t let him out: finally his only resource was to cut to cut himself into small pieces and throw himself out a small opening, piece by piece. He reconstituted on the other side but, unfortunately, not before Raven ate one of the tiny pieces.
Ravenously hungry, Coyote found many wild strawberries to eat but they didn’t satisfy his hunger. Oh my, he found out what the Raven had eaten, his rectum! The food would not stay in Coyote’s stomach! So Coyote searched for a plug and finally, after trying several, found a suitable one—a wild carrot, which, cemented in place with pitch from a tree. Then, Coyote went on his way until he found some sea gulls playing jump over the fire. He joined the game and played closer and closer to the fire when: POP! goes the carrot! The fire had melted the pitch, and the carrot was released, plus the excrement too! The sea gulls chase and scolded him for the mess he caused. To escape, Coyote jumped into the sea and found himself in the stomach of a whale. By cutting out the heart of the whale, thus killing it, he floated to the shore. There he found his eyes were filled with whale blubber. He headed back up Big Creek and found some salmon, who, after persuasion, agreed to exchange his eyes
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with him. Coyote obtained bright, clear eyes, and the salmon’s eyes became (and have remained, up until now) greasy.
Coyote went through many transformations, but he came back to the point where he had started out. For youngsters who heard the story, the high point was the popping out of the carrot; the listeners knew it was coming and they relished it all the more. Along the way the story may have provided mythic explanations for the origins of natural phenomena, but probably these were not the point of the story, or at best were only some of many points that the stories made.
The Coquille Indians Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Roberta L Hall