Photo Credit: Leequa Art

Coyote was going along and he came to a river where five pretty sisters were bathing and washing clothes some distance from each other. “What pretty girls,” Coyote said to himself. “I wonder how I can enjoy them all.”

He thought a little and then turned himself into a baby laced up on a papoose board and set himself adrift on the river. Pretty soon he drifted down to the oldest sister.

“Oh! What a beautiful baby!” she said. She pulled it ashore and picked it up. Well, that Coyote turned back into himself and before she knew what was happening he had his way with her. Then he became a baby again and drifted down to the second oldest sister.

“Oh, my! What a cute baby!” she said. “I must save it!” But when she picked it up out of the water, it was that Coyote! And so he went, fooling two more sisters along the way until he reached the youngest.

When she saw the baby drifting down she said, “There’s something funny about this. Let me see.” She held the baby in the water with one hand and quickly unlaced it with the other. Sure enough, it was that Coyote! It seems that when he turned himself into a baby, he forgot to change his penis, too. When the youngest sister saw he was no baby, she threw him far out into the river.

He was careless, but she was careful.

(Wasco-Warm Springs)


Acknowledgement:
Native STAND