Coyote's Daughter [Becomes] His Wife - Apache / White Mountain

Coyote had a black belt with red fringes. He also had a turkey
feather cap
with two eagle feathers sticking up. He was traveling with his
daughter.
They came to a river and started across, wading. Coyote said to his
daughter, "Your dress will get wet, so lift it up a little way." The
girl
did this. Pretty soon Coyote said again, "Lift your dress a little
higher,
it will get wet," and the girl did so.

Then he kept on telling her to lift it a little higher until she had
the
dress up to her belly. Then Coyote looked and saw his own . She
looked
pretty good to him. When they got across the river, they went on to
Coyote's
camp.

Then Coyote pretended to get sick. He lay down as if he was in a
very bad
way. Then he made believe he was going to die. This was all in one
day. He
said to his wife, "I am dying now. Over where they are playing hoop
and
poles there will be a man standing, right at one end of the course.
He will
be dressed just as I am now. That is the man I want my daughter to
marry.
After I am dead, wait and destroy the wickiup over me. I was always
afraid
of rocks.[ Probably refers to burial under rocks, the customary
way.] Then
leave some red paint beside me." When he got through talking, he made
believe he died. His children started to cry for him. They destroyed
the
wickiup on top of him and went off leaving him there.

Just as soon as they had left. Coyote jumped up, crawled out from
under the
wickiup and ran to the place where they were playing hoop and poles
and
stood there. He got there before his family did. Then he saw his
wife and
children coming. His wife talked with her daughter. "There is the
man you
are to marry " she said, "Go and fix up a new wickiup for
yourselves " So
they went and fixed up a new wickiup for the man and the girl That
evening
the man and the girl went to the wickiup and lay down together. That
way
Coyote lay with his own daughter all night He was married to her now.

Next day his wife said she was going to wash him up with yucca.
Coyote had
some lice in his hair and he told her to look for them Coyote also
had a
mole on the back of his head. He laid his head on his daughter's
knees and
she started to pick off lice. After a while Coyote fell asleep
there. Then
the girl came to the mole on the back of his head. When she saw
this, she
thought, "This is my father. She slipped herself out from under
Coyote
quietly so as not to waken him, and then stepped easily over to her
mother's
camp. When she got there, she said, "My mother, that man I have been
married
to is my father. I know because of that mole on the back of his
head." Then
the old woman got mad all right. She said He was dead over there a
long time
ago." She took up a big rock and went over to where Coyote was lying
asleep.
Just before she got ready to throw the rock on him, he jumped
up. "It seems
to me you are not glad to see me, my mother-in-law," he said to his
own real
wife. What's the matter, mother-in-law, what are you trying to do?
His old
wife said, "You were dead long ago over there, and now. Coyote, you
marry
with your own daughter. You had better not stay around here any
longer. Go
some other place!"

Coyote started off and came to another camp where they were playing
hoop and
poles. "Look, here comes the man who married his own daughter," they
said.
Coyote turned around and started off in another direction. The next
camp he
came to they said, Mere comes the man who married his own daughter,"
and
Coyote turned around again. Then he went a very long way to a camp
far off.
When they saw him, they said, "There is that man who married his own
daughter," and Coyote turned back. Then Coyote started to wonder who
it was
who was telling everyone about him. "Wind, you're the one who is
talking
about me," he said. Then he climbed up a hill where wind was
blowing. When
he got there he put his hand back and spread his backside apart with
his
finger. The wind blew inside it and he closed it again. Then Coyote
traveled
on to another camp and no one said anything to him. He said to
himself, "I
knew you were the one doing this, Wind." [Listeners often exclaimed
in
disgust over Coyote's incestuousness.]

Told by Francis Drake
Taken from Myths and Tales of the White Mountain Apache by Grenville
Goodwin, 1994

Submitted by Wolf Walker.