AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURE:AND RESEARCHJOURNAL 23:l (1999) 137-163
Sam Kenoi’s Coyote Stories: Poetics and
Rhetoric in Some Chiricahua Apache
Narratives
ANTHONYK WEBSTER
INTRODUCTION
My goal in this paper is to present some of the rhetorical-poetic devices
employed by Samuel E. Kenoi, a Chiricahua Apache, who told eight Coyote
narratives in his Native language to Harry Hoijer in the early 1930s.’ This
paper adds to the growing body of literature analyzing Native American discourse as highly structured.2 Such structures include shared, culturally constituted, rhetorical-poetic devices, individual strategies, and the emergent
nature of real-time narration.3
In Section 1, I present a brief biographical sketch of Sam Kenoi and
describe his contact with Harry Hoijer. In 2, I discuss Kenoi’s use of a
Chiricahua Apache narrative enclitic, -nub ‘so they say,’ as a line signaling
device. In 3, I present examples of Kenoi’s use of an initial particle, nugo
‘then,’ as an ethnopoetic device that signals changes in actors, actions, time,
and locations-thereby marking stanzas. In Section 4, I present information
on various additional rhetorical-poetic devices, paying attention to quoted
speech, numerical patterns centered on twos and fours, and formulaic devices
that anchor these narratives to other Coyote narratives. In Section 5, I identify features of Kenoi’s narratives that have wider application to Chiricahua verbal art and I make some comparative statements regarding other Southern
Athapaskan languages. In 6, I provide a set of concluding remarks where I
take up the implications of this narrative as a dialogic interaction between
social actors (Kenoi and Hoijer) and as a part of a larger discursive tradition
in an anterior here and now (the Mescalero Reservation circa 1930).
Anthony K. Webster received a master’s degree in anthropology from New Mexico
State University. He is currently a Ph.D. student in linguistic anthropology at the
University of Texas at Austin.
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CONTEXTUALIZATION
Kenoi, according to his own recollections, was born in 1875.4 He was a member of the Southern band of the Chiricahua, who lived in Sonora, Chihuahua,
southeast Arizona, and southwest New Mexico. In 1886, after the surrender of
Geronimo, the Chiricahuas, including those who had helped the United States
government, were forcibly relocated to Fort Marion, Florida. The government
treated the Chiricahuas,including the eleven-year-oldKenoi, as prisoners of war
for the next twentyseven years. Kenoi attended the Carlisle Indian School in
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where it was school policy to “kill the Indian to save the
man.” In 1893 the Chiricahuas were relocated to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. In 1913,
when Kenoi was thirtyeight years old, the United States government offered to
resettle the Chiricahuas at the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico;
otherwise, they would receive allotments of land and stay in Oklahoma. Twe
thirds of the Chiricahuas, including Kenoi, chose to settle on the Mescalero
Reservation.There, in the early 1930s, Kenoi and Hoijer met. Kenoi told Hoijer
most of the narratives under consideration here between June 17, 1930 and
June 26, 1930. Kenoi also told Hoijer tsitkizhhe n& ‘Foolish People’ stories,
tales about the Comanches, and other historical narratives.5 Hoijer did not
record Kenoi’s narratives with sound recording devices; therefore, we are left
with only a visual representation of the audible event. However, by following
the ethnopoetic methodological approach first articulated by Hymes and usefully applied by several other linguists and anthropologists, important aspects,
albeit partial, of Kenoi’s narrative organization can be recovered.6
This methodology does not deny the reality that certain audible features of
the narrative are irretrievable. Thus I cannot make claims about pause, intonation contours, and other paralinguistic features that highlight the orality of
these narratives. Note that precisely those features that most readily index the
oral quality of these narratives are absent and this, in turn, can lead to the illusion that these narratives were static artifices lacking an emergent and oral quality. This is, however, an illusion created by Hoijer’s text artifacting process, or, as
Greg Sams suggests in discussing the oral literature of Mabel McKay, “writing
recreates oral experience in given ways.”7 The artifacting of an oral phenomenon is selective and can obscure the very orality of the phenomenon.
When Hoijer, looking for linguistic data on the complex Athapaskan verb
structure, asked Kenoi to tell him some narratives in Chiricahua Apache,
Kenoi told these stories using linguistic resources available to Chiricahua narrators, resources that make these stones poetic.8 The very use of the following
poetic devices suggests that while the narrative was told in the artificial setting
of the linguistic elicitation session, Kenoi engaged in “performances” of these
Coyote stories.9 Kenoi, potentially, could have told truncated narratives that
lacked quoted speech, the narrative enclitic, and the use of twos and fours.
Instead, Kenoi used these rhetorical-poetic devices to create coherent texts, to
create and sustain narrative force and organization. Hoijer, however, was not
aware of the organizing principles that Kenoi employed in his narration.
Hoijer was interested in presenting Chiricahua texts as objects about “culture,”
as windows into “culture.”He did not take the narratives as enactments ofculture; he did not take discourse in and of itself as a cultural phenomenon.10
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Sam Kenoik Covote Stories
Nevertheless, Kenoi’s texts are not just about Chiricahua culture, they are
Chiricahua culture in that they are constructed and circulated according to
narrative aesthetics. To tell a Coyote narrative in Chiricahua is to enter into a
narrative tradition, a tradition that can validate or invalidate a person’s specific narration by placing it within the context of received standards for a
Coyote narrative. Narration is both creative (individual) and fixed (collective). All narration emerges in real time and a narrator can highlight or
exclude specific aspects of a story. Nonetheless, the narrator also is constrained by prior discourse, and it is here that we have entered the realm of
rhetorical-poetic structuring. These are the narrative devices that anchor a
given telling in prior discourse and thereby create frames by which narratives
can be recognized as a given type, that is, genre.“
A brief comment on the source of these narratives seems warranted here.
First, all the narratives to be analyzed in this paper are from Hoijer’s p u b
lished work.12 I have also checked some of the information against Hoijer’s
unpublished notebooks housed at the American Philosophical Society. I
would like to thank the American Philosophical Society for making available
those notebooks.
NARRATIVE ENCLITIC
Hoijer presented these narratives as block prose, giving little or no attention
to rhetorical and poetic devices. For example, because Hoijer believed the
sentence and clause-final narrative enclitic -nub ‘so they say,’ was redundant,
he chose consistently not to translate it.13 I will argue, however, that Kenoi’s
narratives are poetically structured and that the narrative enclitic is vital to
understanding this structure in that it serves three important functions. First,
due to its superabundance within these narratives, it operates as the basic
organizing principle of Kenoi’s narratives, creating lines. Second, the enclitic
indexes or indicates that Kenoi’s stories belong to a particular type of speaking event. Third, it acts as an epistemic distancing device indicating from the
narrator’s perspective that these stories are not of his/her personal knowledge. Each of these points merits discussion.
Narrative Enclitic as Line Marker
In Kenoi’s Coyote stories the narrative enclitic appears regularly and seems to
act as a central organizing device. Kenoi uses the narrative enclitic -nub consistently at the end of sentences and some clauses outside quoted speech. The
enclitic is affixed to the end of the verb in Chiricahua, which is a predominately verb final language.14 The repeated and regular use of this enclitic at
the end of sentences and clauses creates lines; in essence the narrative enclitic
creates boundaries and units. By lines I mean a visual or textual representation of an oral phenomenon. Thus, Kenoi’s repetition of this device separates
sentences and clauses, and creates a poetic structure based on his patterned
and regular use of the narrative enclitic. Here is an example of Kenoi’s use of
the narrative enclitic to separate clauses (-gois the subordinating enclitic):
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AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURE AND RESEARCH JOURNAL
(1) yiyeeshxahee hdgholni’ago
‘Pndini’a:
“gah tsCi xih daili?”ndini’a.
As he was going quite close to it, so they say,
He spoke thus, so they say,
“Who would mess with a rock rabbit?”he said, so they say.15
In examples 2a, 2b, 3a, and 3b, I give two extended examples of the regularity of the narrative enclitic from two of Kenoi’s stones, “Coyote and the White
Men” and “Coyote Mames His Daughter.”16The notations that accompany the
narratives in the following examples can be explained as follows: lines are
marked every fifth line with numbers flush right. Stanzas, to be discussed below,
are indicated by the use of an uppercase letter flush right. Verses, or segmentation within stanzas, are marked with a lowercase letter flush right. Let me add
that any and all transcription policies are theoretical in that they assume a narrative organization.17 The retranscription policy that I use attempts to highlight
Kenoi’s use of the narrative enclitic and an initial particle as well as certain thematic considerations. There are, of course, other ways to represent these narratives and in doing so highlight other aspects of these narratives.
I should add that inside quoted speech Kenoi does not normally use the
narrative enclitic. Thus, it is difficult to segment lines within quoted speech,
and so I do not.18 Because of the lack of a narrative enclitic within quoted
speech the speaking event is understood as within the narrative frame but the
words within the quote are intended to be understood as representations of
precisely what was said. However, I will turn to the issue of the narrative
enclitic occumng within quoted speech later in this paper.
(2a) Coyote and the White Men, Chiricahua version19
mai ‘iintin hdghdni’a.
1A
‘iintinshiditsi ’66’iibitishi neesdini’a.
‘aashi sidigo ‘a’iilni’a.
B
nigo ditsi ’66’iib&so yaadahyeesndilni’a.
C
nigo ‘intinshi ‘indaa naaki xC6l yil’inayolni’a.
5D
‘aashi, ‘intinshi ditsi’66’ii bitlkhi , sidini’a.
E
xCCl baabil‘inCnyooni’a.
‘indaah ‘ibiilndini’a:
“‘iyiabadJdi’kodeshisindi?”biikndini’a.
Fa
Fb
“dooda,”ndini’a.
“‘idii ditsi’66’ii baasid6,”ndini’a.
“dii ditsii b6Cso baan&nt’i.‘iibaaS;shilnzh6Y
ndini’a.
10 G
Sam Kenoi S Covote Stories
141
‘indaan ‘Pbiihdini’a:
“naanaahiihdii,”biilndini’a.
H
nigo ‘indini’a:
“dooda, diZiyfitiD‘fli, “yiihdini’a.
15 I
(2b) Coyote and the White Men, English version
Coyote was going along a road, so they say.
1A
He sat down under a tree that was standing by the road, so they say. B
There he sat for some time, so they say.
Then he put several pieces of money upon the tree that was standing there,
so they say.
C
Then two white men came along the road driving a burden, so they say. 5 D
There, under the tree that was standing there, he sat, so they say.
E
They drove the burden to him, so they say.
Fa
The white men spoke thus, so they say:
Fb
“Why are you sitting in this lonely place?”they said to him, so they say.
10 G
“No,” he said, so they say.
“I sit guarding this tree that stands here,”he said, so they say.
“Money grows on this tree. For that reason, it is valuable to me,” he
said, so they say.
The white men spoke thus, so they say:
“We will buy it from you,” they said to him, so they say.
H
Then he spoke thus, so they say:
“No, it is worth a great deal,” he said to them, so they say.
15 I
(3a) Coyote Marries His Own Daughter, Chiricahua version20
nigo ai jigo, bigha’isdsihh bitlishi niin6dghdnfi’a.
ch’osh ‘isda’yeesndilinii’yi yaaheesndilgo yiittsifii’a.
A
t’igbiche’shkinei yaani ghoni’a.
B
hichani’a.
“ch’osh naaneesda. xih hooki. ‘ch’osh naaniidigo,
daahka,’ naljindin”biche’shkinei daayiihdini’a.
joodaajibiiyigo, jideeskani’a.
disi hani’aa ‘ijikiyi, ‘ihb i z i w h , ‘ikiyinaaghih,
t ’ i g ditsi’66’ini ‘ikaa nideesgalng’a.
ditsi’66’ini bikhhi bitaanh yaanpatghogo yiittsitii’a.
C
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AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURE AND RESEARCH JOURNAL
nigo bimih ‘iyiihdini’a:
D
“shimi, ditsi’66’ini bikishi shitaa yaanialgho ‘iiykhe.”gooindini’a.
nigo bimih ‘ibikdini’a:
E
“doo’ijindida, shishke’k. ‘ilk’idiJkdii. dooj6zhida,”bimih biihdini’a.
di’ighit’kndah, ‘in biziiykh bimih ‘iyiihdini’a:
30F
“dooda, dishndi. dooda, dishndi. shitaa ‘5tY d i b i ‘it’i.”ndinP’a.
di’ighit’kndahbimih bich’aaghag6chini’a.
ndkkyi jakani’a.
G
(3b) Coyote Marries His Own Daughter, English version
Then, the next day, his wife was coming again to the place under him, so they
say.
A
She saw the worms he had dropped lying scattered about on the ground,
So they say.
She went back to her children, so they say.
20B
She was weeping, so they say.
“The worms have fallen. We shall go right away. ‘When the worms
fall, you will go,’ he had said to us,” she said to her children,
so they say.
Sadly, they started off, so they say.
C
When they were nearly out of sight, the small one, the youngest one,
Glanced back to the tree that stood there, so they say.
He saw his father jumping from the tree that stood there,
so they say.
25
D
Then he spoke thus to his mother, so they say:
“My mother, [I’m] sure my father jumped from the tree that stands
there!” he said to her, so they say.
Then his mother spoke thus to him, so they say:
E
“Do not say so, my child. He is gone long ago. Do not mention him,”
his mother said to him, so they say.
In spite of that, the little one spoke thus to his mother, so they say: 30 F
“No, I say! No, I say! It was my father! It was certainly him!” he said,
so they say.
In spite of that his mother stopped him, so they say.
They went on, so they say.
G
Narrative Enclitic as Framing Device
A second function that the narrative enclitic serves is that it identifies the narrative as a particular type of speaking event. Let me begin this discussion by
noting that Kenoi did not invariably use the narrative enclitic. Lf Kenoi forgot
Sam Kenoi 5 Covote Stories
143
a word, needing to clarify a statement after the narrative enclitic, he did not
hesitate to do so. Here are two examples from “Coyote Dances with Prairie
Dogs.
”
(4) ndina ’a ma Yei.
3rd person say/so they say coyote
He said, so they say-Coyote. 21
( 5 ) Einadaaptchina ’a gishibe.
3rd person pretend to hit at them again and again/so they say with the club
He pretended to hit them again and again, so they say-with the club.22
In both cases the word that follows the narrative enclitic seems to clarify or
emphasize the previous point. Thus, in example 4,Kenoi adds an aside after
the closing of the frame with -nub, clarifying who was speaking. In example
5 , Kenoi explains what was used in the pretend hitting. Both examples represent breaks in the narrative frame when Kenoi clarified, for Hoijer perhaps,
certain points in the narrative that may have been ambiguous. Indeed, it is at
just these moments, these extra-narrative moments, when the narrative event
comes to life and reminds us that these were oral products that have been
“artifacted” as visible texts on printed pages.23
On other occasions when Kenoi drops the narrative enclitic, outside
quoted speech, he appears to be signaling that his comments are outside the
narrative frame. That is, for instance, Kenoi is attempting to clanfy the subject of the line or stanza for Hoijer.24 For example, from Kenoi’s “Coyote and
Beetle,” Beetle tells Coyote that there are some people who are going to kill
someone who has earlier defecated on a rock. In Kenoi’s Coyote stories,
Coyote defecating on rocks is a common event, a habitual action. Coyote
responds to Beetle that he, Coyote, has left “something,”using the indefinite
classificatory stem -’ii , “over there.” Kenoi goes on to explicitly clanfy that
Coyote has defecated on a rock, thus disambiguating the indefinite classificatory verb stem in Coyote’s quote. Finally, Kenoi connects the quote and the
prior action with the clarification, “that is what he was speaking about,” and
here he drops the narrative enclitic, thereby breaking the narrative frame to
comment on the narrative.
nap ma Y e i ‘abiihdina’a:
‘‘hdddh ‘itsi. da ’iishi shiba kinda. ‘aghaee ‘iyaa’ht’enni’iii baanbnshda.
k’as&h& -tgho.Cdd;lse’hik kesch&ana ’a.
na’ai ‘ailndi.
Then Coyote spoke thus to him, so they say:
“Well, wait. Wait right here for me. I’m going back over there for
something that I left.”
Just as he had been coming there, he had defecated on a rock, so they say.
That is what he was speaking about.25
There is, also, some evidence that Kenoi was aware of his use of the narrative enclitic. In “Coyote Marries His Daughter” Kenoi adds a line after the
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AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURE AND RESEARCH JOURNAL
narration while working through the narrative with Hoijer.26 Thus, Kenoi,
after the narrative event, makes an editorial addition to his narrative. Kenoi
inserts this line:
(7) bintlaya soos ntsaai baadasi ’bdbeebigbzinb’a.
They knew him by a large wart that was on the side of his head, so they say.27
Here Kenoi “corrects” his narrative by adding the above line, and in doing so
he includes the narrative enclitic, thereby maintaining the narrative frame.
This is a different phenomenon than the breaking of the frame in the realtime narrative event. Here, when Kenoi has time to think about the form of
the editorial insertion, he maintains the narrative frame by including the narrative enclitic. Consequently, he maintains the narrative frame in the process
of artifacting his text.
It should be pointed out that example 2a is a story believed to be borrowed from the Spanish-American tradition.28 Yet Kenoi uses the narrative
enclitic and other rhetorical-poetic devices, which appropriates this story into
Chiricahua narrative tradition. The narrative enclitic serves to index reflexively that a specific speaking event, narration, is occurring. The narrative
enclitic can be found in a number of other narratives, including “Foolish
People” stories told by Sam Kenoi and Duncan Belacho and a Coyote story
told by Lawrence Mith1o.m However, it is not found in the songs Hoijer published for the Girl’s Puberty Ceremony.30 Thus, another genre of verbal art,
the Girl’s Puberty songs, lacks the narrative enclitic. Nor is the narrative
enclitic consistently used by Lawrence Mithlo in describing the “old customs”
of Chiricahua Apaches-that is, customs outside of his direct knowledge.31
Thus, not all narratives concerning events outside the narrators firsthand personal experience require the narrative enclitic.
Narrative Enclitic as Epistemic Distancing Device
The third identified function of - n u b is that it acts as an epistemic distancing
device. There is an interplay here between poetic function and semantic
meaning. Kenoi’s repetition of the narrative enclitic creates lines. However,
Kenoi’s use of the narrative enclitic also indicates that he was not a witness to
these events, that he is merely reporting what he has been told. It is a way for
Kenoi to distance himself from the veracity of the events described. Not to use
the narrative enclitic could potentially index that Kenoi had firsthand knowledge of these events. Its repeated usage is also a constant reminder that this
narrative derives from the words of others. The narrative enclitic is a way for
Kenoi to link his narrative to the words of a nonpresent cultural authoritythat is, he places his words within a narrative tradition. In this way the narrative enclitic seems to relinquish responsibility for the veracity of the story but
places responsibility on the accurate reproduction of the words of another.
Below is an example in which Kenoi uses the enclitic as an evidential, to suggest a lack of firsthand knowledge of the reported events. In the story, Coyote has
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Sam Kenoik Coyote Stmies
told the Prairie Dogs that he has killed all the Prairie Dogs’ enemies in a fierce
battle. The Prairie Dogs were not present at this battle. Here, the narrative
enclitic is not used as a line marker or to create the narrative frame; rather, its
sole purpose is to indicate that this is what the Prairie Dogs heard from Coyote:
(8) nago: “‘ao! %xu&, koodasahkaa. dhkogo gotal nt’aa. nahi’nda’ni
d i 2 ’eh nahdnaajiistseen6 ’a, ”dlooyei daandina’a.
Then: ‘Yes! Huny, build your fires. There is to be a ceremony right now. He
has killed for us all of those who were our enemies, so they say,” the Prairie
Dogs said, so they say. 32
The Prairie Dogs do not have direct knowledge of Coyote killing their enemies; rather, it is what has been reported to them by Coyote, which they indicate by using -nd ’a.
A second example concerns Coyote and his wife from “Coyote Marries
His Own Daughter.” In this example Coyote, after pretending to be deceased,
encounters his wife, who does not recognize him, and inquires into what else
Coyote’s wife’s husband might have said before he died. Here Coyote is pretending not to have been a witness to the events he is asking about. He signals
that he does not have direct knowledge of these events by his use of the narrative enclitic. Notice also that Kenoi has Coyote use a circumlocution when
discussing the supposedly deceased Coyote; that is, he uses haastii ‘old man’
instead of Coyote’s name. Kenoi also has Coyote use the fourth-person
pronominal ji- ‘one’ which is used for persons who occupy a socially distant
position (most notably in-laws and the dead). Coyote’s wife believes Coyote is
not the same Coyote partly because Coyote speaks correctly; that is, he uses
circumlocutions, the fourth-person pronominal, and the narrative enclitic.
(9) nago, dabi ‘at’i ndah, ‘agoondina’a:
“haastiii’gojzj&e. ‘iyaadatjindina ’a, hali?”godndinci’a.
Then, though it was indeed him, he spoke thus to her, so they say:
“The old man was wise. That one said something else, so they say, no
doubt?” he said to her, so they say. 33
Initial Particles
A second rhetorical-poetic device employed by Kenoi is the initial particle
nugo ‘then,’ which marks changes in actors, actions, time, or locations. In
examples 10a and lob, I present an extended example from “Coyote and
Beetle.” For other illustrations of this device see examples 2a and 3a.
(1Oa) Coyote and Beetle, Chiricahua versions4
nPgo ma’yei ‘Pndini’a:
“‘ik’ahhishP&igo naash8,”yiihdinP’a.
“xaa nishgha1,”yiihdigohich ’iisizini’a.
B
5
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AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURE AND RESEARCH JOURNAL
nigo g6lizhnlchinCi ‘ibiilndini’a:
“‘ihCda, haastii doodaahndida! koyi ndiiitlihyi
‘iyiaxee daajindii ‘iy6shtsiJ
C
nigo ma’yei ‘ibiihdini’a:
D
“xali! iykidaajindii shilgandi! ‘ihdeeda nishghal,”biilndini’a.
nigo g6lizhnlchinCi ‘5biiindini’a:
“‘aashixiinC tsC hik‘eeschaafin d5kogo hidaashdighad.
daajiilxe daajindi hits’a’.”
10 E
(lob) Coyote and Beetle, English version
Then Coyote spoke thus, so they say:
“I eat only fat in order to live,” he said to him, so they say.
“I’m going to eat you right now,” he said to him
as he stood next to him, so they say.
B
5
C
Then Beetle spoke thus to him, so they say:
”Wait, old man, don’t say anything. I am listening to what some
[people] are saying there underground.”
Then Coyote spoke thus to him, so they say:
“Hurry,tell me what they are saying. When you have told me,
then I will eat you,“ he said to him, so they say.
D
10 E
Then Beetle spoke thus to him, so they say:
“Right now they are going to look for someone who has defecated on
a rock over there. Sounds like they saying they are going to kill him.”
In lines 3, 6, 8, and 10 of example 10, Kenoi signals a forthcoming
switch in speaker by his use of the initial particle nugo. It is followed by an
explicit subject change. Notice that Kenoi ends Beetle’s quotes without a
verb of speaking and a line final narrative enclitic. The initial particle and
the end of the quote work together in segmenting the different lines. The
end of a quote in conjunction with the initial particle creates a line at the
end of the quote.
Kenoi does not always follow the initial particle with an explicit subject
change. In this example from “Coyote and the Prairie Dogs,” Kenoi simply
uses the initial particle and then switches to a quote:
(11) n a p : “‘ao! ‘ax&, koodasahkaa. ddkogo got61 nt ’aa. nahi’nda’ni dial ’eh
nahanaajiistseena’a,”dl66yei’daandina ’a.
Then: ‘Yes!Hurry, build your fires. There is to be a ceremony right now. He
has killed for us all of those who were our enemies, so they say,” the Prairie
Dogs said, so they say.35
Two examples from “Coyote Marries His Daughter”will show that Kenoi also
used the initial particle to help signal changes in time (12) and location (13).
Sam Kenoi’s Coyote Storks
147
(12) nugo Eai jigo, bigha’isdshniz bitlrishi ncidnbdghdna’a
Then the next day, his wife was coming again to the place under him, so
they say.36
(13) nago, naanandrisiee, ‘an &)en biche’shkhai d a i n i dldi dii’yajishgo
gohihitghona ’a.
Then, at a place still further on, that Coyote himself, carrying four prairie
dogs, met his children, so they say.37
Kenoi creates larger discourse units with his repeated use of nu@ and its correspondence with changes in action, actor, location, and time. Following
Hymes, I call these units stanzas. The number of lines within a stanza is variable.38 For example, many quotations are in the form of two line sequences
(see examples 2a, 3a, and 10a). However, Kenoi also used three- and four-line
stanzas as well. Three-line stanzas tend to appear at crucial moments in the
narrative and thus mark these moments as out of the ordinary.
Kenoi also gives different rhetorical functions to the initial particles ‘dwo and
n@. Hoijer often translated the words identically. However, Kenoi seems to use
‘likw ‘and so’ as a resultative particle, where ndgo ‘then’ opelates, as described
above, to signal shifts in actors, actions, locations, and time.39 Below I present two
examples in which the use of ‘dkooaccompanies a previous statement. Notice that
is a result of the previous statement or action:
what follows ‘h
(14) nugo ma )ei dizl ’eh kanaybdEnhicina’a.
‘akoo t s i i si’hilya nncihmd&na ’a.
Then Coyote licked it all off for him, so they say.
And so the Rock rolled back to where it had been before, so they say.40
(15) nago kaa ’zgodeatinci’a.
bigha ’isdzan ‘ciitndinri’a:
“doonzhbdagokaasiti”y2ndina’a.
“‘aaiditsi’o’b’ciibikaya tiesk ’eh sha’ci@lri.
‘cikaadashisittee,“godndina’a.
‘akoo bigha ’isdzhnn ‘akaa tiesk ’eh b6 ’ci@luana’a.
Then he pretended to be sick, so they say.
He spoke thus to his wife, so they say:
“I am badly sick,” he said to her, so they say.
“Make me a bed on that tree that stands there.
Put me up there,” he said to her, so they say.
And so his wife made a bed for him there, so they say.41
Kenoi appears to use ‘Cikoo to connect narrative units as a result of a previous action. Thus when Coyote licks clean the rock keeping him trapped in
a hole, the rock rolls away. Likewise, when Kenoi has Coyote tell his wife to do
something Kenoi uses ‘bkoo to signal that her action is a response to Coyote’s
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statements. To summarize this section, Kenoi uses nugo to separate narrative
units, to show disjunctions, and ‘dkoo to indicate that the following action,
whether by the same actor or not, is a result of what comes before, to show
conjunctions. For Kenoi, ‘ukooand ncigo serve different rhetorical functions.
Other Rhetorical-PoeticDevices
Kenoi uses other rhetorical-poetic devices within his Coyote narratives,
although the narrative enclitic and the initial particle nugo are the most common. In this section I outline four other rhetorical and poetic devices: (a) the
use of formulaic phrases and words to indicate a specific genre, Coyote narratives; (b) Kenoi’s reliance on quoted speech; (c) Kenoi’s perpetuation of
specific beliefs about language usage; and (d) Kenoi’s use of twos and fours
within his narratives.
Genre Marking Devices
Kenoi begins seven of the eight Coyote narratives with a form of the verb of
motion -gho , and five of the seven begin with the progressive stem -ghd Below
I present all seven introductory lines:
(16) mai ‘intin hdghdna ’a.
Coyote road progressive/to move/so they say
Coyote was going along the road, so they say.42
(17) ma bei ‘intin hdghdnci ’a.
Coyote/aforementioned one road progressive/to move/so they say
Coyote was going along the road, so they say.48
(18) ‘ihtin hdghdnu’a.
road progressive/to move/so they say
He was going along the road, so they say.4
(19) ‘intin naanbdghdna ’a.
road semeliterative/to move/so they say
Once more he was going along the road, so they say.45
(20) ‘cishi ndrisa ch’hciand.ciEghona’a.
and later on/semeliterative/to move/so they say
And he went on once more, so they say.46
(21) ‘cishidand’ntin6 ch’haanciEghona’a.
and very same/road on/semeliterative/to move/so they say
And he once more went on the very same road, so they say.47
Sam Kenoi S Coyote Storks
149
(22) ma ye ‘ifitin hoEghoEn6 ’a.
Coyote road progressive/to move/so they say
Coyote was going along a road, so they say.Kenoi begins the eighth narrative, “Coyote Marries His Daughter,” with
Coyote living with his family. Parenthetically, not only is it the only Coyote
story Kenoi tells without the verb of motion, but also the only story Kenoi tells
in which Coyote dies. Indeed, I argue elsewhere that Coyote’s death is a way
for Kenoi to indicate his opinion of Coyote’s behavior to Hoijer.49
Kenoi’suse of the verb of motion -gho in the opening line of seven Coyote
stones is the only constant. Both Coyote and the road are absent from at least
one introductory line. Coyote stones are recognizable by Coyote’s characteristic motion. Interestingly, in “Coyote Marries His Daughter,” where Kenoi
does not use a verb of motion Kenoi does explicitly mention Coyote by name.
The verb of motion frames these narratives as Coyote stones, because Coyote
is recognizable by his habitual motion. It connects the various Coyote narratives as a series of movements.
Kenoi also begins a number of his Coyote narratives with the initial particle ‘cishi ‘and’ (20 and 21). In these circumstances this particle seems to be
used to connect narratives-to create a unified narrative sequence.
Kenoi also uses formulaic phrases. Two of the most common are standard
Coyote utterances. Below I present two examples:
(23) “‘ik ’ah hish&@
nuasha, ”yiitndind’a.
“I eat only fat in order to live,” he said to him, so they say. 50
(24) “‘ik ’ah hish&@
naasha, ”yiitndind ’a.
“I eat only fat in order to live,” he said to him, so they say.51
(25) “mai bishke’!”
“Child of Coyote!”52
(26) “mai bishke’!”
“Child of Coyote!”53
These formulaic statements by Coyote create a recognizable character, recognizable both by his habitual motion as well as by the very words he utters.54
Quoted Speech
Sam Kenoi’s Coyote narratives rely heavily on dialogue (see examples 2a, 3a,
and 10a). Quoted speech is obviously central to Coyote narratives. Many of
Kenoi’s Coyote narratives concern either Coyote or another character
attempting to “con” or deceive the other. In his narratives, quoted speech is
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often where the action is happening. Kenoi can also vary his characterizations
of a given character by his use of quoted speech.55 In “Coyote and Rock
Lizard,” Kenoi presents Coyote as inarticulate; this is in stark contrast to the
verbally adroit Rock Lizard. In examples 27a and 27b, I present an exchange
between Coyote and Rock Lizard.
(27a) Coyote and Rock Lizard, Chiricahua version56
“shoh, haastii, doonndii’kdida. dii y5bkyan’ii h6nsht5J
dii bid66chig0, y i i nahk’izhi naakaa. haastii , hnihiiyi.
ndida, nlts6. doobihchidi. bidbnchigo, ditsini nan’66kkCzg0,
y i i nahk’izhi naakaa. gsdzilgo h6ndJbiJjindini’a.
C
nigo ditsini yaadaheesghalni’a.
D
ma’ish6idich’izhh ‘ibiilndini’a.
‘“iltsk. ‘aashi 6’ naajiyeesdfigoch’agoshchi.rash6
nahidaajiitts6,”goddini’a.
E
ma’yen ‘“ao,”ndinP’a.
10 F
(27b) Coyote and Rock Lizard, English version
“Say, Old man, don’t be foolish. I’m holding this which holds the
C
sky. If I let go of this, the sky will fall down on us. Old man, I am
very tired. You, you hold it. Don’t let go of it. If you let go of it, if the
tree falls over, the sky will fall on us. Hold it with all your strength,”
he said to Coyote, so they say.
Then he threw himself on the tree, so they say.
D
Rock Lizard spoke thus to him, so they say:
“Wait, I’ll let those who are sitting about over there know.
They will hold it on one side for us,” he said to him, so they say.
E
Coyote, “Okay,”he said, so they say.
10 F
Rock Lizard speaks in long sentences, while Coyote either responds in
action o r replies with a single word. In addition, Coyote’s utterance in line 10
is not constructed the way Sam Kenoi normally relates quoted speech (see
examples 2a, 3a, and 10a). Kenoi’s standard word order here would be: ‘“ao,
majeh ndina’a. “‘Okay,” Coyote said, so they say,’ or majen ndina’a: “‘ao,”
ndinu’a. ‘Coyote spoke thus, so they say: “Okay,”he said, so they say.’ The
unusual word order seems to heighten the sense of Coyote as inarticulate in
this narrative, in contrast to the articulate Rock Lizard. Thus, Kenoi seems
able to shift characterizations notjust by what is in the quoted speech, but also
in the very way he reports the quoted speech.
O n the other hand, quoted thought is extremely rare in Sam Kenoi’s
Coyote narratives. In fact, in the eight narratives, quoted thought occurs only
Sam Kenoi S Coyote StoriRF
151
twice. Kenoi quotes the thoughts of Coyote in “Coyote Holds Up the Sky”57
and Coyote’s daughter in “Coyote Marries His Own Daughter.”5*In “Coyote
Holds Up the Sky” the use of quoted thought over quoted speech seems to
highlight the inarticulateness of Coyote. Coyote’s quoted thought is the
longest statement by Coyote in the narrative; otherwise, he has responded to
Rock Lizard by either an oddly constructed utterance or merely by action (see
above). Kenoi’s use of quoted thought allows us to understand what Coyote is
looking for. Kenoi’s use of quoted thought in “Coyote Marries His Own
Daughter” also allows us to understand the daughter’s intentions in searching
her husband’s head for a wart. Kenoi forms the quoted thoughts in the same
way that he forms quoted speech. Below I present the two examples:
(28) “xu’shishi ‘axaanishi nahago’ n ’cishi?” nzigo naago’ iz ’cii
hadees ’ina ’a.
“Where is the nearest arroyo?”he thought as he looked for an arroyo, so
they say.59
(29) nugo ‘an jeeke’n ‘ayinzina’a:
“haiLilhaJijaabaifJiishigodooda ’dindihat ’ida9” jinzip,
da’itxoshgo ‘cishigok ’ishdeesghalnci’a.
Then that girl thought thus, so they say:
“Let’ssee, why does he not allow me to put my hand on this side?”she
thought glancing on that side as he slept, so they say.m
While quoted speech is quite common in Kenoi’s narratives, Kenoi is less likely to quote what people are thinking.61
Ways of Speaking
A third rhetorical device is Kenoi’s perpetuation or circulation of certain ideas
about proper language usage. In examples 27a and 27b, Kenoi has Rock Lizard
speak in an appropriate manner. Rock Lizard uses the nickname haclstii, ‘old
man,’ to refer to Coyote. This is a common nickname that was used to refer to
Chiricahua Apache men and commonly for Coyote as we11.62 The use of this
nickname, and nicknames in general in Chiricahua, reflects a general preference for not using a person’s name in conversation.63 One of Opler’s consultants said: “‘Old man’ is not used like the English ‘Mr.’We never would say ‘old
man’ and then add a man’s Chiricahua name. The word refers to age or is used
so that the name of a person can be avoided.’’W This need to avoid using a person’s name, considered impolite behavior among the Chiricahua, is thus coded
by Kenoi in an ongoing narrative. It also is positively evaluated since Rock
Lizard succeeds in his con. Likewise, Coyote’s use of haclstii, in (9), when
attempting to deceive his wife also succeeds in part, it would seem, because
Coyote speaks appropriately-that is, he uses ‘old man,’ the fourth-person
pronominal, and the narrative enclitic as an epistemic distancing device. In this
way, narratives become ways to circulate and reproduce beliefs about language.&
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Likewise, in examples 3a and 3b Kenoi again perpetuates a specific linguistic ideology within an ongoing narrative. In Chiricahua the fourth-person
pronoun is used when referring to individuals who are understood as “socially distant.” This pronoun is most commonly used when referring to in-laws or
to the deceased.@In stanzas D and E in Figure 2a, the mother uses the fourthperson subject pronoun ji- when referring to her husband, whom she believes
to be dead. For example, line 21 nukjindin ( nut- ‘to us’ jC ‘one [fourth person]’ ndi- ‘to say’ n ‘past tense enclitic’). In contrast, the son, who believes his
father to be alive, uses the third-person pronoun when referring to his father;
ddbi ‘certainly him’ ( d & ‘certainly’ bi ‘him [third-person independent pronoun]’). Kenoi has both mother and son engaging in proper speech, given
their beliefs about Coyote. Kenoi also signals the daughter’s awareness that
her husband is her father Coyote when she utters:
(30) goman ‘adjindina’a:
“shimci, ‘hghdiz shitaan n ‘kt ’ii. bihthhi soos ntsaai baadasi %. ‘aibee ddbi
‘.
at ,..
aa big&. ”godndina’a.
She spoke thus to her mother, so they say:
“My mother, that one is my father. A big wart lies on the side of his
head. That shows that it is surely him,” she said to her mother, so they
say.67
The daughter’s use of ddbi ‘surely him’ is reminiscent of the son’s use of the
same form earlier in the narrative (see example 3a). Likewise, the daughter’s
use of shitaa ‘my father’ would be unacceptable if her father was, in fact, dead.
Not only does she say that it is her father, but the pronominals she uses also
indicate that she believes her father to be alive. They also connect her pronouncement back to her brother’s assertion earlier in the narrative. We are
reminded that if Coyote’s wife would have listened to her son earlier in the
narrative Coyote would not have been able to marry his own daughter. Thus,
a culturally constituted way of speaking is reinforced within this narrative.
Numerical Constraints
A final rhetorical-poetic device Kenoi employed was his use of twos and fours.
This is not surprising given the general Chiricahua belief that four is an important number symbolically.68 Four has also been reported as an important symbolic number throughout the Southwest.69 This usage also correlates with
Hymes’ statement that narratives tend to be numerically patterned along two
general numerical patterns: twos and fours, and threes and fives.” For instance,
in “Coyote and the White Men” Kenoi has two White Men protagonists, and in
“CoyoteDances with the Prairie Dogs,” the Mountain Lion puts back two prairie
dogs. In “Coyote Marries His Daughter,” Kenoi has Coyote tell his wife to give
their daughter to the first man they meet carrying four prairie dogs.
Events also tend to occur in twos and fours. In “Coyote Marries His
Daughter,” Kenoi has Coyote’s son assert twice that he has seen his father. In
Sam Kenoi S Coyote Stories
153
“Coyote and Rolling Rock,” Coyote runs away from the Rolling Rock four
times, and each time the Rolling Rock stays on his heels. Kenoi also has the
prairie dogs, in “Coyote Dances with the Prairie Dogs,” line up in two lines,
using two narrative lines to do this. In “Coyote Dances with the Prairie Dogs,”
Coyote pretends to strike the dancing prairie dogs twice. However, the third
swing is the real one. Coyote pretends to hit the prairie dogs twice, and then
on the third swing he begins killing the prairie dogs. Thus, at a crucial
moment in a narrative, Kenoi seems to focus on the event by marking it as the
third time. Other times, Kenoi uses a three-line sequence to build to a final
event. For example, in “Coyote Holds Up the Sky” Kenoi uses three verbs of
seeing -gal ‘to glance’, -5‘ ‘to look’, -tsaSto see’ in three consecutive lines.
Coyote glances, looks, and finally sees an arroyo.
Rhetorical-Poetics in Chiricahua Apache Narratives
In the above sections I outlined a set of rhetorical-poetic features that Sam
Kenoi used in narrating his Coyote stories to Harry Hoijer. In this section I
will suggest which devices of Kenoi’s narratives have a wider application to
Chiricahua verbal art and specifically Coyote stories. This analysis is based on
the narrative tradition at the time that Kenoi told these Coyote stories to
Hoijer.71 I also make a few comparative statements that connect Kenoi’s narratives to other Southern Athapaskan Coyote narrative traditions.
I have suggested that Kenoi used the narrative enclitic -nu’u to segment
lines due to the superabundance of its usage. The use of the narrative enclitic
in Chiricahua as a line-marking device also correlates with Basso and Tessay’s
discussion of a Western Apache narrative told by Joseph Hoffman to Hoijer in
the 1930s.72 In Hoffman’s narrative, a passage final-verb particle indicated the
smallest textual units.73 In Kenoi’s Coyote stories, the narrative enclitic also
indicated that the events in these narratives were not known firsthand by
Kenoi. This is similar to the use ofjzni ‘they say’ in Navajo, which also acts as
a rhetorical way to express that the events being recounted are not from one’s
own primary knowledge.74 Finally, the narrative enclitic, because it is common
in other narratives told by other narrators, also indexed that a specific speech
event was occurring,75 in contrast to those genres, the songs of the Girl’s
Puberty ceremony for example, that do not use the narrative enclitic. Its relative frequency in other narratives by other narrators as well as the use of narrative particles by other Southern Athapaskan languages and narrators also
suggests that the narrative enclitic was a part of a larger Chiricahua rhetorical-poetic structuring.
The distribution of the narrative enclitic versus a passage final verb of
speaking, such as the Navajo jzni, in Southern Athapaskan languages is
intriguing. I have examined a number of Coyote stories in their original languages-Navajo,76 Mescalero,77 San Carlos,78Jicarilla,79 and White Mountain
Apacheso-and have found a narrative enclitic or verb of saying used in a similar fashion as that used in Chiricahua. In Jicarilla Apache Pliny Goddard
never translates the narrative enclitic, -nu. However, Sandoval reports the narrative enclitic as -na and translates it as ‘that’s how it is told.’81 In an oral his-
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tory of the Lipan Apache, told to Hoijer by Augustina Zuazua in Lipan,
Zuazua employs a narrative enclitic -nu ‘they say’ at various points in her narrative to highlight that some of what she is recounting is hearsay.@However,
in the only Coyote story collected by Hoijer in Lipan from Lisandro Mendez,
the narrative enclitic is conspicuously absent.83 In Mescalero Apache the narrative enclitic -nu ’a ‘they say’ appears consistently.84
However, in White Mountain Apache (Western Apache) the verb ‘to say’
tc’indidn’ appears, which Goddard translates as ‘they say.’85 Among the San
Carlos Apache (Western Apache) the verb ‘to say’ tc’inin’ appears, which
Goddard translates as ‘they say.’86 Among the Navajo one finds the verb ‘to
say’ jini ‘they say’ used.87 According to Young and Morgan, there is no comparable narrative enclitic in Navajo.88 It seems that one could group Jicarilla,
Chiricahua, Mescalero, and perhaps Lipan together since they use a narrative
enclitic: -nu and -nci’a. On a similar basis, one could group Navajo, White
Mountain, and San Carlos together for their consistent use of a verba dicendi
(verb of saying) that is analyzable as such-it has a recognizable morphology
as a verb of speaking with an attendant fourth-person subject pronominal (j&
fourth person, -ni‘to say’).More research needs to be done to understand the
distribution of the narrative enclitic versus the use of a verba dicendi.
Kenoi’s use of nugu and his distinguishing it from ‘dkoois not as straightforward as the wider applicabilityof the narrative enclitic. For example, in Lawrence
Mithlo’s “Coyote Obtains Fire,”89 Mithlo appears to use ‘ h o more frequently
than Sam Kenoi does, and he seems to use it in a manner similar to Kenoi’s use
of nhgu. Certainly Kenoi created larger meaningful discourse units by his use of
?uig. However, this and his different rhetorical usages of ’dkoo may be part of
Kenoi’s unique verbal artistry. Kenoi also uses the initial particle ‘cishias a connective particle across narratives. However, again, other narrators may have marshaled these linguistic devices and poetic resources for other rhetorical purposes.
Kenoi’suse of twos and fours probably fits into a larger Chiricahua rhetorical-poetic structure due to the general Chiricahua belief about the importance of such numbers. For example, many of the events at the Girl’s Puberty
Ceremony center on the number four; things tend to happen four times.90
Whether or not other narrators relied as heavily on two over four, as did
Kenoi, is a question open to empirical investigation. I also have suggested that
Kenoi sometimes used a pattern of three at crucial moments in the narrative-striking prairie dogs. More work needs to be done to understand how
and to what extent the use of numerical patterns interacted with other rhetorical-poetic features. It does seem suggestive that Kenoi used three as the
marked form and therefore draws attention to those events. Two and four are
expected, with three indicating a marked occurrence.
The use of quoted speech is a common narrative device in a number of
North and South American oxal mditions.91 The extensive use of quoted speech
is also an indicator of “performance.”92Kenoi seems to have been able to adjust
characterizations by his emphasis on quoted speech. Coyote can be verbally
adroit in one narrative, “Coyote and the White Men,” and verbally inept in
another, “Coyoteand Rock Lizard.”It is not surprising that in the former Coyote
succeeds in his con, while in the latter Coyote is portrayed as an easy dupe for
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Sam Kenoi S Coyote Stories
Rock Lizard. The creative deployment of quoted speech, along with Kenoi’s use
of nicknames and the fourth-person pronominal, seems to correlate with a sentiment about the importance of proper language use that has been widely
remarked on for Navajo, a related Southern Athapaskan language, and, to some
extent, Chiricahua.93 Or as Lawrence Mithlo told Harry Hoijer, ‘‘doou!h’cikoyci3eaaizbich’iiyuj2tidd’ ‘one did not sayjust anything to someone.’94
Kenoi’s use of the verb of motion -gho in the opening line of a number of
his narratives correlates with a pattern in Navajo that has been commented on
by Toelken and Scott and Midgette.95 Midgette calls Coyote’s habitual motion
a “recumng tr0pe.”96Toelken and Scott have suggested that in Navajo Coyote
stories Coyote be understood to have always been “trotting.”97That Kenoi’s
Chiricahua Apache Coyote narratives would also identify Coyote by his habitual motion is, therefore, not surprising.
What is surprising, compared to Navajo Coyote narratives, is the relative
“placeless-ness”of these narratives.Within Kenoi’s Coyote narratives no localized
topographical features are named. In this respect, Kenoi’s narratives are reminiscent of Bakhtin’s notion of “the chronotope of the road.”98 Coyote travels
along a road, but this road traverses an abstract world not grounded in localized
topographical features. This is in contrast to the Navajo Coyote stones told by
Yellowman99 and Curly T6 Aheedliiniilw which, while using the motifs of movement and the road, are often explicitly placed in localized topographical places
via descriptive place-names. In fact much recent work on Athapaskan placenames and moral narratives has suggested how important place-names are and
how intimately they are related to creating a “moral relationship with the
land.”l01One possible explanation for the relative “placeless-ness”within Kenoi’s
Coyote narratives would be to look at the history of Sam Kenoi and the
Chiricahua Apache diaspora. Between 1886 and 1913 the United States government forcibly moved the Chiricahua Apache and Sam Kenoi from their traditional homeland in Arizona to St. Augustine, Florida, then to Fort Marion,
Alabama, then to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and finally to the Mescalero Reservation,
New Mexico. Coyote’s relative placeless-ness may reflect Kenoi’s displacement.
However, while it is a placeless world disconnected, as it were, from a localized
geography, it is a familiar world in the sense that the beliefs, norms, and values
found in the narratives were familiar and interpretable as such to Chiricahuas.
In fact, I have suggested that Coyote stones were one way to circulate and reinforce culturally constituted ways of speaking and behaving.
CONCLUSIONS
This research supports the idea that Native American oral traditions should
be regarded as literature. It seems untenable to argue that oral narratives
were simply ways to pass on knowledge. They did, but they also were creative
products of individuals in real-time interactions. Oral narratives are highly
structured and creative literary accomplishments. To dismiss this fact is to
ignore or deny entire literary traditions from the Ojibwa of the Eastern
Woodlands to the Tillamook of the North Pacific to the Koasati of the
Southeast to the Chiricahua of the Southwest. Different narrators tell differ-
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ent stories using different rhetorical-poetic devices at their disposal. These
devices are often language-specific and historically contingent. They are evaluated according to the narrative standards circulated among a group.102
Different Native American literary traditions have different rhetorical-poetic
devices at their disposal, and these narratives are judged by specific narrative
standards, whether they are Ojibwa, Koasati, or Chiricahua. One should not
make the mistake of treating all Native American oral literature together;
Native American literary traditions are diverse and should be treated with
respect. Each tradition should be analyzed individually and only then should
comparative work be done. What plays in Ojibwa narratives may not play by
Chiricahua aesthetic standards.
Let me add that I do not mean to privilege Western notions of literature
and in so doing appropriate oral literature into written literature. Instead I
wish to broaden our understanding of the notion of literature. To argue that
literature must be written is to make an apioriassessment of what is literature.
I see no need to do this. Rather, I would suggest that literature is an ideological position.103 Although Western literary traditions are based on written
texts, this is neither natural nor necessary.104 The Chiricahua “literary tradition,” a tradition worth perpetuating and displaying, is and has been based on
oral performances-on practice as opposed to product.105 What is needed,
then, is to expand the notion of literature away from the fetish of the written
text and to approach literature as an ideological privileging of given kinds of
narrative traditions-be they written or oral. That is to assess “literary traditions” and “literature” as practices enmeshed in larger discursive traditions
and social practices and not as objectified products.
This research also builds on the work of ethnopoetics by paying attention
to the dialogic nature of the linguistic elicitation session between Hoijer and
Kenoi.106 I have been concerned with the real-time moment of narration that
occurred between two social individuals. Hoijer was not simply a passive audience in these narrative events, but was part of the coconstruction of these narratives. Kenoi told the stories to Hoijer, and between the two of them these
narratives were fashioned and something of that dialogic moment can also be
recovered from these “artifacted” texts, for example, the moments when Sam
Kenoi breaks from the narrative frame and addresses Hoijer, providing clarification or emphasis to his audience. These texts are not solely monologues;
there is also a dialogic component here as well. We need to discard the illusion of staticness and approach these narratives as interactions in a prior here
and now.
In conclusion, this paper has been a first step in understanding the ethnohistory of Chiricahua ethnopoetics; more work needs to be done. During
Hoijer’s fieldwork on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in the 3930s he collected Coyote stories from narrators of all three Apache dialects there
(Chiricahua, Lipan, and Mescalero). Little has been done with the published
texts and virtually nothing has been done with Hoijer’s unpublished notebooks.107 Work needs to be done to understand how people interwove the narrative traditions of these three groups, to understand the “ethnohistory of
For instance, did all narrators on the Mescalero Apache
communication.””-)S
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Sam Kenoi’s Coyote Stories
Reservation use the narrative enclitic as regularly as Sam Kenoi? Did different
narrative styles index different tribal affiliations (e.g., Lipan versus
Mescalero)? Here the limits of Englishanly translations become apparent.
For many of these, rhetorical-poetic devices were not presented in Opler’s collections of Lipan, Chiricahua, or Mescalero texts.109 Historical reconstruction
that has been based on the content of English-only texts needs to be
rethought in light of an understanding of Apache rhetoric and poetics. The
texts in their original languages must be analyzed and compared to understand how language structure interacted with narrative structure and sociolinguistic factors such as indexing of group affiliation. Finally, we need to
understand that Chiricahua oral literature is a living tradition and that
Kenoi’s narrative voice is a part of the “genealogy” of that narrative tradition.1’0 Future work needs to be done to understand how Chiricahua narrators use poetic resources and narrative traditions today. In effect, entire
Apachean literary traditions await exploration.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Elizabeth Keating, Scott Rushforth, Joel Sherzer, Pauline
Strong, and Anthony Woodbury for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
I thank Willem de Reuse for a number of useful comments on specific aspects
of the particle system in Apachean languages. Mistakes that remain are, of
course, my responsibility. Two graduate research awards from New Mexico
State University supported research for this paper.
NOTES
1. This paper owes a great debt to Harry Hoijer (1904-1976), for it is precisely
Hoijer’s thorough understanding of the Apache languages and his attention to transcription that allows later anthropologists like myself to return to these texts. The
Chiricahua now reside around Fort Sill, Oklahoma and on the Mescalero Apache
Reservation in New Mexico, and the language is dying. This paper is dedicated to
reviving interest in the Chiricahua Apache people and language. Chiricahua Apache
is a Southern Athapaskan language closely related to Mescalero and Western Apache
and more distantly to Navajo,Jicarilla, Kiowa-Apache, and Lipan Apache. I follow the
standard Athapaskan orthography with these distinctions: For vowels I use the following: a = oral; a& nasal. i = high tone; a = low tone. Voiceless alveolar lateral = 1(
Voiceless velar fricative = x. h is a syllabic nasal with high tone. ‘ is a glottal stop.j = 01;
gh = a voiced velar fricative; ch = a voiceless aspirated palatal affricate; and sh = a voiceless alveopalatal fricative. In updating Hoijer’s orthography I have not attempted to
represent the phonological changes that have occurred in Chiricahua Apache since
Hoijer did his fieldwork in the 1930s. Much future work is required to understand the
ways in which Chiricahua Apache has changed during the last sixty years. My primary
goal in updating the orthographyhas been to make the Apache texts more accessible
to Apache readers. The orthography I use is similar to the current orthography used
by the Mescalero Apache Tribe.
2. See Dell Hymes, In Vain I Tried to Tell You (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania
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AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURE AND RESEARCH JOURNAL
University Press, 1981); Dennis Tedlock, The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation
(Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 1983); William Bright, American Indian
Linguistics and Literature (Berlin:Mouton De Gruyter, 1984);Joel Sherzer and Anthony
Woodbury, eds., Native American Discourse: Poetics and Rhetm’c (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1987); and Brian Swann, ed., Coming To Light (New York Vintage
Press, 1994).
3. See Dell Hymes, “Language, Memory, and Selective Performance: Cultee’s
‘Salmon Myth’ as Twice Told to Boas,”Journal of American Folklme 98:390 (1985):
391434; and Michael Silverstein, “The Secret Life of Texts,” in Natural Histories of
Discourse, eds. Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1996): 81-105.
4. Moms Opler, “A Chiricahua Apache’s Account of the Geronimo Campaign of
1886,”Nm Mexico Historical Review 13 (1938): 362; see also Gillet Griswold, The Fort Sill
Apaches: Their Vital Statistics, W b a l Origins, Antecedats (Fort Sill, OK: U S . Army Field
Artillery and Fort Still Museum, 1958-1962) for a different date of birth.
5. See Harry Hoijer, Chiricahua and Mescaler0 Apache Texts (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1938).
6. For early clear statements of Hymes’ approach, see Dell Hymes, “Particle,Pause,
and Pattern in American Indian Verse,” American Indian Cultuw and ResearchJournal 4 4
(1980): 7-51; and Hymes, In Vain. For work that builds on Hymes, see Geoffrey Kimball,
“Koasati Narrator and Narrative,” in New Voices In Native American Litmaq Criticism, ed.
Arnold Krupat (Washington, DC Smithsonian, 1993), 3-35; &die Ghezzi, “Ojibwe
Storytelling,”in Krupat, Nm Voices, 37-76; and Paul Kroeber, “Rhetorical Structure of a
Kalispel Narrative,”AnthropologicalLinguktics 37:2 (1995): 119-140.
7 . Greg Sams, Keeping Slug Woman Alive (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1993), 38.
8. Roman Jakobson, “Concluding Statement,” in Style in Language, ed. Thomas
Sebeok (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960), 350-373.
9. Hymes, In Vain;Tedlock, The Spoken Word.
10. This discussion builds on Greg Urban, A Discourse Centered Approach to Language
and Culture (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991), 17. Furthermore, I do not mean
to imply that Hoijer was unconcerned with the relationship between language and culture; that was certainly not the case. See Harry Hoijer, “Cultural Implications of some
Navaho Linguistic Categories,” Language 27 (1951): 111-120; and Harry Hoijer, “The
Relation of Language to Culture,” in Anthropology Today, ed. A. L. Kroeber (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1953), 554-573.
11. See Paul Kroskrity, “Growingwith Stories: Line, Verse, and Genre in an Arizona
Tewa Text,”Journal ofAnthropologica1Research 41 (1985): 183-199; Anthony Woodbury,
“The Function of Rhetorical Structure: A Study of Central Alaskan Yupik Eskimo
Discourse,”Language in Society 14 (1985): 153-190.
12. Hoijer, Chiricahua, 19-27.
13. Ibid., 82.
14. Ibid., 88
15. Ibid., 19.
16. The narrative lines are represented according to the sentence and clause final
enclitic. Larger units are partitioned according to Kenoi’s use of the initial particle
nu@ (to be discussed below) as well as other stylistic and thematic devices. I describe
Sam Kenoi S Covote Stories
159
this in Anthony Webster, "Sam Kenoi's Coyote Stories: An Ethnopoetic Analysis of
Some Chiricahua Narratives," (M.A. thesis, New Mexico State University, 1997).
Complete ethnopoetic versions with explanations about the various notations can be
found in Webster, "Sam Kenoi's," 118-196.
17. Joel Sherzer, "Modes of Representation and Translation of Native American
Discourse: Examples from the San Blas Kuna," in On the Translation of Native A d c a n
Literatures, ed. Brian Swann (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Press, 1992), 4264iO; and
Joel Sherzer, "Transcreating Culture and Poetics," in The Life of Languuge, eds. Jane
Hill, P.J. Mistry, and Lyle Campbell (Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter, 1997), 355-368.
18. This practice is similar to Keith Basso and Nashley Tessay Sr., "Joseph
Hoffman's 'The Birth of He Triumphs Over Evils': A Western Apache Origin Story,"in
Coming To Light, ed. Brian Swann (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), 638.
19. Hoijer, Chiricahua, 18-19.
20. Ibid., 25-27.
21. Ibid., 23.
22. Ibid., 23-24.
23. I borrow the notion of "artifacted from Silverstein, "The Secret Life," 82.
24. Because Chiricahua Apache can have a pronominal subject prefix on the verb or
the subject argument can be embedded within the verb structure, Kenoi does not have to
include Coyote explicitly. See Hoijer, Chiricahua. These "headless"constructions are common within Kenoi's narratives. However, they can make the subject of a sentence or line
ambiguous, especially to a non-Native speaker such as Hoijer. There are paralinguistic
devices that would seme to clanfy who was speaking. For instance, in a Mescalero Coyote
narrative told by Charles Smith, he states, "When this text was told, the informant pronounced all the -a-vowels of this sentence with an -w- timbre to imitate the quality of Owl's
voice (193)."Hoijer, Chiricahuq 193. Grenville Goodwin, Myths and T& of the White
Mountain Apache, Memoirs of American Folk-Lore Society, Vol. 33. (New York: J. J.
Augustin, 1939), 190 n. 2, points out that among the White Mountain Apache, Coyote
takes a highly nasalized voice that White Mountain Apaches associate with Chiricahua
Apaches. That is, according to Goodwin's White Mountain consultants, Coyote talks like a
Chiricahua Apache. See also Barre Toelken and Tacheeni Scott, "Poetic Retranslation and
the 'Pretty Languages' of Yellowman," in i'+uditirmalLiteratures of the American Indians, ed.
Karl Kroeber (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981), 83, for a discussion of
Coyote's voice among the Nawjo. See also William Bright, A Coyote Reader (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1993) on Coyote's voice. See Edward Sapir, "Abnormal
Types of Speech in Nootka," in Selected Writings ofEdward S a p , ed. David Mandelbaum
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949), 179-196; Dell Hymes, "How to Talk Like
a Bear in Takelma," InternutirmalJ o u m l ofAmerican Linguistics 45 (1979): 101-106 and
Anthony Woodbury, "Meaningful Phonological Processes: A Consideration of Central
Alaskan Yupik Eskimo Prosody," Language 63:4 (1987):685-740 on sound symbolism.
25. Hoijer, Chiricahua, 21.
26. Morris Opler, "Ethnological Notes," in Hoijer, Chiricahuu, 143.
27. Hoijer, Chiricahua, 25.
28. David French, "Comparative Notes on Chiricahua Apache Mythology," in
Myths and T a b of the Chiricahua Apache Indians, Memoirs of the American Folk-lore
Society, vol. 37, ed. Morris Opler (Menasha,WI:George Banta, 1942), 107.
29. Hoijer, Chiricahua, 17-18.
160
AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURE AND RESEARCH 1OURNA.L
30. Ibid., 48-52.
31. Ibid., 45-47.
32. Ibid., 23.
33. Ibid., 26.
34. Ibid., 21.
35. Ibid., 23.
36. Ibid., 25.
37. Ibid., 26.
38. Hymes, In Vain.
39. For Navajo, Robert Young and William Morgan, The Navajo Language
(Albuquerque:University of New Mexico Press, 1987), 23, translate ‘akooas ‘so, so that,
so then.’ For Mescalero, Evelyn Breuninger, Elbys Hugar, Ellen Ann Lathan, and Scott
Rushforth, Mescalero Apache Dictionary (Mescalero, NM: Mescalero Apache Tribe,
1982), 29, translate ‘dkuu as ‘then, and then.’ My translation is closer to Young and
Morgan’s, but Lawrence Mithlo, another Chiricahua, seems to use ‘ukoo in a manner
that would be closer to Breuninger, et al. The distinction is essentially between a
sequential particle ( n a p ) and a causal or what I have called a resultative particle
(‘ukoo).I would like to thank Andrew Wiget for suggesting this term.
40. Hoijer, Chin’cahua, 20-21.
41. Ibid., 25.
42. Ibid., 18.
43. Ibid., 19.
44. Ibid., 19.
45. Ibid., 20.
46. Ibid., 21.
47. Ibid., 21.
48. Ibid., 22.
49. For a fuller discussion of this narrative, see Anthony Webster, “Sam Kenoi’s
‘Coyote Marries His Own Daughter’: Harry Hoijer and the Interactional Text,”
Unpublished manuscript in author’s possession. See also Webster, “Sam Kenoi’s.”
50. Hoijer, Chiricahua, 19.
51. Ibid., 21-22.
52. Ibid., 20.
53. Ibid., 19.
54. For a review of the characteristics that Coyote shares across various narrative
traditions see Bright, Coyote Re&.
55. See Kroeber, “Rhetorical Structure,” for an analogous Kalispel example.
56. Hoijer, Chiricahua, 21-22.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid., 25-27.
59. Ibid., 22.
60. Ibid., 26.
61. For comparative purposes, see Gary Witherspoon, Language and Art in the
Navajo Universe (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977), on the importance of
speech and thought among some Navajo.
62. Morris Opler, An Apuche Lijeway (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941),
429-432.
Sam Kenoi S Cuyote Stories
161
63. Opler, A n Apache Life-way, 430-431.
64. Ibid., 432.
65. For the implications of this kind of discursive circulation, see Urban, A
Discourse.
66. Morris Opler, “An Outline of Chiricahua Apache Social Organization,” in
Social Anthropology of North Ama‘can Zndian Tribes, ed. Fred Eggan (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1937), 214-223. Hoijer, Chin‘cahua, 72.
67. Hoijer, Chiricahua, 26.
68. Opler, An Apache Life-way, 116, 262-263.
69. Witherspoon, Language.
70. Hymes, In Vain.
71. See Opler, An Apache Lif-way, 35, 197,438-439; Opler, Myths and Tales of the
Chin‘cahua;and Webster, “Sam Kenoi’s,”85-98.
72. Basso and Tessay, “Joseph Hoffman’s,’’ 638.
73. Ibid.
74. On the use of jini, see Toelken and Scott, “Poetic Retranslation,” 92-93; and
O.F.M. Berard Haile, Navajo Coyote Tabs (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984).
75. See Woodbury, “The Function”; and Anthony Woodbury, “Rhetorical Structure
in a Central Alaskan Yupik Eskimo Traditional Narrative,” in Native American Discourse,
eds. Joel Sherzer and Anthony Woodbury (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1987).
76. Edward Sapir and Harry Hoijer, Navajo Texts (Iowa City: Whitney Linguistic
Series, 1942); Haile, Navajo Coyote.
77. Hoijer, Chiricahua.
78. Pliny Earle Goddard, Sun Carlos Apache Texts, Anthropological Papers, vol. 24
part 3 (New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1919).
79. Pliny Earle Goddard,Jican’llaApache Texts, Anthropological Papers, vol. 8. (New
York: American Museum of Natural History, 1911).
80. Pliny Earle Goddard, white Mountain Apache Texts,Anthropological Papers, vol.
24 part 4 (New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1920).
81. Merton Sandoval,“The Syntactic Function of the Yi-/Bi- Alternation in Jicarilla
Apache,” Coyote Papers, vol. 5 , ed. Stuart Davis (Tucson: University of Arizona Press,
1984),163.
82. Harry Hoijer, “The History and Customs of the Lipan, as told by Augustina
Zuazua,” Linguistics 161 (1975):5-38.
83. Harry Hoijer, Lipan Apache Texts, Unpublished notebook from 1938 housed at
the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA. I have analyzed this narrative in
Anthony Webster, “Lisandro Mendez’s ‘Coyote and Deer’: On Reciprocity,
Interactions, and Narrative Structures,” Unpublished manuscript in author’s possession.
84. Hoijer, Chin’cahua.
85. Goddard, White Mountain.
86. Goddard, Sun Carlos.
87. Sapir and Hoijer, NavajG and Haile, Navajo Coyote.
88. Young and Morgan, The Navajo Language,17-23.
89. Hoijer, Chiricahua, 17-18.
90. Opler, An Apache Life-way, 116, 127, 130.
162
AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURE AND RESEARCHJOURNAL
91. For a sampling of the use of quoted speech, see Hymes, In Vain;Tedlock, The
Spoken Wmd; William Bright, “Coyote’sJourney,” American Indian Culture and Research
Journal 4:l-2(1980):21-48; Bright, Ammican Indian; Sherzer and Woodbury, Native
Ammican Discourse, Joel Sherzer, V d a l Art in Sun B h (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1990); Kimball, “Koasati”;and Kroeber, “Rhetorical Structure.”
92. My thinking on performance has been stimulated by Hymes, In Vain; Richard
Bauman, Stmy, Perfmance, and E v a t (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986);
and the earlier work of Melville Jacobs, The Contat and Styb of an Oral Literature.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959).
93. On Navajo, see Witherspoon, Language and Art; Barre Toelken, “Life and
Death in the Navajo Coyote Tales,”in Recovenkg the Wurd, ed. Brian Swann and Arnold
Krupat (Berkelely: University of California Press, 1987);and Paul Zolbrod, “Navajo
Poetry in Print and in the Field, in On the Translation of Native Amerkan Literatures, ed.,”
Brian Swann (Washington, DC: Srnithsonian Institute, 1992),242-256.On Chiricahua
Apache, see Hoijer, Chiricahua; and Opler, An Apache Life-way.Webster, “Sam Kenoi’s,”
offers a summary of the Chiricahua literature.
94. Hoijer, Chiricahua, 18.
95. Toelken and Scott, “Poetic Retranslation”; and Sally Midgette, “The Navajo
Progressive in Discourse Context: A Study in Temporal Semantics” (Ph.D. dissertation,
University of New Mexico, 1988).
96. Midgette, “The Navajo Progressive,” 129.
97. Toelken and Scott, “Poetic Retranslation,” 105.
98. M.M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. M. Holquist, trans. M.
Holquist and C. Emerson (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981),98.
99. Toelken and Scott, “Poetic Retranslation.”
100. Haile, Navajo Coyote.
101. Keith Basso, Wisdom Sits In Places (Albuquerque, University of New Mexico
Press, 1996),67.Basso’s work on Western Apache place-names has stimulated a variety
of research on Athapaskan place-naming practices and their connections to narratives
and notions of place. For other discussions of the importance of Athapaskan placenames ranging from Northern Athapaskan to Pacific Coast Athapaskan, see James
Kari, “Some principles of Alaskan Athabaskan toponymic knowledge,” in General and
Amerindian Ethnolinguistics, eds. Mary Ritchie Key and Henry Hoenigswald (Berlin:
Mouton de Gruyter, 1989), 129-149;Julie Cruikshank, “‘Getting the Words Right’:
Perspectives on Naming and Places in Athapaskan Oral History,” Arctic Anthropology
27:l (1990):52-65; and James Collins, Understanding Tolowa Histmy (New York:
Routledge, 1998),133-162.
102. See Kimball, “Koasati”; Kathleen Danker, “Because of this I am Called the
Foolish One,” in New Voices in Native A m k a n Literary Criticism, ed. Arnold Krupat
(Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 1993),505-523; and Sanis, Keeping Slug Woman, for
“Native” Native American literary criticism. More generally, see also Arnold Krupat,
New Voices in Native Ama’canLiterary Criticism, which contains, among others, a number
of thoughtful articles by Native American scholars.
103. Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1977).
104. Nor have all “writers”seen writing as wholly divorced from speaking. Perhaps
the classic example is from Laurence Sterne, The Life &’ Opinions of Tktram Shandy,
Sam Kenoik Coyote Stories
163
Gent. (1759-1767; New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1950), 93; “Writing, when
properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is), is but a different name for
conversation.”
105. For the importance of this distinction, see Raymond Williams, problems in materialism and culture (London: Verso, 1980); and Steve Caton, “Peaks of Yemen I Summon”:
Poetry as Cultural Practice in a Northern Yemeni Tribe (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1990). On literature as “kept language,” see Donald Bahr, Lloyd Paul, and
Vincent Joseph, Ants and Orioles: Showing the Art of Pima Poetry (Salt Lake City:
University of Utah Press, 1997), 174.
106. On the importance of the dialogic, see, of course, Bakhtin, The Dialogic
Imagination.
107. See, however, Scott Rushforth, “Uses of Bearlake and Mescalero (Athapaskan)
ClassificatoryVerbs,” International Journal ofAmerican Linguistics 57:2 (1991): 251-266,
for an insightful analysis of the creative and discursive uses of classificatory verb stems
in Charles Smith’s “Coyote and Blue Bunting” in Hoijer, Chiricahua.
108. Michael Silverstein, “Encountering Languages and Languages of Encounter,”
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 6:2 (1996): 126-144.
109. For Lipan see Moms Opler, Myths and Legads of the Lipan Apache Indians,
Memoirs of the American Folk-lore Society, vol. 36. (New York J.J. Augustin, 1940).
For Chiricahua, see Opler, Myths and Tales of the Chiricahua. On Mescalero, see Moms
Opler, “The Slaying of the Monsters, a Mescalero Apache Myth,” El Palucio 53 (1945):
215- 225, 242-258; and Morris Opler, “The Creative Role of Shamanism in Mescalero
Apache Mythology,”Journal ofAmerican Foullore 59:233 (1946): 26G281.
110. On the notion of a “genealogy”of a narrative tradition, see Hymes, In Vain,
131.