Trickster

• Trickster is associated with Knowledge.

  Trickster stories often steal or leak knowledge. The role explains a plot; it does not make every clever god the same being.

  associated with · interpretive · documented

Northwest Coast tradition

• Raven is associated with Trickster.

  Tlingit narratives collected by Swanton include Raven as a being who steals daylight and rearranges the world. That is a creator-trickster cycle, not an Old World omen and not Odin’s birds.

  from John R. Swanton · Tlingit Myths and Texts, 1909

  associated with · sourced · culturally specific

• Northwest Coast tradition is associated with Trickster.

  Tlingit narratives recorded by Swanton give Raven creator and thief work. Trickster here is a Northwest Coast narrative role, not Hermes.

  from John R. Swanton · Tlingit Myths and Texts, 1909

  associated with · sourced · culturally specific

Hellenic religion

• Hermes is associated with Trickster.

  The hymn’s Hermes steals Apollo’s cattle on his first day and talks his way out of it. The trick is a Greek poetic role, not a Yoruba or Tlingit one.

  from Anonymous (Homeric hymn) · Homeric Hymn to Hermes, c. 6th–5th century BCE

  associated with · sourced · documented

Yoruba Ifá

• Eshu is associated with Trickster.

  Eshu tests, misdirects, and opens roads. Calling him “the Yoruba trickster” is a comparative label; the òrìṣà is not Hermes in another hat.

  from William Bascom · Ifa Divination, 1969

  associated with · sourced · culturally specific

Maya tradition

• Xibalba is associated with Trickster.

  The Hero Twins outwit the lords of Xibalba. Their cunning is a Kʼicheʼ narrative role, not Eshu and not Hermes.

  from Dennis Tedlock (translation) · Popol Vuh, Kʼicheʼ text written down c. 1550s; Tedlock trans. 1985/1996

  associated with · partially sourced · culturally specific