Is the devil a trickster?

* Grace Keyes is Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Coordinator of the Anthropology Program at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. She has a Master’s and a Ph. D. in A Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, Her areas of special interest include cultural anthropology, medical anthropology, human evolution and Hispanic issues. Dr. Keyes has conducted research in Guatemala and in San Antonio where she did a comparative study of Mexican - American and Anglo lay midwifery. She is currently researching the impact of hearing loss on socialization.

Satan, Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness, and other such appellations for the devil are common in popular culture, but such aliases do not conceal the generally accepted view of the devil as a supremely evil supernatural being. In Christian cultures the devil is the antithesis of goodness and the epitome of wickedness, sin, immorality, and damnation. He is an agent of evil. The Devil employs trickery, deception, and far worse schemes as tools to achieve his goals. There is another devious character, the “Trickster” that is found in much of American Indian mythology and many other world cultures for that matter. Like the devil, Trickster is devious, plays tricks on others, and can cause bad things to happen. And like the devil, Trickster is a supernatural being of sorts. Trickster may indeed be devilish but he (or she) is no devil in the same manner as Satan. What follows is a brief comparison between the Devil and Trickster with the dual aim of (1) showing that the Trickster figure is not the same devil that is depicted in the Christian world, but at the same time (2) the Christian Satan may be partially based on the ancient concept of the Trickster.

In Christian cultures the devil is known by a variety of names. Satan is probably the name by which the Devil is most commonly known and this generally conjures up an image of the Devil as the enemy of goodness and mankind. Satan is also sometimes referred to as Lucifer. This name provides a glimpse at Satan’s ambiguity because the name of Lucifer generally links Satan with the first of the “fallen angels” mentioned in the book of Isaiah in the Bible. The word itself suggests light, and refers to the fact that before his rebellion against God, Lucifer was “the shining one” or “the morning light”(Isaiah 14:12) perhaps connecting Lucifer with the morning star, thought to be the planet Venus. Satan is also known by the epithet, The Prince of Darkness, which not only suggests his opposition to the Prince of Peace (Christ) but also suggests something about the nature of the domain over which he rules. The “antichrist” that appears in Revelations, the last book of the Bible, represents Christ’s nemesis who spreads evil at the end of the world but whose fate is doomed with the anticipated second coming of Christ. These and other terms, such as Beelzebub, have slightly different roots and their original meanings are not clear but the Devil’s various appellations generally connote a supernatural being with great powers. The Devil is the supreme enemy of mankind, the representation of all that is evil, and the antithesis of God, who presumably and ironically created him.

The similarities between the Devil and Trickster (their supernatural status, their evil deeds, trickery, etc.) appear rather superficial and yet, these slight similarities may suggest a closer kinship between the two than most Christians would allow. Trickster in American Indian cultures lacks the pronounced evilness and immorality of Satan. Trickster is often depicted as a prankster, a mischief-maker, not so much immoral as amoral. Like the Devil, Trickster does indeed tell lies, deceives others, and causes damage but most of the time Trickster also gets himself into trouble and, more importantly, Trickster is also seen as a doer of good and regarded as a culture-hero. Trickster is not only a devious, clever, and cruel deceiver, but as Joseph Campbell points out, Trickster is also a “creator of mankind and shaper of the world”. Like the Devil, Trickster appears in Indian mythology in many guises. Most often Trickster is an animal, but occasionally also appears as a human. In North American Indian tales, Trickster commonly appears as a coyote, raven, spider, hare, beaver, turkey, or other animals depending on regional and tribal variations.

Trickster stories abound in American Indian tales from Canada to South America and are part of a great tradition of cosmogonic mythology.[2] In the American Southwest Trickster probably dates to the early peoples who inhabited the region. The renowned but enigmatic Kokopelli figure (the humpbacked flute player; see Figure 1) is believed by some to have been an early representation of a culture-hero of the Anasazi, the ancestral people of the Pueblo peoples of the Southwest such as the Hopi. Kokopelli may represent a shaman spirit or a trickster-like figure whose meaning is not fully understood. While Kokopelli appears as a human-like figure in rock art, many Southwestern Trickster stories involve animals such as Coyote. One trickster tale tells how Coyote stole fire and gave it to the people. Coyote’s journey is depicted in a Navajo sand painting in which Coyote steals a fire stick from the Fire God and travels through the four corners of the Earth and finally gives the fire to the first humans (see Figure 2). Like Prometheus, Coyote’s daring theft benefits mankind. Coyote’s vulnerability in this passage is yet another common characteristic of American Indian tricksters. Indeed, Trickster as a rule-breaker very often gets his “comeuppance” as many tales show (Erdoes & Ortiz). Other American Indian tribes have similar tales that clearly show how Trickster is not only a mischief-maker but also contributes to humankind’s well being, and thus is regarded as a culture-hero. Beaver and Raven are two such tricksters who, like Coyote, engage in devious acts but ultimately benefit mankind.

Joseph Campbell in his book, The Hero of a Thousand Faces, shows that certain mythological themes appear in many cultures and is probably a reflection of very common human concerns. It is not surprising, therefore, that some tales of Trickster found among North American Indians are remarkably similar to trickster figures in other parts of the world such as Eshu (or Edshu), an African trickster. Campbell also points out that tricksters appear to be associated with cultures with long traditions of shamanism and some of the adventures experienced by tricksters may symbolize the spiritual flight of the shaman in bridging the natural and supernatural worlds (Campbell 1969).

I stated before that Trickster and the Devil are not synonymous beings. In many ways they are more dissimilar than similar and yet it is likely that the Devil may have its roots in the trickster. The figure of Trickster has a history more ancient than the Christian Devil and is found in a number of widely diverse cultures from Africa to North America. Furthermore, some of the alternate names by which the Devil is known suggest that early views of the Devil had slightly different interpretations that may allude to older trickster-type beings. The term Beelzebub, for instance, reveals that the Devil may have had an early link to pre-Christian peoples in the Near East. The Philistines are believed to have worshiped “Baalzebub”; the word itself probably derived from an Assyrian word for “adversary in court” but in the New Testament Christ associated Beelzebub with the Devil (an enemy)[4]. Furthermore, the Devil is often depicted as a beast, a hoofed animal with horns and a tail, a sort of goat figure reminiscent of animal tricksters. Interestingly, the phrase “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” that today denotes a devilish, deceitful person rings similar to coyote tricksters and interestingly has roots in the New Testament (Mathew 7:15)[5]. Thus, it is likely that as Christianity developed, the concept of the Devil came to be defined more narrowly, becoming one-dimensional, the opposition to goodness. Trickster, on the other hand, is a thoroughly entertaining, often humorous mischief-maker and culture-hero, deceitful but also purveyor of goodness. In his examination of Winnebago Indian trickster mythology, Paul Radin wrote that the “Trickster is at one and the same time creator and destroyer, giver and negator, he who dupes others and who is always duped himself.”[6] Thus unlike Satan, Trickster embodies an ancient duality common among North American Indians and many other indigenous cultures.

[1] There are numerous sources of Kokopelli illustrations. This one comes from rock art in Arizona photographed by Jay W. Sharp (n.d.).

[2] See for example the references by Erdoes & Ortiz (1984), Hyde (1998), and Radin (1956). A good Internet source and electronic journal devoted to Trickster studies is found at http://www.trinity.edu/org/tricksters/TrixWay/.

[3] Navajo sand painting (Wheelright Museum of the American Indian, Santa Fe, NM, P1A#10). Also reproduced in various Internet and book sources such as in Hyde (1998), p. 15.

[4] As explained in Volume 2 of The World Book Encyclopedia, 1990.

[5] The passage reads as follows: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”

[6] Radin (1956), p. ix.

Campbell, Joseph. 1969. The Flight of the Wild Gander. South Bend, IN: Gateway Editions.

Campbell, Joseph. 1972 (1949). The Hero of a Thousand Faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Erdoes, Richard & Alfonso Ortiz, editors. 1984. American Indian Myths and Legends. NY: Pantheon Books, 1984.

Hyde, Lewis. 1998. Trickster makes this World: Mischief, myth, and art. New York: North Point Press.

Radin, Paul. 1956. The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology. New York: Greenwood Press.

World Publishing Company. S.d. The Holy Bible. Cleveland, OH: World Publishing Company.