Coyote Goes To School By Heather Harris

Coyote was once again fed up with running around all day in the hot sun for a few scrawny gophers and rabbits. Dirt up his nose, dirt in his eyes, and for what? Barely a mouthful! Coyote had tried getting food at the supermarket one time like the Human People do but he got the shit kicked out of him for that. So, once again, he went to his brother, Raven, to ask him for advice.

Coyote said, "Raven, there's got to be an easier way to get frd. I tried the supermarket - got beaten up. Tried to get money from welfare but came up against the Deveil's Spawn in a K-Mart dress. Nothing's worked so far. You got any other ideas?"

"Well," Rave said thoughtfully, "the White Humans seem pretty well fed and they say that the key to sucess is a good education. Maybe you could go to school."

"Hmmm," Coyote mused, "maybe I'll try it. Couldn't hurt."

Well, Coyote went off to the city to the university because that's where Raven said adults go to school.

In a few days Coyote was back.

"Well, my brother," Raven inquired, "did you get your education?"

"Not exactly," Coyote replied, "education is a hard to get as a welfare cheque. To get a real good education takes at least 12 years - that's a Coyote's entire lifetime - and, in the end, you don't get paid much anyways."

"When I got to the university," Coyote continued,"they asked me what program I was in. I didn't know so they sent me to this guy who told me about the programs. I kinda liked the idea of biology - if I learned more about gophers maybe they'd be easier to cathc. I liked the idea of engeneering - Maybe I could invent a great rabbit trap. But in the end I settled on Native Studies. Now that's something I can understand - I've known those guys for thousands of years, even been one when it suited me."

"So I went to my introduction to Native Studies course and, can you beleive it, the teacher was a white guy! Now how much sense does that make? I saw native people around town - any one of 'em has got to know more about native people than some white guy."

"When I asked this guy what Indian told him the stuff he was saying, he said none - he read it in a book. Then I asked him wo the Indian was who wrote the book and he said it wasn't an Indian, it was a white guy. The I asked him what Indian the guy who wrote the book learned from and the teacher got mad and told me to sit down."

The next day I went to my Indians of North America class. I was really looking forward to meeting all those Indians. And you know what? There was another white guy standing up there and not an Indian in sight. I asked the teacher, "Are we going to visit all the Indians?" He said no. So I asked him, 'How are we going to learn about Indians then?' And he said, just like the other guy, from a book written by a white guy. so I asked him if I could talk to the guy who wrote the book and the teacher said, 'No, he's dead.'"

"By then I was getting pretty confused about this education stuff but I went to my next class - Indian Religions. And guess what? When I went in, there wasn't another white guy standing up there at the front of the room - there was a white woman!"

"I sat down and I asked here, 'Are we going to the sweatlodge?' 'No.' 'Sundance?' 'No.' 'Yuwipi?' 'No.' Then how are we going to learn - no wait, I know - from a book written by a dead white guy! I'm starting to get the hang of this educaiton business."

"So then I go to my Research Methods class thinking I've got it figured out. In this class the teacher (you've got it - another white guy) said that our research must be ethical, that we must follow the guidelines set out bu the university for research in the community. The rules are there, my teacher said, to protect the Indians from unscrupulous reasearchers. Who made these rules I asked - you guessed it - a bunch of white guys. They decided we needed protecting and that they were the ones to decide how best to protect us from them. So I told my teacher that I wanted to interview my father. The teacher said, you've got to ask the ethics review committee for permission. I've got to ask a bunch of white guys for permission to talk to my own dad? That can't be right. I was confused all over again."

"So I sat down and thought about all this for a long time. Finally I figured it out. If white guys teach all the courses about Indians and they teach in the way that white people think and learn, then to find Indians teaching the way Indians think and learn, all I had to do was quit Native Studies and sign up for the White Studies program!"