American Literature

Native American Tricksters Tales

The "Bungling Host" contains a couple of good lessons about how people should not behave. The firs lesson is about how one should not always want to be just like everyone else. The rabbit watched the bear prepare his meal and when the bear came to his house for dinner he wanted to prepare his meal in the same way. But when he slit his belly he injured himself. If the rabbit had just prepared his dinner the way that he had always done he would not have ended up getting injured.

The second lesson that this tale teaches is that of how things are not always as they appear. When the rabbit got injured and the bear went out to seek help, he brought back a buzzard. The buzzard had assured the bear that he could help the rabbit to get better. The bear trusted him to be telling the truth. The buzzard on the other hand, had no intention of helping the rabbit, but indeed had ulterior motives of having the rabbit for dinner. Even during the time that the buzzard was supposedly helping the rabbit and the other animals were inquiring about the well being of the rabbit, the buzzard lied to them in order to continue the pursuit of his own wants. He was tricking the others the entire time in order to have what he wanted.

A third lesson that can be taken from this tale is that revenge is not the best plan of attack for a wrong that has been done. Once the animals had figured out that they buzzard has indeed eaten the rabbit instead of helping him, they decided to punish him by shooting arrows at him. In the end though they did no damage to the buzzard but instead benefited him. By shooting the arrows at him they shot one through his nose that gave him a good place to breathe through. Instead of suffering any punishment for his wrong, the buzzard benefited from the revenge attack in the end.

References

"The Bungling Host (58)." n.d. 15 September 2009, http://www.sacred-

texts.com/nam/se/mtsi/mtsi295.htm