Trickster and transformer, powerful and vulnerable, Coyote is a complex figure in Indian legend. He was often the ultimate example of how not to be: foolish, proud, self-important. The tales in Old Man Coyote were told by the Crow Indians of present-day southeastern Montana. During long winter evenings by the lodge fire, they enjoyed hearing about the only warrior ever to visit the Bird Country, the Little-people who adopted a lost boy, the two-faced tribe that gambled for keeps, the marriage of Worm-face, and the origin of the buffalo. Wandering through these well-spun tales is the irrepressible Old Man Coyote, sometimes scoring a coup, sometimes getting his comeuppance.
Ohio-born Frank B. Linderman (1869-1938) spent his adult life in Montana, first as a trapper, then as a publisher, politician, and businessman. Fred W. Voget is an adjunct professor of anthropology at Portland State University and the author of The Shoshoni-Crow Sun Dance.