lessons from a Trickster

ft. Rabbit and the Blowgun

Feb 08, 2025

*Trickster Showdown, Julie Buffalohead (Ponca), 2015, lithograph and screen print.*

Dear Beloved,

In Cherokee stories, Rabbit is always getting into trouble, playing clever tricks on the other animals and finding his own sly way around challenges.

One day, Rabbit was walking through the woods to get a drink of water. On his way to the river, he came across Bear feasting. Bear’s massive body blocked Rabbit’s path, and he was too consumed with his meal to pay the smaller animal any mind.

Annoyed, Rabbit complained. “Bear, your big belly’s in my way! Move. I’m thirsty.”

Mouth covered in berry juices, Bear glowered at Rabbit. “You’re being rude,” he told Rabbit. “Mind yourself or I’ll have to teach you a lesson. I’m eating. Don’t bother me.”

Rabbit waited…and waited. And waited some more. Losing his patience, Rabbit asked, “Hey, Bear, are you done stuffing your face? I need some water, and I would like to get past you. Get your big feet out of my way.”

Bear rose to his great height and glared down at Rabbit. “I’m going to step on you with my big feet if you keep talking like that.” Then he went back to feasting.

The warning was enough to silence Rabbit…for a little while. As he waited, Rabbit became thirstier and thirstier. Eventually, he asked, “Please…please can I have some water?”

While annoyed, Rabbit’s improved manners were enough to convince the Bear. While reluctant to pause his feasting, he agreed to move jsut enough for Rabbit to go to the river. “Fine. At least you said please.”

Rabbit hopped past Bear. “Finally!”

Bear snatched up Rabbit by his ears. “You stop being rude,” he snarled and pitched Rabbit away, sending him barreling into the dust and rolling through foliage.

Rabbit stood up, covered in debris. He was finally able to satisfy his thirst but the fresh water wasn’t enough to cool his temper. “Unbelievable,” Rabbit fumed. “Bear made me wait, stuffing his face, and then had the nerve to throw me! He thinks he can get away with this just because he’s bigger than me? I’m not taking this. I’m going to teach him a lesson.”

When Rabbit went back to where Bear was, he heard Bear’s loud, deep snores. Rabbit considered jumping on Bear’s head, drumming into his skull with his powerful hind feet. He thought about shoving Bear’s gluttonous face in the mud. He giggled wickedly at the idea of dancing on Bear’s big belly. The only thing that stopped Rabbit was the reality that Bear…would kill him.

Sulking, Rabbit walked away and kicked at the ground. He grumbled to himself, wishing that bullies like Bear weren’t so big or that he himself wasn’t so small. Then he came upon a rivercane. Picking it up, Rabbit peered through the hollow rivercane. He stuck a stick in it and blew it out the opposite end. He tried again with a rock and shot it against a tree. Picking up a feather, Rabbit shot it out the rivercane and watched it sail clear across the river.

Delighted, Rabbit collected feathers and played his new game. Each feather shot far and wide, sailing across clearings and fluttering all around the woods. When he couldn’t find anymore feathers, he experimented with grass but it didn’t come close. He needed something feather-light and soft.

“Aha!” Rabbit said. He plucked some fur from his rear and tied it to a small, sharpened stick. When he shot it out of the rivercane, the very first blow dart arched in the air.

He played some more but then, in order to make more blow darts, Rabbit realized he needed something else. Any more fur and he would freeze in the winter! So, Rabbit searched through the woods until he found thistle plants topped with fuzz. Rabbit sharpened more sticks with his teeth, and he made even more blow darts with the thistles. By the time he expanded his collection, a clever plan came to Rabbit.

Armed with his blowgun and arsenal of blow darts, Rabbit returned to the path where Bear snored. He stopped a safe distance away. Fwoop! The first blow dart barely missed, slinging past Bear’s ear.

Bear grunted awake and groggily looked around

Adjusting his aim, Rabbit huffed into his blowgun. He missed.

Bemused, Bear stood and looked around but Rabbit was well hidden in the foliage. He caught sight of the thistle. Curious, Bear bent down to pick it up.

With such a clear target, Rabbit smugly reloaded his blowgun, aimed, and shot a third time. Fwip!

Bear screamed. Wincing, he pulled the dart out of his rear and demanded, “Hey, who did that? Someone’s going to die!”

Rabbit couldn’t himself - he laughed and laughed. He laughed harder when Bear gave chase because if there was one thing small animals like him were good at it, it was running fast. He darted off, dashing through the woods, and laughed the entire way.

But an angry Bear was a faster animal. Thankfully for Rabbit, Bear could not make him out in the tall grass. All he saw was the very top of Rabbit’s blowgun and the thistle dangling from it.

Rabbit ran and ran until he came by a camp of Cherokee people. He puffed into his blowgun, aiming the dart in the middle of camp where the thistle dart landed. “Here you go!” he said before scampering away.

Baffled, the Cherokee picked up the blowgun and stuffed the thistle inside the rivercane. They were impressed by Rabbit’s suprising “gift,” commenting that it would be a good training tool for their children to learn how to hunt.

Then Bear barreled into the camp and saw the Cherokee holding the blowgun. “Aha, so it was you! You’re all going to die.”

The Cherokee immediately pulled out their weapons and seeing he was outnumbered, Bear reconsidered. He promptly ran back into the woods, promising to find them another day.

This story is a retelling of a Cherokee story. It was been shared by our elders for generations, and you can listen to a retelling directly from Cherokee National Treasure Robert Lewis here.

Edwards incorporates Cherokee language in artwork — *Artwork incorporating Tsalagi language, created by Jeff Edwards (Cherokee).*

Some may hear this old story and think that if Rabbit had been more patient, more polite, then he wouldn’t have had to wait for so long. Some may say that Rabbit should have turned the other cheek and left Bear alone. I hear this story, and I do not hear a warning. I heed a lesson.

Rabbit needed water, a basic animal need to live, and Bear only cared about stuffing his face and being respected because he’s the bigger animal. Rabbit decided he didn’t have to put up with Bear’s threats or abuse, and he stood up for himself. He was smart; he kept himself safe and found time for joy. He was inventive and clever, creating a tool that ultimately benefited a community.

Tricksters teach us to challenge authority. Rabbit in particular teaches us in this story that we do not have to be polite when selfish bear sitting between us and what we need.

Disrupt the “Disrupters”

You’ve probably heard the news about the White House’s South African apartheid baby and his band of boys invading the IRS. If you haven’t yet, basically a small group of 19-24 year-olds (including an unpaid intern) took control of $6 trillion in US government payments. Consequently, in Kansas City alone, nearly 30,000 federal workers’ livelihoods are under attack. Now the fascists are after our Department of Labor and other departments brace for the “DOGE” coup attempt.

All of this sets the stage to make the oligarchy’s plucking of public money all the simpler. What can government employees do?

Thankfully, our tax dollars have brought us an easy guide for all of you office workers and bureaucrats working directly with our corporate overlords.

Simple Sabotage Field Manual

Written by former OSS agent William “Wild Bill” Donovan, the Simple Sabotage Field Manual was used to train citizen-saboteurs until the CIA declassified it in 2008.

This booklet is a helpful primer for regular everyday people like us, Beloved, to be a pain in the ass.

“Simple sabotage does not require specially prepared tools or equipment; it is executed by an ordinary citizen who may or may not act individually and without the necessity for active connection with an organized group; and it is carried out in such a way as to involve a minimum danger of injury, detection, and reprisal,” shares the opening page. “Where destruction is involved, the weapons of the citizen-saboteur are salt, nails, candles, pebbles, thread, or any other materials he might normally be expected to possess as a householder or as a worker in his particular occupation. His arsenal is the kitchen shelf, the trash pile, his own usual kit of tools and supplies. The targets of his sabotage are usually objects to which he has normal and inconspicuous access in everyday life.”

Ultimately, it’s death by a thousand cuts implemented by many small knives and is designed to weaken ~~fascist oligarchies~~ countries by reducing productivity. Even the most heinous of weapons rely on an operations assistant somewhere, and the worst of dictators are toothless without aides managing their calendars.

When you face a morally questionable (or realistically, outright reprehensible) situation at your workplace, ask yourself: What would Rabbit do?

Mutual Aid: Keep An Elder Housed

Despite Wal-Mart’s $157 billion profit last year, an elder was recently laid off by the company after 20 years of work. She is scared for her safety because of the regime’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and increased ICE raids, so this has hindered her ability to safely apply for new work.

Her family is doing all they can to keep her housed and home with them in the United States, even selling two vehicles to fund her housing. However, if they are unable to raise the funds in a week, she will be evicted and likely have to move to Mexico.

This family needs $2,400 by next week to prevent an eviction and keep their elder home with them.

Keep an Elder Housed