The Trickster And Anomalous Phenomena

For well over a hundred years, western scholars have struggled to comprehend the prevalence of “trickster” tales in ancient and indigenous mythology. While these tales hold many, hotly debated meanings, recent research suggests that the trickster may, in part, be a coded representation of anomalous phenomena.

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Think Anomalous is created by Jason Charbonneau.

Illustration by V.R. Laurence (https://vrlaurence.com).
Some illustrations from earlier videos by Colin Campbell.
Research by Jason Charbonneau.
Assistance from Clark Murphy.
Music by Josh Chamberland.
Animation by Brendan Barr.
Sound design by Will Mountain and Josh Chamberland.

Sources:

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Bennett, Jeffrey. When the Sun Danced. London: University of Virginia Press, 2012.

Boas, Franz. “Introduction,” in J. Teit, Traditions of the Thompson Indians of British Columbia. Boston–New York 1898.

Brinton, Daniel. “The Chief God of the Algonkins, in His Characters as a Chief and Liar,” American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal 7, (May 1885): 137 – 139.

Brinton, Daniel. The Myths of the New World: A Treatise on the Symbolism and Methodology of the Red Race of America (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1896) 164, 198.

Brown, Norman. Hermes the Thief: The Evolution of a Myth. Great Barrington, MA: Lindisfarne Press, 1990 [first published 1947].

Combs, Allan, and Mark Holland. Synchronicity: Science, Myth, and the Trickster. New York: Paragon House, 1990), xxxi, 145. https://archive.org/details/synchronicitysci00comb/page/n31/mode/2up.

Dixon, Roland B. “Maidu Texts.” Publications of the American Ethnological Society IV. Editor, Franz Boas. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1912.
https://archive.org/details/rosettaproject_nmu_vertxt-1/page/n105/mode/2up.

Duane, O. B., editor. African Myths and Legends. London: Brockhampton Press, 1998.

Goff, Janet. “Foxes in Japanese Culture: Beautiful or Beastly?” Japan Quarterly 44, no. 2 (April/ June, 1997), 67.

Hansen, George P. The Trickster and the Paranormal (Xlibris, 2001).

Hyde, Lewis. Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998, 2010.

Kerven, Rosalind, editor. Native American Myths: Collected 1636–1919. Morpeth: Talking Stone, 2018.

Kroeber, A. L. “Ute Tales.” Journal of American Folk-lore 14, no. 52 (January - March, 1901), 252-260. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000099904900&seq=9.

Lawrence et al., David Wyndham. “Phenomenology and Content of the Inhaled N, N-Dimethyltryptamine (N, N-DMT) Experience,” Preprint. Submitted in April 2022, 10. https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-1559063/v1/a9a8a7fe-c1b3-46ce-936a-e932db9d3b6a.pdf?c=1651162488.

Louis-Gates Jr., Henry. The Signifying Monkey. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Müller, Lutz. “Psi und der Archetyp des Tricksters.” Zeitschrift für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie 23, no. 3/4 (1981), 165-181. https://opus-magnum.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/mueller_psi_und_der_archetyp_des_tricksters.pdf.

Radin, Paul The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology. New York: Schocken Books, 1972 [first published 1956].

Raschke, Carl. "UFOs - Ultraterrestrial Agents of Culutral Deconstruction," in Cyberbiological Studies of the Imaginal Component in the UFO Contact Experience, editor Dennis Stillings (Arhceus 5, 1989), 30 – 31.

Szyjewski, Andrzej. “In the Shadow of Trickster. Research Fields and Controversies in the Discourse on the Trickster Complex in the Studies of Myth.” Studio Religiologica 53, no, 3 (2020).

Vizenor, Gerald. The Trickster of Liberty: Native Heirs to a Wild Baronage. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005 [originally published 1988].

Vizenor, Gerald. “Trickster Discourse: Comic Holotropes and Language Games,” in Narrative Chance, Postmodern Discourse on Native American Indian Literatures. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1989.

Woofle, Sam. “Why Do Jesters and Tricksters Appear in the DMT Experience?” SamWoolfe.com. February 4, 2019. https://samwoolfe.com/2019/02/jesters-tricksters-dmt-experience.html.

Zobel Marshall, Emily. American Trickster: Trauma, Tradition and Brer Rabbit. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.

This video uses sound effects downloaded from stockmusic.com.