Coyote is simultaneously a co-creator of the world, a savior who ended eternal winter, and a fool who takes advice from his own feces. This deep dive assembles an unconventional biography of North America's great trickster from the traditions of the Maidu, Miwok, Shasta, Secwepemc, Chinookan, and Chemehuevi peoples. It opens with Coyote floating on primordial waters beside Earthmaker, singing the world into existence and then vowing to spoil it, and with the Miwok council of animals where he destroys every clay model of humanity except his own so that people inherit his cunning.

The episode explores why cultures revere a disruptor, how the first lie was born from Coyote denying that he was laughing, and how humiliating stories like the spider web that became hair moss and the salmon-fishing lesson delivered by talking excrement work as memo ...