Coyote is also useful for doing things and going places which all other reasonable human beings fear. When some people died while others were discussing how to build a hogan …

No one knew what to do, so they asked Coyote. They told him they were leaving it up to him to decide.

Coyote decided that he would take a Black Rock and go to Black Water Lake to reinforce his decision regarding dead persons. There he would throw the rock into the lake. If the rock came up and floated, the spirits of the dead persons would go up and there would be no death.

If it sank, the spirits would go to the world below, and there would be death. When Coyote went to the lake and threw the rock, it sank. That is why the spirits of the dead always go to the world below.

Two days after the persons died, two men looked down the hole through which they had come up into the Fourth World and they did not see anything. Two days later, they looked again. This time they saw the dead persons sitting and combing their hair. They told the other people what they had seen.

Coyote acted totally on his own without consulting anyone else. Even though the matter appears to have been settled, we are left with an ambiguity. Are the people dead or are they alive in the preceding world? Since we can never trust Coyote, we can go on believing whatever we want to believe regarding death. This way all schools of thought, even that of the missionary, can be accommodated.

Once the people had put things in the universe together to their own satisfaction, they made up the shoe game. (Not everything can be serious even when you are making history.) Now each animal has its own song. There is an owl song, a bear song, a turkey song. This song determines which team will start the game:

lid bao o'oo
lid bao o'oo
nei naa tasi'da
na hot'in yeegi
jadi naagha
o o woo hai