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Customer Reviews of Iktomi and the Ducks: A Plains Indian Story

This time Iktomi has his stomach set on roasted duck
In this misadventure Iktomi the trickster of Plains Indian folklore is luring innocent ducks off the pond with this tricks in anticipation of a fine meal of roast duck. But if there is anything that the readers of Paul Goble's tales of Iktomi know by now, it is that things never go the way he plans. In previous tales Iktomi has been bested by a boulder and berries, and the pattern continues in "Iktomi and the Ducks: A Plains Indian Story." In his forward to the book Goble explains how these stories about the trickster are examples of what the Lakota called "ohunkaka," which are amusing stories that are not meant to be believed and which have moral lessons for those who hear them being told.

Iktomi is walking along one day trying to find his horse so he can ride it in a parade, but then he notices some ducks enjoying themselves on a pond. Iktomi comes up with a strange way of catching some ducks for his dinner, and the really surprising thing is that his track actually works! But then Iktomi is distracted by two trees scraping up against each other and things are back to normal, which menas Iktomi's plans go wrong once again, especially once a Coyote also decides that roasted duck would taste pretty good. As always, Goble's colorful artwork captures both the essence of the tale and the tradition of art by the Plains Indians.

This tale was originally told to Goble by Edgar Red Cloud, the great-grandson of the famous Chief Red Cloud who won the Powder River War of 1866-68, who first introduced the young artist to the tales of Iktomi. What makes "Iktomi and the Ducks" particularly interesting to Goble is that while this story is told in many tales of Native American people from across the continent, there are two seemingly unrelated elements that almost always appear: the killing the ducks while they dance with their eyes closed and the trees rubbing together. Goble can only speculate as to why these ancient elements have survived in all the retellings of this tell across the centuries. Young readers will no doubt take this bit of information as a minor speed bump in enjoying the story today, but it is interesting to think about what significance they might have had for the ancient peoples of this land.