The Female Trickster—Known as Trickstar—As Exemplified by Two American Legendary Women, “Billy” Tipton and Mother Jones

Abstract

Tricks are always engaging even when they are dangerous or imminently harmful. Their performance invites wonder, raises curiosity, and frequently encourages a desire to explore the rationale for the trick, its ramifications, what it can accomplish or access. Often we admire the trickster, are in awe of him (tricksterism is traditionally regarded as a male activity), but we can just as readily be suspicious of him and feel threatened by tactics that, after all, depend upon some form of disguise and cunning, as well as a beguiling charm. Because the trickster is so frequently irresistible, we can be easily caught in the trick and convinced to think and act in ways that are disadvantageous to our own interests. Tricksters, however, are complex figures; while they may be malicious and unscrupulous, they may also be beneficent, their motivated and devised to expose wrongdoing and, ultimately, responsible for bringing about a more humane condition, a more humane society. In fact, the trick is generally used to facilitate an action only because the action cannot be achieved through more direct means; that is, the trickster may be oppressed or subject to limitations, prejudices, controls that prevent him or her from initiating efforts that are necessary for his or her own freedom or others' liberation. Of course, women have most often had to use both wit and wiles to achieve individual autonomy, if not use some form of strategy merely to survive. trickster is an important figure in mythology; recognizing his personal traits and the patterns of his action conveys a more distinct awareness of how we may perceive more modern or popular tricksters and, also, understand the types of tricks they perform. In the anthropological literature, the trickster dupes and deceives in order to satisfy his needs for food and sex or to prop up his ego by aggrandizement, assault and appropriation. Witness Coyote, that famous North American trickster, or regard the exploits of the Winnebago Trickster as described by Paul Radin in his classic study, Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology, 1956 (the of tricks is related in Part One). If we are to believe in the cycle of tales (that is, a distinctly formulated sequence of narrative), then we realize that Wakdjunkago, the Winnebago Trickster, gradually becomes socialized (Radin, World 313). He evolves from the infantile, mostly atomized self, who demands instant physical gratification, to the mature, self-restrained, socially conscious human being. In the classical mythology with which we are more familiar, Hermes is the child figure who both plays and plunders; but he is also an artist and inventor and becomes both healer and peacemaker (Doty 56-64). Prometheus is, of course, the trickster sine qua non, the culture bringer, the rebel against unjust authority, represented by Zeus, and the deliverer of humankind. Yet, Athene is also a trickster-or a trickster as I call female trickstersand while she does not introduce so important an element as fire into human existence, she does invent the plough and the system of numbers and generally encourages reason and reflection over ill-considered action. There are other tricksters: in the anthropological literature, Nafigi, the Amazon heroine of the Kapolo tribe (Basso 216-17); in Egyptian mythology, Isis; in Zuni mythology, The Rabbit Huntress. In Greek mythology, we may also consider Hera, Pandora and Circe-all different for the types of tricks they initiate and for the impact of those tricks on others. More significantly, trickstars inhabit the folkloric rather than the mythical landscape; their presence is wide-ranging. They appear in tales from all over the world, and their activities are various, their accomplishments generally positive. It is in the folkloric tradition that Billy Tipton and Mother (Mary Harris) Jones can be recognized as trickstars; for in their resistance to social conditions and in their abilities to manipulate conventions and power structures, they achieve a personal expression, advance their own agendas and, in very different ways, transform the way we think and relate to others. …