The Gender of the Trick: Female Tricksters and Male Narrators

Abstract

Western theories of myth (Radin, Babcock-Abrahams) have defined the trickster as a particularly complex and ambivalent mythological figure involved with creative cosmological events and with mythical moments when the order of things, physical or social, is undergoing transformation. Tricksters in folktales are akin to, but not identical with, the mythological forms. While one prominent feature of the trickster's personality is gender ambiguity, the trickster is almost always conceived in Western comparative theory as a male who can transform or disguise himself as a female, usually with comical and highly disorderly results. These theories do not adequately address the very rich topic of female tricksters (makkāra) in Middle Eastern popular literature and folklore genres. The A. compares two female trickster tales performed by a single adult male narrator in Herat, Afghanistan, particularly the portrayals of female agency by a male speaker, with reference to theories of the trickster and of gender-centeredness in texts.