Story of the Day: How Bluebird and Coyote Got Their Colors

This story tells how the bluebird got its lovely blue color, and it also tells you something about coyote, the trickster: Coyote also wanted to be blue, but his tricks often do not turn out as expected. This is a story from the Pima people of Arizona and it is part of the Southwestern and California Legends unit, based on Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest by Katharine Berry Judson (1912).

How Bluebird and Coyote Got Their Colors

Pima (Arizona)

A long time ago, the bluebird was a very ugly color. But Bluebird knew of a lake where no river flowed in or out, and he bathed in this four times every morning for four mornings. Every morning he sang a magic song:

There's a blue water. 
It lies there.
I went in.
I am all blue.

On the fourth morning Bluebird shed all his feathers and came out of the lake just in his skin. But the next morning when he came out of the lake he was covered with blue feathers.

(Bluebird)

Now all this while Coyote had been watching Bluebird. He wanted to jump in and get him to eat, but he was afraid of the water. But on that last morning Coyote said, "How is it you have lost all your ugly color, and now you are blue and gay and beautiful? You are more beautiful than anything that flies in the air. I want to be blue, too." Now Coyote at that time was a bright green.

"I only went in four times on four mornings," said Bluebird.

He taught Coyote the magic song, and Coyote went in four times, and the fifth time he came out as blue as the little bird.

Then Coyote was very, very proud because he was a blue coyote. He was so proud that as he walked along he looked around on every side to see if anybody was looking at him now that he was a blue coyote and so beautiful. He looked to see if his shadow was blue, too.

But Coyote was so busy watching to see if others were noticing him that he did not watch the trail. By and by he ran into a stump so hard that it threw him down in the dirt and he was covered with dust all over. You may know this is true because even today coyotes are the color of dirt.

(Coyote, by Justin Johnsen)