The Trickster as Selfish‐Buffoon and Culture Hero

More has probably been written about "tricksters" than about any other single category of character that appears in the myths and folktales of the world. In fact, tricksters are so ubiquitous that Jung (1970) has been led to conclude that they reflect an archetype buried in the mind of all human beings. Unfortunately, at least part of the ubiquity of the trickster results from the fact that modem scholars tend to use an extremely broad definition of the term trickster itself, in that they tend to apply this term to any character who makes extensive use of deceit. Although such a broad definition does lead to the conclusion that tricksters are ubiquitous, it does so at the