Wait for the Snow: Why Some Stories Are Told Only in Winter
Ask in July and the Answer Is No
Across a great many Native nations there is a rule that surprises outsiders the first time they meet it. Certain stories are not told in summer. Ask an elder in July and you may be told, politely, to come back when there is snow on the ground.
Popular articles usually flatten this into a single charming sentence — something about snakes being asleep. The truth is more interesting, because there is no single rule. Different nations observe different seasons for different reasons, and the reasons belong to them, not to a general category called “Native American folklore.”
Quick Answers
Is this one shared belief across all Native nations?
No. It is documented in specific nations, each with its own reasoning, and it is not observed everywhere.
Is the season the only restriction?
No. In several traditions, who may tell a story and whether it may be written down or recorded matter just as much as when.
Can these stories simply be looked up and retold?
Some can. Others should not be. The Library of Congress advises anyone republishing Indigenous stories to contact the community the story belongs to first.
Four Nations, Four Different Reasons
Diné (Navajo) — the listeners are asleep
Creation stories and Coyote stories are told in winter, when the animals those stories speak about are in hibernation. With the listeners asleep, a teller may go into greater detail than would be proper at any other time of year. The season is not a limitation on the story; it is the window in which the story can be told fully.
Ho-Chunk — the snakes have closed the door
Among the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin, sacred stories may be told once the snakes have gone underground for the winter and, as it is described, closed the door behind them. This is not a matter of etiquette. To tell such a story while the snakes are active is understood to risk real consequence — the spirit of the story turning on the teller. The Ho-Chunk word for snake is closely tied to the word for holy, which tells you something about how seriously the boundary is drawn.
There is a second layer to it as well. Even within the proper season, some stories belong to authorized tellers at particular occasions, not to anyone who happens to know them.
Ojibwe — and the year had no room in it
Ojibwe communities give two reasons together. One is spiritual: certain beings should not overhear themselves being discussed, and winter is when they are not about. The other is entirely practical. Planting, gathering, fishing, hunting, harvesting — the warm months left no evenings free. Winter did.
The Ojibwe spiritual leader Mike Swan has put the underlying principle plainly: you do not tell your stories, or your dreams, to just anybody.
Acoma Pueblo — the year turns
At Acoma the framing is calendrical rather than protective. The winter solstice opens the new year, and storytelling accompanies the ceremonies of that turning, alongside gatherings and roasted piñon nuts. The season is the occasion, not a precaution.
The Tricksters Are Not Interchangeable
One of the most common errors in writing about Native stories is to treat every trickster as a version of the same character. They are not. They belong to unrelated nations and unrelated languages, and each has his own temperament.
| Figure | Nation | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Coyote | many Southwestern, Plains, Great Basin and California nations | a different name and a different personality in each — among the Diné he is Mą’ii |
| Iktomi (also Uŋktómi, Ikto) | Lakota, Dakota, Nakota | the name means spider; spelling varies by dialect |
| Nanaboozhoo (also Wenabozho) | Ojibwe / Anishinaabe | both culture hero and fool, depending on the story |
| Rabbit | Cherokee and other Southeastern nations | the Southeast has a trickster rabbit, not a coyote |
Calling Iktomi “the Lakota Coyote” is roughly as accurate as calling a bishop “the English rabbi.” The figures are not variants of one another; they are separate traditions that happen to share a role.
These Are Not Children’s Stories
Trickster stories are funny. They are also instruments of instruction, and some of them are frankly adult. The Sicangu Lakota educator Duane Hollow Horn Bear has described Iktomi not as a character from long ago but as a present reality: Iktomi lives in me, he says, and Iktomi lives in you. The stories are a mirror held up to a listener’s own foolishness. That is a very different thing from a bedtime fable.
What Should and Should Not Be Retold
This is where we will be careful, and where this article will stop short of what you might expect.
Most nations distinguish between open stories — teaching tales about animals and everyday conduct, shared freely, including with outsiders — and restricted ones: origin and creation accounts, stories tied to specific ceremonies, and stories requiring a particular teller, a particular season, or an offering of tobacco before they may be asked for. Some are told only with the recorder switched off, because fixing a story in a permanent, portable form is itself the thing being guarded against.
The Library of Congress states the matter directly: Indigenous stories carry restrictions based on season, occasion, topic, teller and audience, and anyone intending to republish should first contact the community the story belongs to. The Dakota artist Marlena Myles makes the same argument from the other direction — that language and story are tribal cultural property, and outside institutions should not profit from them without the permission of elders and community leaders.
So we are not going to hand you a condensed Coyote story here. If you want to read one, read a version published or endorsed by the nation it belongs to. A tribal museum or cultural center is the right door, and most of them are generous with visitors who knock politely.
The Part Worth Keeping
There is something in this tradition that travels well, whoever you are. It is the idea that a story has a proper season — that some things are worth waiting for, that the telling has conditions, and that a story is not merely content to be consumed the moment it is wanted. Most of us have lost that. Watching people who have kept it is instructive.
Sources
- ICT (Indian Country Today), Winter stories: Bring the tobacco, turn off the recorder
- Hotcâk Encyclopedia (Ho-Chunk), entry on snakes and sacred stories
- Library of Congress, American Folklife Center, Indigenous Storytelling guide
- Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, The Winter Solstice Begins a Season of Storytelling and Ceremony
- WoLakota Project, Storytelling with Duane Hollow Horn Bear
- Milwaukee Public Museum, Oral Tradition, Great Lakes traditional culture