Navajo tradition attributes the random scattering of most stars to Coyote’s impatience

Evidence

And that is why, the Navajo say, the night sky looks the way it does: a FEW stars are arranged in clear, orderly patterns (the ones First Woman had already carefully placed before Coyote’s mischief) — but the VAST majority of the stars are scattered randomly, in a great chaotic sprinkle across the whole sky, with no pattern at all. Those are the stars that impatient Coyote flung up all at once from the blanket, in his careless hurry. — , A Year of World Stories, 9957

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the explanatory-myth logic: the few orderly constellations versus the chaotic majority is accounted for by the trickster’s haste rather than the Creator’s will.