Carved Handles of Horn Spoons
Beautiful examples of early Indian art
From “Memoirs, American Museum of Natural History”
Now when Coyote was traveling about on earth, he gave names to all parts of the country. He changed many things. He made hills and plains wherever he saw fit. He placed bushes and trees here and there, and narrowed or widened the river, and made cañons and waterfalls and rapids just as he pleased.
Coyote even made the various tribes to speak different languages.
Formerly there were no salmon in the interior of the country because the coast people kept them all. There was a dam across both the Fraser and the Columbia rivers. When Coyote had traveled through the Shuswap country, he went down the Fraser and changed himself into a piece of wood in the cañon and floated downstream until stopped by the fish dam. Then he broke down the dam of the four skookums who prevented the salmon from coming up the river. Then he went ashore.
Now Coyote led the salmon up the main waters of the Fraser and through the tributary streams. He traveled along the river banks and they followed him. He went up the Thompson River and the North Thompson.
Then Coyote went down to the mouth of the Columbia River where four skookums had dammed the river. He changed himself to a piece of wood, as he had at the Fraser River, and floated down against the dam. They picked it up, saying, “This will make a fine dish.” They shaped it into a salmon dish. Then they put salmon on it. But all the salmon they put on it disappeared. The skookums became afraid of the dish, and they threw it into the fire.
Suddenly, in just a moment, the skookums heard a baby’s wail from the fire. There it was. They picked up the little thing hastily. They said, “How did it get there?” yet they were all skookums.
Now Coyote grew very rapidly. Soon he was running about. The skookums told him not to touch four baskets which stood there. But Coyote grew very rapidly indeed, and one day when they went out to get firewood, he opened them all. Out of the four baskets came flies, wasps, wind, and smoke. That is why flies and wasps always appear during the salmon season, and why the winds at that season always blow up river.
When Coyote had opened the baskets, he went out to the fish dam. He said, “Henceforth, there shall be no dam here, and the salmon shall ascend the river!”