Fox had a beautiful wife. He was very much in love with her, but she had stopped caring for him. Fox was a great hunter, and every day he brought home food and fine skins for his wife to make into robes and clothing. He did not know that, while he was away hunting, his wife would sit beside the Swah-netk’-qhu and sing love songs to the water. Painting her face with bright colors, she would pour out her love thoughts in song.

Coyote came to visit his twin brother, and he soon noticed the strange actions of his sister-in-law. He spoke to Fox. Why-ay’-looh,” he said, “I think your wife is in love with somebody else.” But Fox could not believe she loved anyone but him. He was blinded by his love for her. Then, one sun, he and Coyote returned from a hunt and she was not in the lodge. So Fox started to look for her. He walked down toward the river and there he saw his wife. She was sitting on the river bank, singing a love song. She did not see Fox. He watched her.

As Fox watched, the water began to rise. Slowly it rose, higher and higher, and soon, out in the middle of the river, appeared a big monster of the fish-kind. The monster was En-hah-et’-qhu, the Spirit of the Water–Whale. It swam to the shore. As it touched dry land, it changed into a tall handsome man with long braided hair. This monster-man made love to the wife of Fox.

Sad at heart, Fox turned away. He went to his lodge. He said nothing, but he wondered how he could win back his wife’s love. He worried about her as the suns passed. She grew pale and thin. Nothing that Fox could do pleased her.

Her thoughts always were with the man who was not a man but a monster. One day when Fox and Coyote came home from hunting, she was gone, and the fire in the lodge was cold. Fox called and called. He got no answer. His heart was heavy.

A few suns later Fox looked up the river and saw an odd-shaped canoe coming. It was only half of a canoe. Two Water Maidens were standing in it, rocking it from side to side. They were singing:

We come for food,
Food for the Chief’s stolen wife.

The water-food does not suit her. That is why we come! We come!

As the Water Maidens approached, Fox and Coyote hid in the tepee. The maidens beached the half-canoe and entered the lodge. They began to pick up dried meat to take to the stolen wife. Coyote and Fox sprang from their hiding places and caught the maidens, and Fox asked about his wife–where she was and how to get to her. The maidens were silent. Then the brothers threatened to kill them unless they answered, and the maidens said:

“To find the person who stole her, you must go over the Big Falls and under the water. His lodge is under the falls, under the water–a dangerous trip for Land People. Every trail is watched. Even if you get there, the mighty Whale chief will kill you. He is bad.”

The Water Maidens had told all they knew, so Fox broke their necks. He and Coyote dressed in the maidens’ robes and started down the river in the half-canoe. Standing on the sides of the strange craft, they rocked it as they had seen the maidens do, and rode it down the river and over the roaring falls. “Let me do all the talking,” Fox warned Coyote. “I know better what to say.” Down through the pouring, flashing waters they shot with the half-canoe. The thunder of the falls hurt their ears. And then, suddenly, they were landing at a great encampment of Mater People, a strange kind of people to them. All of the people were strange except Gou-kouh-whay’-na–Mouse. She was there. She knew them and they knew her. Fox jumped ashore. Coyote, following, tripped and touched the water, and Mouse, the Sly One, laughed.

“Ha-ha!” said Mouse, “Coyote nearly fell into the water.”

“Do not speak,” Fox whispered to Mouse. “Say nothing. I will pay you well.”

But some of the Water People had heard. “What, Gou-kouh-whay’-na, did you say?” they inquired.

“Nothing,” Mouse answered. “Nothing of importance. I was just joking.”

“Yes, you did say something,” said a Water Person. “You said that Coyote nearly fell into the water. You cannot fool me.”

Mouse insisted that she had not said that, and the other Water People believed her. They knew she was a fickle person and giddy, and they did not think much of her because she went everywhere to steal. She went everywhere, and that s why she understood all the different languages.

Carrying packs of dried meat and berries they had brought with them, Coyote and Fox made their way to the lodge of Whale, the chief. He and the stolen wife sat side by side in the lodge. The wife was glad to get the meat and berries, her kind of food.

Fox and Coyote kept their robes over their faces until everyone else was asleep. Then, when everything was quiet, Fox slipped up to Whale and cut off the monster’s head with a flint knife. At the same time Coyote picked up the stolen wife and ran for the broken canoe. The noise they made awoke the camp, and the people rushed out of their lodges to see Coyote carrying off Fox’s wife and Fox close behind, carrying the head of their chief. The people chased them, but the three got into the broken canoe, and Fox quickly put Coyote and the woman into his shoo’-mesh pipe. Then Fox pushed the half-canoe into the water and it shot up to the river’s surface below the falls. There Fox landed. He took Coyote and his twice-stolen wife out of the medicine-pipe, and the head of the Whale Monster he threw toward the setting sun.

“In the Big Salt Water (ocean) shall Whale Monster stay,” said Fox. “No longer shall he live in the smaller waters, in the rivers, where he can make love to the wives of men, where he can lure wives from their husbands.”

As Fox and his wife and brother walked up the bank to their tepee, the headless body of Whale Monster turned over and over in the depths of the river, making the Big Falls of the Swah-netk’-qhu more fearful and thunderous, the way they are today, spilling with such force over the great rocks.

The wife of Fox became contented and happy again, glad to be back in her husband’s lodge. But since that day Whale Monster was vanquished the Land People and the Water People have not loved each other. Fox made it so.

Taken from Coyote Tales by Humishuma, Colville-Okanogan for Mourning Dove [Christine Quintasket], 1933

There were three brothers, all great warriors. They lived in Okanogan country. Choo’-pahk – Sticking – was the oldest; the second brother was Scra’-kan – Copper – and the youngest was Nak-ka’-tuya-Cut-up.

Among the Kalispel people lived a maiden named Scoo’-mdt-Virgin. Her father was chief of the Kalispels.

One sun Scoo’-malt filled a basket with camas roots and started for the Okanogan country. She hoped to please the handsome, coppery Scra’-kan and become his wife. Upon reaching the summit of the range overlooking the Okanogan Valley from the east, she stopped to make herself beautiful. She combed and braided her long black hair and painted her face with red earth paint. In their dreams the three brothers saw Scoo’-malt coming, and they went to meet her. Each asked her to marry him, and then the younger brothers fought. Nak-ka’-fuya slashed the shoulders off Scra’-kan,
while Scra’-kan knocked.

Nak-ka’-fuya down and kicked him into a long heap, flat on the ground.

Coyote came along as the brothers were fighting, and he laughed at seeing them fighting so hard over the Kalispel maiden. He thought it was a good joke, but his glee angered the girl, and she spoke sharply to him. Her words, in turn, angered Coyote. He would show the maiden that she could not talk that way to him. With the help of his great medicine-power he moved the brothers back to where they had been when they started to meet Scoo’-malt, and he changed them into mountains. Then he made Scoo’-malt helpless by turning her lower body into stone.

Taking her basketful of et-quah (camas), Scoo’-malt threw it back to her people, to the Kalispel country, so that none would grow in the land of the Okanogans, and she transformed the rest of herself into stone, to remain there in sight of her stone lovers forever.

Coyote was amused. To the stone maiden, he said: “Because you are a stranger in this place, you will help the coming generations by giving them good luck, but they will have to pay you to make their wishes happen.” Then he turned to the mountains that had been warriors, and said: “Choo’-pahk, because you are proud and would not take part in the fight, you will stand with your head high and stately. You, Scra’-kan, because a virgin of another land came to court you, will be loved always by the women for your handsome coppery body. The women will like pieces of it for decorating their arms and hands. Nak-ka’-tuya, because you were beaten and kicked to the ground, you will lie in shame as a mountain ridge for other generations to see.”

That is why Choo’-pahk (Mt. Chopaka) looks so proud and fine. Scra’-kan, nearby, to the north and west, stands without shoulders, a sharp-pointed peak (in British Columbia). Across the valley of the Similkameen River lies Nak-ka’-fuya (Mt. Richter, B. C.)

The maiden still sits on the summit where she stopped that day long ago to comb her hair and paint her face with the red earth paint. The people call her En-am-tues-Sitting-on-the-summit. The place where she sits is Mock-fsin-Knoll-be-tween-a-divide. There the people have gone for many generations to ask for good luck and to pay for their asking with gifts so that their wishes would come true.[1]

1- En-am-tues is known to the whites as the Tee-hee-hee stone. Tee-hee-hee, which is not an Okanogan word, may be a comparatively modern corruption of the verb meaning “to wish” in the Chinook jargon, the old-time trade language of the Northwest. Derived from the pure Chinook tikekh, “to wish” in the jargon is given variously as: t’keh, te-ke, tik-eh, lik-eigh, tak-eigh, tick-ey, fikky, and so forth.

The “wishing stone,” or Camas-woman, as it frequently is called, is one of many wishing stations or shrines in the Northwest where the Indians made offerings. To pass Camas-woman without depositing a gift was said to bring sorrow and ill-luck. In return for even the smallest gift, the older generations of Indians believed she would grant any wish that might be asked. The sick supplicated for health, the poor for worldly goods, the ambitious for success in war, the chase, love, and other undertakings.

After the Indians’ contact with the fur-traders, coin entered largely into the gifts, and the white men, learning of the Camas-woman’s influence, robbed her of all her wealth.

When the Colville Reservation was thrown open to settlement in 1900, a prospector dynamited the shrine to see if it concealed anything of value.The stone, originally about five feet in height, is now a pile of its shattered parts. After it was blasted, some of the Indians gathered up the fragments and heaped them to a height of six or seven feet.

Mourning Dove remembers when the stone was intact. En-am-tues, situated on a divide overlooking the Okanogan Valley from the east, is seven miles west and south of Molson, Washington. One of the main cross-country trails passed by it, but there are no modern roads in the vicinity.

The camas which the maiden threw back to her people is the “black camas” that grows on Camas Prairie near Calispell Lake, Pend Oreille County, Washington. Kalispel Indians who dig the root receive as high as a dollar a gallon for it from people of their own and other tribes. The Kalispel country always has been noted for its rich camas grounds.

The name, Scra’-kan, applied to one of the brother-mountains, is a modern Okanogan word that originally was used to designate the copper kettles traded to the Indians by the fur companies. Before the coming of the whites, gold nuggets and copper were made into bracelets, the pieces strung together. An ornament of this kind was called skel-ear-qu-nekst”, which means “circle-around-the-wrist,” and this word was the only one by which either of the metals was known.

Taken from Coyote Tales by Humishuma, Colville-Okanogan for Mourning
Dove [Christine Quintasket], 1933

The people of a certain region were living together in a very large camp. Their chief had two beautiful daughters of marriageable age. Many young men had proposed to them, but all had been refused. The chief said, “Whom do my daughters wish to marry? They have refused all the men.” Sun and Star, who were brother and sister, lived in the sky, and had seen all that had happened. Sun said to his sister, “The chief’s daughters have rejected the suits of all our friends. Let us go down and arrange this matter! Let us try these girls!” They made clothes, and at night they descended to earth.

During the darkness they erected a lodge on the outskirts of the camp. It had the appearance of being very old, and of belonging to poor people. The poles were old and badly selected. The covering was tattered and patched, and made of tule mats. The floor was strewn with old dried brush and grass, and the beds were of the same material. Their blankets consisted of old mats and pieces of old robes; and their kettles and cups were of bark, poorly made. Star had assumed the form of a decrepit old woman dressed in rags; and Sun, that of a dirty boy with sore eyes.

On the following morning the women of the camp saw the lodge, and peered in. When they returned, they reported, “Some very poor people arrived during the night, and are camped in an old mat lodge. We saw two persons inside,–a dirty, sore-eyed boy; and his grandmother, a very old woman in ragged clothes.”

Now, the chief resolved to find husbands for his daughters. He sent out his speaker to announce that in four days there would be a shooting-contest open to all the men, and the best marksman would get his daughters for wives. The young men could not sleep for eagerness. On the third day the chief’s speaker announced, “To-morrow morning every one shall shoot. Each one will have two shots. An eagle will perch on the tall tree yonder; and whoever kills it shall have the chief’s daughters.” Coyote was there and felt happy. He thought he would win the prize. On the following morning an eagle was seen soaring in the air, and there was much excitement as it began to descend. It alighted on a tree which grew near one end of the camp. Then the young men tried to shoot it. Each man had two arrows. The previous evening Sun had said to Star, “Grandmother, make a bow and arrows for me.” She said, “What is the use? You cannot shoot. You never used bow and arrows.” He replied, “I am going to try. I shall take part in the contest to-morrow. I heard what the chief said.” She took pity on him, and went to a red willow-bush, cut a branch for a bow, and some twigs for arrows. She strung the bow with a poor string, and did not feather the arrows.

Coyote, who was afraid some one else might hit the bird, shouted, “I will shoot first. Watch me hit the eagle.” His arrow struck the lowest branch of the tree and fell down, and the people laughed. He said, “I made a mistake. That was a bad arrow. This one will kill the eagle.” He shot, and the arrow fell short of the first one. He became angry, and pulled other arrows from his quiver. He wanted to shoot them all. The people seized him, and took away his arrows, saying, “You are allowed to shoot twice only.” All the people shot and missed. When the last one had shot, Sun said, “Grandmother, lift the door of the lodge a little, so that I can shoot.” She said, “First get out of bed.” She pulled the lodge mat aside a little, and he shot. The arrow hit the tail of the eagle. The people saw and heard the arrow coming from Dirty-Boy’s lodge, but saw no one shooting it. They wondered. He shot the second arrow, which pierced the eagle’s heart.

Now, Wolf and others were standing near Dirty-Boy’s lodge, and Wolf desired much to claim the prize. He shouted, “I shot the bird from the lodge-door!” and ran to pick it up; but the old woman Star ran faster than he, picked up the bird, and carried it to the chief. She claimed his daughters for her grandson. All the people gathered around, and made fun of Dirty-Boy. They said, “He is bedridden. He is lousy, sore-eyed, and scabby-faced.” The chief was loath to give his daughters to such a person. He knew that Dirty-Boy could not walk. Therefore he said , “To-morrow there shall be another contest. This will be the last one, I cannot break my word. Whoever wins this time shall have my daughters.”

He announced that on the morrow each man should set two traps for fishers an animal very scarce at the place where the camp was located. If any one should catch a fisher one night, then he was to stay in the mountains another day to catch a second one. After that he had to come back. Those who caught nothing the first night had to come home at once. Only two traps were allowed to each man; and two fishers had to be caught,–one a light one, and one a dark one,–and both prime skins. When all the men had gone to the mountains, Sun said to his sister, “Grandmother, make two traps for me.” She answered, “First get out of bed!” However, she had pity on him, and made two deadfalls of willow sticks. She asked him where she should set them; and he said, “One on each side of the lodge-door.”

On the following morning all the men returned by noon; not one of them had caught a fisher. When Star went out, she found two fine fishers in the traps. Now the chief assembled the men to see if any one had caught the fishers. He was glad, because he knew that Dirty-Boy could not walk; and unless he went to the mountains, he had no chance to kill fishers. Just then the old grandmother appeared, dragging the fishers. She said, “I hear you asked for two fishers; here are two that my grandson caught.” She handed them over to him, and then left.

Coyote had boasted that he would certainly catch the fishers. When he went up the mountain, he carried ten traps instead of two. He said, “Whoever heard of setting only two traps? I shall set ten.” He set them all, remained out two nights, but got nothing.

The chief said to his daughters, “You must become the wives of Dirty-Boy. I tried to save you by having two contests; but since I am a great chief, I cannot break my word. Go now, and take up your abode with your husband.” They put on their best clothes and went. On the way they had to pass Raven’s house, and heard the Ravens laughing inside, be cause the girls had to marry Dirty-Boy. The elder sister said, “Let us go in and-see what they are laughing about!” The younger one said, “No, our father told us to go straight to our husband.” The elder one went in, and sat down beside Raven’s eldest son. She became his wife. Like all the other Ravens, he was ugly, and had a big head; but she thought it better to marry him than to become the wife of a dirty, sickly boy.

The younger one went on, entered Dirty-Boy’s lodge, and sat down by his side. The old woman asked her who she was, and why she had come. When the old woman had been told, she said, “Your husband is sick, and soon he will die. He stinks too much. You must not sleep with him. Go back to your father’s lodge every evening; but come here in the daytime, and watch him and attend him.”

Now, the Raven family that lived close by laughed much at the younger daughter of the chief. They were angry because she had not entered their house and married there, as her elder sister had done. To hurt her feelings, they dressed their new daughter-in-law in the finest clothes they had. Her dress was covered with beads, shells, elk’s teeth, and quill-work. They gave her necklaces, and her mother-in-law gave her a finely polished celt of green stone (jade) to hang at her belt. The younger sister paid no attention to this, but returned every morning to help her grandmother-in-law to gather fire-wood, and to attend to her sick husband.

For three days matters remained this way. In the evening of the third day Sun said to his sister, “We will resume our true forms to-night, so that people may see us to-morrow.” That night they transformed themselves.” The old mat lodge became a fine new skin lodge, surpassing those of the Blackfoot and other tribes, richly decorated with ornaments, and with streamers tied to the top and painted. The old bark kettle became a bright copper kettle; and new pretty woven baskets, and embroidered and painted bags, were in the house. The old woman became a fine-looking person of tall figure, with clothes covered with shining stars. Dirty-Boy became a young, handsome man of light complexion. His clothes were covered with shining copper. His hair reached to the ground and shone like the rays of the sun. In the morning the people saw the new lodge, and said, “Some rich chief has arrived, and has camped where the poor people were. He has thrown them out.”

When the girl arrived, she was much surprised to see the transformation. She saw a woman in the door, wearing a long skin dress covered with star pendants, with bright stars in her hair. She addressed her in a familiar voice, saying, “Come in and sit with your husband!” The girl then knew who she was. When she entered, she saw a handsome man reclining, with his head on a beautiful parfleche. His garments and hair were decorated with bright suns. The girl did not recognize him, and looked around. The woman said, “That is your husband; go and sit beside him.” Then she was glad.

Sun took his wife to the copper kettle which stood at the door. It contained a shining liquid. He pushed her head into it, and when the liquid ran down over her hair and body, lines of sparkling small stars formed on her. He told her to empty the kettle. When she did so, the liquid ran to the chief’s lodge, forming a path, as of gold-dust. He said, “This will be your trail when you go to see your father.”

(OKANAGON: Teit, Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society, xi, 85, No. 6)

Tales of the North American Indians, by Stith Thompson [1929] and is now in the public domain’

The earth was once a human being: Old One made her out of a woman. “You will the mother of all people,” he said. Earth is alive yet, but she has been changed. The soil is her flesh, the rocks are her bones, the wind is her breath, trees and grass are her hair. She lives spread out, and we live on her. When she moves, we have an earthquake.

After taking the woman and changing her to earth, Old One gathered some of her flesh and rolled it into balls, as  people do with mud or clay. He made the first group of these balls into the ancients, the beings of the early world. The ancients were people, yet also animals. In form some looked human while some walked on all fours like animals. Some could fly like birds; others could swim like fishes.

All had the gift of speech, as well as greater powers and cunning than either animals or people. But deer were never among the ancients; they were always animals, even as they are today. Besides the ancients, real people and real animals lived on the earth at that time. Old One made the people out of the last balls of mud he took from the earth. He rolled them over and over, shaped them like Indians, and blew on them to bring them alive. They were so ignorant that they were the most helpless of all the creatures Old One had made. Old One made people and animals into males and females so that they might breed and multiply. Thus all living things came from the earth. When we look around, we see part of our mother everywhere.

The difficulty with the early world was that most of the ancients were selfish and some were monsters, and there was much trouble among them. They were also very stupid in some ways. Though they knew they had to hunt in order to live, they did not know which creatures were deer and which were people, and sometimes they ate people by mistake. At last Old One said, “There will soon be no people if I let things go on like this.” So he sent Coyote to kill all the monsters and other evil beings among the ancients and teach the Indians how to do things.

And Coyote began to travel on the earth, teaching the Indians, making life easier and better for them, and performing many wonderful deeds.

Reported by Ella Clark in the 1950s.

Kee-lau-naw-Grizzly Bear -lived in a big forest. He would not let anybody hunt there. People who went there never came back. Grizzly Bear ate them.

Because they could not get any of the game in Grizzly Bear’s forest, the people began to starve. They danced and prayed, asking their powers to help them. One sun the prayers of Ji’-hah-Crawfish-were answered. He received strong medicine. Then he started for Grizzly Bear’s forest.

Owl, who was Grizzly Bear’s lookout, saw Crawfish coming. Owl hooted to warn Grizzly Bear, who rushed out of his lodge, roaring his war cry. Crawfish pretended not to see him, and that hurt Grizzly Bear’s pride, and he roared louder and gnashed his teeth. But Crawfish paid no attention.

Grizzly Bear rushed back into his lodge and changed his summer teeth for his new, sharp winter teeth. Out he came again. He thought that Crawfish surely would be scared now, for looked back over his trail. He saw no one coming, and he changed his mind about going further into the mountains. His temper was sour and he whispered to himself: “Ji’-hah cannot make me do that. He cannot keep me from my old home. I am going back where I always have lived.”

He had barely finished those words when he felt the supposed tree against which he was leaning lift him off the ground. Two big red fingers tightened about his middle. The fingers of Crawfish held him fast. Surprised and badly frightened. Grizzly Bear thought his enemy would show no mercy now. He kicked and groaned, and then he pretended to be half-dead from the squeezing, but Crawfish would not let go.

Then Grizzly Bear cried: “Do not kill me! I will never return to the forest. I will go to the highest mountains, and stay there.” This he said five times, and Crawfish let him go.

Crawfish warned: “If you do come back, I will catch you and kill you. This is your last chance. Do not ever come back to the lower country. From this sun your lodge must be in the highest mountains, up where the mists are thickest, where the snows are deepest. A New People are coming to the world. You shall not starve them by keeping all the game to yourself. Go and do not look back!”.

Grizzly Bear was glad to get away. He ran, and he did not look back. He did not stop running until he was in the highest range of mountains. There he has made his home ever since.

Crawfish returned to his own country. The people there were glad. Now they could hunt and get plenty of food and plenty of skins.

Since the time that Crawfish whipped Grizzly Bear there have been fewer times of famine.

Taken from Coyote Tales by Humishuma, Colville-Okanogan for Mourning Dove [Christine Quintasket], 1933