Origins and Migration of the Salish Tribes The Salish tribes, often referred to collectively as the Interior Salish or Pacific Coast Salish, depending on region, are part of a larger language family known as the Salishan languages. These peoples traditionally…
Back when it was always dark, it was also always summer. One day, Coyote and Eagle went hunting. Coyote was a poor hunter because of the dark. Eventually, they came to the Kachinas, a powerful people. The Kachinas had the…
One of the wittiest and shrewdest of the Sioux chiefs was American Horse, who succeeded to the name and position of an uncle, killed in the battle of Slim Buttes in 1876. The younger American Horse was born a little…
As soon as Big Long Man got back from the mountains he went to his garden to admire his corn and melons. He had planted a big crop for the coming winter. When he saw that half of the corn stalks had been shucked and the ears stolen, and that the biggest melons were gone off of the melon vines, he was very angry.
In the beginning, the different people all spoke different languages, so they were always fighting because they could not understand each other. There was no fire, so they were also very cold and could not speak clearly.
Then one day Lizard climbed to the top of a big hill to lay on top of a rock to sun himself. As he lay there, he looked into the valley below. It was then that he found the fire. He saw the flames coming from the smoke hole in the top of a large assembly house. Lizard told Coyote that he saw fire below. Coyote doubted him. Lizard said, "Come up here on top of the rock, and you will see sparks coming from the assembly house."
Long ago, when man was newly come into the world, there were days when he was the happiest creature of all. Those were the days when spring brushed across the willow tails, or when his children ripened with the blueberries in the sun of summer, or when the goldenrod bloomed in the autumn haze.