(3 a) INTRODUCTION OF SALMON.
(Continued)He returned to a place called Tqemi'p. He was hungry, and asked a salmon to jump ashore.1 A king-salmon did so; and after catching and cooking it, and eating his fill, he threw the leavings into the water. The pieces of salmon became rocks, which form a circle at this place, and make an eddy. He said, "Henceforth people shall find king-salmon dead at this place. Some salmon of the first run will always die here."
He left the Spokane River, and journeyed up the Columbia until he reached Colville. Here a stream enters the Columbia, across which the people had a weir for catching fish. The latter were very small. The people expected Coyote to come, and had ordered two of their daughters to marry him. They said, "he has much fine food, which will do us good. We shall get fine large fish if you take him." They were the Wolverene people. Coyote had heard what they thought, so he hurried there as soon as he arrived. The old people met him, and said, "Come in and sit between your wives!" They made room for him, and he sat down between the girls, who thus accepted him as their husband. The people said, "We are very poor, and have no good fish to offer you." Coyote excused himself, saying he must defecate, and went outside. He went to the salmon, and caught two king-salmon, which he put into Wolverene's fish-trap or weir. The next morning, when Wolverene went to look at the weir, he found them, and was very glad. Each morning more king-salmon were in Wolverene's weir. The people wondered. They considered Coyote a great man, and the salmon fine food. All the people gathered there to fish. The other people said to Wolverene, "If you had not given your daughters to Coyote, we should have given him ours." They were lying.
Near this place Coyote made a dam across the river, and there he showed the people the methods of fishing with dip-nets and spears.
Coyote came to Similkameen from the Thompson country. He had already introduced salmon in the Columbia, and many of these fish were at that time running up the Similkameen River. They could not get to its head waters, however, as the two wi'lawil sisters had a weir across the river at Zu'tsamen (Princeton). Coyote stopped when he came to the weir, and said, "Here I find you!" The sisters answered, "Yes, we are settled here." He looked over the weir, and said to them, "You have plenty of food. I will stay Here a while." The elder sister disliked him, while the younger one liked him. The former said to her sister, "Have nothing to do with him. He is Coyote, and he will play tricks. Perhaps he intends to destroy the weir that we have erected with so much labor." Coyote was angry because the elder sister disliked him: so one day when they were away digging bitter-roots on the flats near by, he covered his head with a spoon of sheep-horn, and broke their weir. The elder sister felt that something bad was happening, therefore the sisters hastened home. When they arrived, Coyote had almost broken down the weir. They attacked him with clubs, and beat him over the head to kill him or make him stop; but he continued to demolish the weir, the pieces of which soon floated downstream.
Coyote3 went off unhurt, and continued going down along the bank of the river. He carried his penis in a basket. Wherever he saw women on the opposite bank, he asked them if they wanted any soxali'ken.4 If they said "Yes," then he sent his penis across the river to enter them. If they said "No," he became angry, and did not give them any salmon. When he reached a place near Keremeous, he saw two maidens bathing on the opposite side of the stream. He shouted to them, "Are you Smele'qamux?"5 They answered, "Yes. What do you carry?" He said, "Soxali'ken. Do you want some?" They answered. "No, we do not want any." He asked, "What do you want?" They answered, "Koma'psten6 of the big-horn." Coyote was angry because they answered thus. Therefore he shouted, "Henceforth you shall have plenty of sheep, but no salmon. You shall wear out your moccasins and your horse's feet travelling to buy humpback-salmon." Then he went on; and a little above the mouth of the river he made a rock barrier across the stream, which prevents salmon from ascending the Similkameen River.
1 See pp. 68 (note I), 102, 139, 141, 143.
2 See pp. 7, 67, 101.
3 For the following see JAFL 28 : 223 (Shasta, Alsea, Tillamook, Molala, Kalapuya); Tututuni JAFL 28 : 242; also Assiniboine PaAM 4 119 (No. 24); Blackfoot PaAM 2 : 36; Gros Ventre PaAM 1: 68; Arapaho FM 5: 63; Menominee PaAM 13 : 304.
4 Salmon backbone.
5 People of Similkameen.
6 Back part of the head.
