Coyote Was Going There: Indian Literature of the Oregon Country

by Jarold Ramsey (Editor)

Overview

The vivid imagination, robust humor, and profound sense of place of the Indians of Oregon are revealed in this anthology, which gathers together hitherto scattered and often inaccessible legends originally transcribed and translated by scholars such as Archie Phinney, Melville Jacobs, and Franz Boas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295803517
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	02/01/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	11 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	18 Years

Table of Contents

Introduction

Editor’s Note

Mythological Map of Oregon

PART ONE, Northeastern Oregon

Coyote and the Swallowing Monster (Nez Perce)

Smohalla’s Ghost Dance Cosmogony (Wanapum)

Dream Prophecy Song (Nez Perce)

How the Cayuse Got Fire (Cayuse)

Cottontail Boy and Snowshoe Rabbit (Nez Perce)

Cottontail Boy Steals Thunderer’s Wife (Nez Perce)

Coyote Becomes a Buffalo (Nez Perce)

Turtle Outsims White Bull (Nez Perce)

Coyote and Fox Marry Husbands (nez Perce)

The Umatilla Birdman (Umatilla)

How Fish-Hawk Raided the Sioux (Cayuse)

Laptissa’n and the Seven-headed Monster (Nez Perce)

Cry-Because-He-Had-no-Wife (Nez Perce)

Red WIllow (Nez Perce)

Morning Song (Nez Perce)

How Enga-Gwacu Jim Met the Great Father (Bannock)

Coyote and the Shadow People (Nez Perce)

Chief Joseph Speaks in Washington, D.C. (Nez Perce)

PART TWO, the Columbia

Coyote at the Mouth of the Columbia (Wishram)

Coyote Frees the Fish (Wishram)

Coyote and the Mouthless Man (Wishram)

Coyote and the First Pregnancy (Wishram)

Coyote’s Carlessness (Wasco-Warm Springs)

Tsagigla’lal (Wishram)

Chief Mark Considers Monogamy, Warm Srpings Agency 1871

A Wasco Woman Deceives Her Husband (Wasco)

The Deserted Boy (Wishram)

Little Raccoon and His Grandmother (Wasco-Warm Springs)

Wren Kills Elk (Lower Chinook)

The Elk, the Hunter, and the Greedy Father (Wasco)

The Big-footed Man and His Son (Wasco)

Wishram Canoe Song

The Battle of the Winds (Warm Springs)

The Sun box (War Prings)

The Wishram Calendar

The Girl on the Ice (Wasco)

The Boy Who Went to Live with the Seals (Wasco)

A Boy and His Sitster Escape an At’at’a’hlia (Wasco)

Arrow-Point Maker and Tobacco-Hunter (Wasco)

Two Brothers Become Sun and Moon (Wasco)

Coyote and Eagle Go to the Land of the Dead (Wishram)

Wishram Song for Gathering Bones for Burial

The “Stick” Indians (Warm Springs)

PART THREE, The Willamette Valley

Coyote Builds Willamette Falls & the Magic Fish Trap (Clackamas Chinook)

The Skookum’s Tongue (Clackamas Chinook)

The Skookum and the Wonderful Boy (Clackamas Chinook)

Badger and Coyote Were Neighbors (Clackamas Chinook)

Seal and Her Younger Brother Lived There (Clackamas Chinook)

She Deceived Herself with Milt (Clackamas Chinook)

A Girls’ Game (Clackamas Chinook)

The Kalapuya Way (Santiam Kalapuya)

The Four Creations (Atfalati Kalapuya)

Kalapuya Ceremonial Song

Amhuluk, the Monster of Wapato Lake (Santiam Kalapuya)

Ptchiza’ and the Seven-headed Snake (mary’s River Kalapuya)

Coyote’s Swallowing Match with Grizzly Bear (Molale)

The Indians Hear a Treaty Speech in 1855 (Santiam Kalapuya)

Jo Hutchins Speech 1869 (Santiam Kalapuya)

PART FOUR, The Coast

South Wind Marries Ocean’s Daughter (Nehalem Tillamook)

The Exploits of South Wind (Nehalem Tillamook)

Coyote in the Cedar Tree (Chinook)

Coyote Invents the Fishing Rituals (Chinook)

How Coyote Kills the Giantess and Herded the Salmon (Chinook)

The Man Who Lived with Thunderer (Tillamook)

Thunderstorm Exorcism (Alsea)

How the Coos People Discovered Fire (Coos)

The Chetco (Chinook)

Wild Woman At Children (Nehalem Tillamook)

The Woman Who married a Merman (Coos)

Coyote and the Two Frog-Women (Alsea)

The Magical Hazel Twig (Alsea)

Xi’lgo and the Brother and Sister Who Married Each Other (Tillamook)

The White Wife of Mouse (Coos)

The Girl Who Married a Ghost (Chinook)

How a Chinook Man Went to the Land of the Dead and Came Back (Chinook)

The Journey across the Ocean (Tillamook)

The Revenge against the Sky People (Coos)

The First SHip Comes to Clatsop County (Chinook)

PART FIVE, Southwestern Oregon

Creation of the Klamath Country (Kalmath)

Modoc Prayers

The Rainmaker (Modoc)

The WIldcat Brothers (Modoc)

Frost and Thunder (Modoc)

Thunder and Eagle Boy (Modoc)

Chief Allen David of the Klamaths & Captain Jack of the Modocs 1869

The Klamath Calendar

The Crater Lake Myth (Klamath)

The Story of Swa-ya (Klamath)

Little Porcupine and Coyote (Klamath)

Coyote in Love with a Star (Klamath)

Chiloquin the Hero (Klamath)

Two Klamath Monsters (Klamath)

Grizzly Bear and Black Bear (Takelma)

The Theft of Fire (Shatsa)

Genesis (Joshua-Tututni)

PART SIX, The Great Basin Northern Paiute

The Tracks of the Creator

How the Animals Found Their Places

The Purging of Malheur Cave

The Creation of the Indians

Vagina Dentata

Coyote and His Daughter

Coyote Learns to Hunt

Coyote and Wolf Go Hunting

Coyote the Eye-Juggler

The Theft of Pine Nuts

Numuzo’ho Plays Ball

Numuzo’ho in the Mortar

Coyote and Bear

Coyote Shoots the Night

Cottontail Shoots the Sun

Humming Bird’s Space Flight

The Thunder Badger

How to Control the Weather

White Men are Snakes

The True Beginning of the Earth

Notes

Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"Coyote Was Going There . . . is really loaded with literary and historical treasure, making it one of those few works which can provide us with an option against continued ignorance. The American West will not come of age as a place for indigenous literature until we can count these stories among all the classics of mankind’s expressive output.""

Western American Literature

Coyote Was Going There . . . is really loaded with literary and historical treasure, making it one of those few works which can provide us with an option against continued ignorance. The American West will not come of age as a place for indigenous literature until we can count these stories among all the classics of mankind's expressive output."

-- "Western American Literature"

Folklore of the Northwest Indians has long been the exclusive province of the collectors, restricted to anthropologists and linguistic journals or to monographs. From such sources Jarold Ramsey has chosen representative myths and tales of the Oregon Indians (Tillamook, Coos, Nez Perce, Klamath, Paiute), offering them to the general public as literature. . . . Folklorists everywhere . . . will find this a valuable collection.

-- "Publishers Weekly"

From the Publisher