Yesteryear Fiction

The Salmon God
By Windfeather


First Mother filled the basket with stones, carried it to the river. In the water, she bathed, she bathed the rocks, she bathed the basket, and as she bathed the basket, she began to sing a song to the ancestors. The sound of her singing was so beautiful that, from somewhere deep within the earth, the Salmon God began to take notice.

“What is that beautiful singing?” He asked, and as he stirred, his long, silver body slid softly into the earth, climbing river and stream until he rached the ocean, found his way to the land of The People and the water where the First Mother was singing and washing.

“What a beautiful woman!” Thought the Salmon God, and she was beautiful, and as he watched her bathe, the light caught his scales and gave away his shape beneath the waves. First Mother smiled, for she knew he was the Salmon God, and she knew that her song had called him to her, and as he closed his eyes and let her words drift through him, she gathered up the stones and the basket and clubbed the unsuspecting God until he lay dead and bleeding in the river.

The People ate well that night and forever after, for from his blood sprang the Salmon and all the colors of fish that have fed the people in all the generations since.


- - -
Come and live among the People. Only then will you see the true face of things as they are.