Voices of the Wild Earth Podcast The Idaho Mythweaver

As you drive south from Mountain Home or north from Elko, 100 miles in
either direction through the vast stretches of high desert plains skirted
by the Owyhee Mountains, miles of seemingly endless fence lines, mark
cattle ranches and frame the highway. But fences suddenly disappear as you
enter the Duck Valley Indian Reservation, home to the Newa and Numa peoples
— the Western Shoshone and Paiute.

In the very heart of Idaho wilderness beneath its most spectacular mountain
range, the Sawtooths, springs forth a river like no other river. The
Salmon. It carves its way through rocky canyons for hundreds of miles. It
is home to spawning steelhead and chinook salmon that journey from the sea.
Indian people have always fished these waters and they hunted the wild
sheep that live among the rocky crags. Lemhi Shoshone people. Keepers of
the Earth.

Often the word myth is used in conjunction with these stories. If we
interpret stories not literally, but metaphorically; if we look at their
symbolism, we can see that they point to all sorts of literary as well as
spiritual truths that are shared by all of humanity.

Their villages were once along the shores of pristine lakes— Coeur d’Alene, Benewah, Chacolet — and wild rivers — the St. Joe, St. Maries, Spokane. They fished for salmon and cutthroat trout, hunted deer, bear and elk, dug camas and bitterroot. They picked huckleberries. Spirituality was their signature on daily living.

Coyote, ‘iceyeeye, he was going upstream.

Coyote is always going upstream. He was going along and he noticed the
salmon were having some difficulty there. So he says. I'll build a fish
ladder so that the salmon can go up river and feed my people. And so he's
busy working along there and Magpie he flies over and says. Ahg! What are
you doing?

And Coyote looks up and he says, ‘I'm building a fish ladder for the fish
to go up to feed my people.’

Rebroadcast of the 1991 Keepers series by Jane Fritz