Beaver Steals Fire
The Great Quest to Bring Fire from the Sky World to the Earth
Beaver Steals Fire
The Great Quest to Bring Fire from the Sky World to the Earth
Beaver Steals Fire
The Great Quest to Bring Fire from the
Sky World to the Earth
What is the Relevance of the Story?
In our tradition—that of the Salish and Pend d’Oreille of the northern Rockies— fire is a gift that can nurture life and that can be used to take care of the earth we have been entrusted with. It provides us with light and warmth. It makes it possible for us to cook our food. It is at the heart of our spiritual practice and at the very center of our traditional way of life. Before European-Americans arrived, it was the tool that our people used to intensively manage the lands where they lived. Our ancestors burned areas to increase food and medicinal plants. They burned to improve forage for game animals like deer, elk, bighorn sheep, buffalo, antelope, and bear. They used fire to hunt by building drivelines and game surrounds, and they used it in warfare, both offensively and defensively. They burned prairies and meadows to keep encroaching trees and brush at bay so that their horses would have plenty of grass. They groomed trails and cleaned their camps with fire. For thousands of years our ancestors more than doubled the frequency of natural fires. Indeed, the plant and animal communities we have inherited today are in large measure the legacy of Indian burning. Those communities have adapted to fire, and many species are fire dependent. The point is, this early landscape was not a virgin landscape in the sense of being untouched by humans, but a cultural landscape shaped by thousands of years of tribal use of fire.
Salish tribal elder and historian John Peter Paul talked about the tribal person whose role it was to set fires. This man was called Sx͏ʷpaám, literally, “Makes Fire” or “Fire Setter.” He possessed an intimate knowledge of fire and its effects on plants and animals that he learned from his own experiences and that he inherited from generations of Sx͏ʷpaám before him. He knew that the diversity of plant species doubled after a fire and that if done properly, both wildlife and people would benefit from periodic burning. For example, he knew that the productivity of huckleberries increased dramatically about twenty-five years after a fire. Huckleberries were a staple not only of Indian people, but also of grizzly bears and black bears and dozens of birds and small mammals; all of them prospered from the periodic burning of huckleberry fields.
One need only look at photographs of the mountains in northwestern Montana taken 100 years ago and compare them with how those same mountains look today to see the profound influence that fire, both natural and Indian lit, had on these landscapes. As long as 230 years ago, the introduction of European diseases, and later, the growing presence of European-Americans themselves, gradually put a stop to traditional Indian burning practices in the Northern Rockies. By the late nineteenth century, Indian people who attempted to practice traditional burning encountered violent hostility and government repression from many non-Indian communities. Non-Indians also extinguished lightning-caused fires whenever they could. Since then, those fire-dependent landscapes have changed dramatically.
Place names in our language tell us much about the historic relationship between our tribe and the land. Indeed, place names are of great importance to our people, because they often record information about the cultural ecology—how the land was used and managed. In some cases, place names tell us where fire was used in beneficial ways to maximize plant and animal resources. But the place names—the oldest parts of our language that often come from Coyote stories and that talk about the making of this place or about resources—no longer have meaning because the places have changed so much in the absence of fire. Big Prairie in the South Fork of the Flathead is an example. What was a series of expansive clearings kept open by frequent burning is now just a little bit of prairie, and the surrounding park-like stands of ancient ponderosa pine are now dense with Douglas-fir trees. The place that was once an important camping area for Salish people bears little resemblance to what it once was.
Today, because we have excluded fires, we face many problems in our forests—the risk of catastrophic fire and very dangerous conditions in what land managers call the wildland-urban interface, the place where human settlements meet the forest. Many of these problems have their roots in our society’s failure to appreciate the depth and sophistication of the tribal relationship with the land and in particular tribal land management practices.
It takes a long time to create and maintain large old pine forests and open prairies. The landscape that was known and managed by the Salish and Pend d’Oreille people is now a vanished landscape. As a society, we are now trying to recover that older tribal landscape that took 12,000 years of habitation, experience, and occupation to create.
The most basic question our society is faced with now as we attempt to return fire to the land in places where Indian people burned is, how do we do it? How do we restore that lost cultural landscape? The traditional tribal view of fire can enrich and inform the technical view of fire management. The traditional view draws from deep unseen roots— like the story told in this book—but it can nevertheless inform each new generation who learns to value it for themselves. The traditional tribal use of fire, and perhaps more importantly, the tribal view of fire, can provide guidance as we try to repair a landscape that science tells us is now at risk.
This story taught our children how difficult it was to bring fire from the sky world in the first place, and how important it was to animals and humans. Now it is time for humans to return the gift of fire to the animals.
About the Artist and the Storyteller
Sam Sandoval creates his artwork on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Western Montana. Sam attended the Institute of American Indian Art and has created art as far back as he can remember. He currently is the editor for the Charkoosta News newspaper. He hopes one day to apply his artistic endeavors toward movie making. Sam lives near Dixon, Montana. This is his first book.
Johnny Arlee was raised by his grandparents with Salish as his first language. He has worked tirelessly throughout his life to pass on the traditional culture and way of life of the Salish and Pend d’Oreille people. In the 1970s and 80s, Johnny played a key role in developing the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee into a nationally respected tribal cultural institution. Johnny is the author of three books: Coyote Stories of the Montana Salish Indians; Mali Npnaqs: The Story of a Mean Little Old Lady; and Over a Century of Moving to the Drum: the Salish Powwow Tradition on the Flathead Indian Reservation. He has served as technical advisor, actor, and scripting consultant on several feature-length motion pictures, including the classic Jeremiah Johnson.
A Coyote Story
According to the traditional beliefs of the Salish, the Creator put animal beings on the earth before humans. But the world was cold and dark because there was no fire on earth. The animal beings knew that one day human beings would arrive, and they wanted to make the world a better place for them, so they set off on a great quest to steal fire from the sky world and bring it to the earth. And that is the plot of this tale, a story that reminds us that, while fire can be a destructive force, it is also a gift to us from the Creator.
Listen to the Story's Introduction
by Germaine White
Read and Hear the Story
Watch a Video of Johnny Arlee Telling the Story
What is the Relevance of the Story?
In our tradition—that of the Salish and Pend d’Oreille of the northern Rockies— fire is a gift that can nurture life and that can be used to take care of the earth we have been entrusted with. It provides us with light and warmth. It makes it possible for us to cook our food. It is at the heart of our spiritual practice and at the very center of our traditional way of life. Before European-Americans arrived, it was the tool that our people used to intensively manage the lands where they lived. Our ancestors burned areas to increase food and medicinal plants. They burned to improve forage for game animals like deer, elk, bighorn sheep, buffalo, antelope, and bear. They used fire to hunt by building drivelines and game surrounds, and they used it in warfare, both offensively and defensively. They burned prairies and meadows to keep encroaching trees and brush at bay so that their horses would have plenty of grass. They groomed trails and cleaned their camps with fire. For thousands of years our ancestors more than doubled the frequency of natural fires. Indeed, the plant and animal communities we have inherited today are in large measure the legacy of Indian burning. Those communities have adapted to fire, and many species are fire dependent. The point is, this early landscape was not a virgin landscape in the sense of being untouched by humans, but a cultural landscape shaped by thousands of years of tribal use of fire.
Salish tribal elder and historian John Peter Paul talked about the tribal person whose role it was to set fires. This man was called Sx͏ʷpaám, literally, “Makes Fire” or “Fire Setter.” He possessed an intimate knowledge of fire and its effects on plants and animals that he learned from his own experiences and that he inherited from generations of Sx͏ʷpaám before him. He knew that the diversity of plant species doubled after a fire and that if done properly, both wildlife and people would benefit from periodic burning. For example, he knew that the productivity of huckleberries increased dramatically about twenty-five years after a fire. Huckleberries were a staple not only of Indian people, but also of grizzly bears and black bears and dozens of birds and small mammals; all of them prospered from the periodic burning of huckleberry fields.
One need only look at photographs of the mountains in northwestern Montana taken 100 years ago and compare them with how those same mountains look today to see the profound influence that fire, both natural and Indian lit, had on these landscapes. As long as 230 years ago, the introduction of European diseases, and later, the growing presence of European-Americans themselves, gradually put a stop to traditional Indian burning practices in the Northern Rockies. By the late nineteenth century, Indian people who attempted to practice traditional burning encountered violent hostility and government repression from many non-Indian communities. Non-Indians also extinguished lightning-caused fires whenever they could. Since then, those fire-dependent landscapes have changed dramatically.
Place names in our language tell us much about the historic relationship between our tribe and the land. Indeed, place names are of great importance to our people, because they often record information about the cultural ecology—how the land was used and managed. In some cases, place names tell us where fire was used in beneficial ways to maximize plant and animal resources. But the place names—the oldest parts of our language that often come from Coyote stories and that talk about the making of this place or about resources—no longer have meaning because the places have changed so much in the absence of fire. Big Prairie in the South Fork of the Flathead is an example. What was a series of expansive clearings kept open by frequent burning is now just a little bit of prairie, and the surrounding park-like stands of ancient ponderosa pine are now dense with Douglas-fir trees. The place that was once an important camping area for Salish people bears little resemblance to what it once was.
Today, because we have excluded fires, we face many problems in our forests—the risk of catastrophic fire and very dangerous conditions in what land managers call the wildland-urban interface, the place where human settlements meet the forest. Many of these problems have their roots in our society’s failure to appreciate the depth and sophistication of the tribal relationship with the land and in particular tribal land management practices.
It takes a long time to create and maintain large old pine forests and open prairies. The landscape that was known and managed by the Salish and Pend d’Oreille people is now a vanished landscape. As a society, we are now trying to recover that older tribal landscape that took 12,000 years of habitation, experience, and occupation to create.
The most basic question our society is faced with now as we attempt to return fire to the land in places where Indian people burned is, how do we do it? How do we restore that lost cultural landscape? The traditional tribal view of fire can enrich and inform the technical view of fire management. The traditional view draws from deep unseen roots— like the story told in this book—but it can nevertheless inform each new generation who learns to value it for themselves. The traditional tribal use of fire, and perhaps more importantly, the tribal view of fire, can provide guidance as we try to repair a landscape that science tells us is now at risk.
This story taught our children how difficult it was to bring fire from the sky world in the first place, and how important it was to animals and humans. Now it is time for humans to return the gift of fire to the animals.
About the Artist and the Storyteller
Sam Sandoval creates his artwork on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Western Montana. Sam attended the Institute of American Indian Art and has created art as far back as he can remember. He currently is the editor for the Charkoosta News newspaper. He hopes one day to apply his artistic endeavors toward movie making. Sam lives near Dixon, Montana. This is his first book.
Johnny Arlee was raised by his grandparents with Salish as his first language. He has worked tirelessly throughout his life to pass on the traditional culture and way of life of the Salish and Pend d’Oreille people. In the 1970s and 80s, Johnny played a key role in developing the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee into a nationally respected tribal cultural institution. Johnny is the author of three books: Coyote Stories of the Montana Salish Indians; Mali Npnaqs: The Story of a Mean Little Old Lady; and Over a Century of Moving to the Drum: the Salish Powwow Tradition on the Flathead Indian Reservation. He has served as technical advisor, actor, and scripting consultant on several feature-length motion pictures, including the classic Jeremiah Johnson.
A Coyote Story
According to the traditional beliefs of the Salish, the Creator put animal beings on the earth before humans. But the world was cold and dark because there was no fire on earth. The animal beings knew that one day human beings would arrive, and they wanted to make the world a better place for them, so they set off on a great quest to steal fire from the sky world and bring it to the earth. And that is the plot of this tale, a story that reminds us that, while fire can be a destructive force, it is also a gift to us from the Creator.
Listen to the Story's Introduction
by Germaine White
Read and Hear the Story
Watch a Video of Johnny Arlee Telling the Story
What is the Relevance of the Story?
In our tradition—that of the Salish and Pend d’Oreille of the northern Rockies— fire is a gift that can nurture life and that can be used to take care of the earth we have been entrusted with. It provides us with light and warmth. It makes it possible for us to cook our food. It is at the heart of our spiritual practice and at the very center of our traditional way of life. Before European-Americans arrived, it was the tool that our people used to intensively manage the lands where they lived. Our ancestors burned areas to increase food and medicinal plants. They burned to improve forage for game animals like deer, elk, bighorn sheep, buffalo, antelope, and bear. They used fire to hunt by building drivelines and game surrounds, and they used it in warfare, both offensively and defensively. They burned prairies and meadows to keep encroaching trees and brush at bay so that their horses would have plenty of grass. They groomed trails and cleaned their camps with fire. For thousands of years our ancestors more than doubled the frequency of natural fires. Indeed, the plant and animal communities we have inherited today are in large measure the legacy of Indian burning. Those communities have adapted to fire, and many species are fire dependent. The point is, this early landscape was not a virgin landscape in the sense of being untouched by humans, but a cultural landscape shaped by thousands of years of tribal use of fire.
Salish tribal elder and historian John Peter Paul talked about the tribal person whose role it was to set fires. This man was called Sx͏ʷpaám, literally, “Makes Fire” or “Fire Setter.” He possessed an intimate knowledge of fire and its effects on plants and animals that he learned from his own experiences and that he inherited from generations of Sx͏ʷpaám before him. He knew that the diversity of plant species doubled after a fire and that if done properly, both wildlife and people would benefit from periodic burning. For example, he knew that the productivity of huckleberries increased dramatically about twenty-five years after a fire. Huckleberries were a staple not only of Indian people, but also of grizzly bears and black bears and dozens of birds and small mammals; all of them prospered from the periodic burning of huckleberry fields.
One need only look at photographs of the mountains in northwestern Montana taken 100 years ago and compare them with how those same mountains look today to see the profound influence that fire, both natural and Indian lit, had on these landscapes. As long as 230 years ago, the introduction of European diseases, and later, the growing presence of European-Americans themselves, gradually put a stop to traditional Indian burning practices in the Northern Rockies. By the late nineteenth century, Indian people who attempted to practice traditional burning encountered violent hostility and government repression from many non-Indian communities. Non-Indians also extinguished lightning-caused fires whenever they could. Since then, those fire-dependent landscapes have changed dramatically.
Place names in our language tell us much about the historic relationship between our tribe and the land. Indeed, place names are of great importance to our people, because they often record information about the cultural ecology—how the land was used and managed. In some cases, place names tell us where fire was used in beneficial ways to maximize plant and animal resources. But the place names—the oldest parts of our language that often come from Coyote stories and that talk about the making of this place or about resources—no longer have meaning because the places have changed so much in the absence of fire. Big Prairie in the South Fork of the Flathead is an example. What was a series of expansive clearings kept open by frequent burning is now just a little bit of prairie, and the surrounding park-like stands of ancient ponderosa pine are now dense with Douglas-fir trees. The place that was once an important camping area for Salish people bears little resemblance to what it once was.
Today, because we have excluded fires, we face many problems in our forests—the risk of catastrophic fire and very dangerous conditions in what land managers call the wildland-urban interface, the place where human settlements meet the forest. Many of these problems have their roots in our society’s failure to appreciate the depth and sophistication of the tribal relationship with the land and in particular tribal land management practices.
It takes a long time to create and maintain large old pine forests and open prairies. The landscape that was known and managed by the Salish and Pend d’Oreille people is now a vanished landscape. As a society, we are now trying to recover that older tribal landscape that took 12,000 years of habitation, experience, and occupation to create.
The most basic question our society is faced with now as we attempt to return fire to the land in places where Indian people burned is, how do we do it? How do we restore that lost cultural landscape? The traditional tribal view of fire can enrich and inform the technical view of fire management. The traditional view draws from deep unseen roots— like the story told in this book—but it can nevertheless inform each new generation who learns to value it for themselves. The traditional tribal use of fire, and perhaps more importantly, the tribal view of fire, can provide guidance as we try to repair a landscape that science tells us is now at risk.
This story taught our children how difficult it was to bring fire from the sky world in the first place, and how important it was to animals and humans. Now it is time for humans to return the gift of fire to the animals.
About the Artist and the Storyteller
Sam Sandoval creates his artwork on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Western Montana. Sam attended the Institute of American Indian Art and has created art as far back as he can remember. He currently is the editor for the Charkoosta News newspaper. He hopes one day to apply his artistic endeavors toward movie making. Sam lives near Dixon, Montana. This is his first book.
Johnny Arlee was raised by his grandparents with Salish as his first language. He has worked tirelessly throughout his life to pass on the traditional culture and way of life of the Salish and Pend d’Oreille people. In the 1970s and 80s, Johnny played a key role in developing the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee into a nationally respected tribal cultural institution. Johnny is the author of three books: Coyote Stories of the Montana Salish Indians; Mali Npnaqs: The Story of a Mean Little Old Lady; and Over a Century of Moving to the Drum: the Salish Powwow Tradition on the Flathead Indian Reservation. He has served as technical advisor, actor, and scripting consultant on several feature-length motion pictures, including the classic Jeremiah Johnson.
A Coyote Story
According to the traditional beliefs of the Salish, the Creator put animal beings on the earth before humans. But the world was cold and dark because there was no fire on earth. The animal beings knew that one day human beings would arrive, and they wanted to make the world a better place for them, so they set off on a great quest to steal fire from the sky world and bring it to the earth. And that is the plot of this tale, a story that reminds us that, while fire can be a destructive force, it is also a gift to us from the Creator.
Listen to the Story's Introduction
by Germaine White
Read and Hear the Story
Watch a Video of Johnny Arlee Telling the Story
© 2021 Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes | Contact Us
© 2021 Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes | Contact Us