Coos

The earth is flat and floating on water. Tides are caused by its tipping a little every so often.

When the Creator first made the earth, water covered all the land at every high tide. The Creator got some "blue earth" and put down a layer of it, but that was still not enough to keep the water from overflowing everywhere. He put down a second layer of blue earth, and the water covered most of the land but not all of it. When a third layer was put down, the earth looked right, but the water still ran too far inland. So the people placed strips of basketry along the whole length of the ocean shore. The water ran through the basketry but came no further inland than that. The basketry is now the sand of the beaches; the blue earth can still be seen under the ocean water. The people did not say what causes the land to tip.

Melville Jacobs, Coos Myth Texts University of Washington Publications in Anthropology 8(2) (Seattle: University of Washington, 1940), 240.

This tale shows an obvious anti-shaman agenda. Jacobs, who collected it, offers it as "evidence of the manner in which stories disintegrate when told in an English version by an informant younger and less an Indian in mind and manner than the other informants employed."

The shaman was the first evil in the world. God created the world in five days, but it was not perfect. The ocean was still out of control and would break across the land. The waves went so far inland because the beaches had no sand. So the people cut baskets into many strips and laid the strips along the shore. Then the breakers went through the holes in the basketry instead of inland over the hills.

The first morning after this was done everything was fine, and people came to watch. They saw tracks heading north along the new beach. "Who could have done that?" one man said, "It was not allowed." They followed the tracks and came upon a woman, decorated with red paint, sitting on a log.

"Who are you?" they asked.

"I am a shaman."

"If you are a shaman, you are evil. The new world was perfect and clean, and you should not trespass on it so soon. We will be rid of you now."

They killed her. They scattered her entrails east to Kalapuya country, so now Kalapuyas have big bellies. They scattered her bones south to Umpqua country, which is why the Umpqua are big-boned. They scatter her hair south towards Coos Bay country, which is why the Coos are small but as numerous as hairs on a head.

That is why shamans are not highly regarded today. When anything goes wrong, they are removed and killed.

Melville Jacobs, Coos Myth Texts University of Washington Publications in Anthropology 8(2) (Seattle: University of Washington, 1940), 239-240.

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