Thompson

(map)

A flood once covered all but the summits of some of the highest mountains. Its cause isn't certain, but it may have been made the the three brothers Qoaqlqal, who travelled the country transforming things until they themselves were transformed into stones. Three men escaped in a canoe and drifted to the Nzukeski Mountains, where they and their canoe were afterwards turned to stone; you may see them there today. Coyote survived by turning himself into a piece of wood and floating. When the flood subsided, leaving him in the Thompson River area, he resumed his normal shape. He took trees to be his wives, and from them the Indians are descended. The flood left lakes in the hollows of the mountains, streams flowing from them, and fish in them; none of these existed before the flood.

Frazer, 1919, 322.

A haxa' and his boy lived in a distant country. He had two wooden boxes in his house, one of which contained fire, the other water. At that time there was no fire and no water in the outside world. Whenever the man opened the lid of the fire-box, immediately the house became very hot; and when he wandered away from the house, he used to tell the boy never to open the lids of the boxes; because if he opened the one, the house would take fire and he would be burned; if he opened the other, he would be drowned, because the house would be flooded. One day when he was away, the Elk came along and entered the house, and, seeing the two boxes there, asked the boy what they contained, who told him fire and water. Whereupon the Elk, whose curiosity was aroused, opened the two boxes. When it saw the fire and the water, it became afraid and ran away. The house was burned, and the fire spread over the country, burning the grass and trees. After this, fire could be obtained from every kind of wood all over the world. The water also ran out and drowned the fire wherever it went, and spread all over the world, forming lakes and rivers.

Quoted from James Teit, Traditions of the Thompson River Indians of British Columbia, Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society vol. 6 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1898), 57-58.

This flood is just one episode in the story of four bear brothers, who are also transformers. In other episodes, they escape the wrath of Grizzly and trick a water monster into being friendly with them after they could not defeat him.

The four bear brothers, traveling, stopped to rest and made a fire. The eldest brother took the headband of the youngest brother, Skwikwtlkwetlt, and threw it on the fire. This made the river rise. They fled to the top of a rock, but the water kept rising. The youngest brother saw that the next youngest would be the first one drowned, and the water started going down. It retreated to where the river is today. The four brothers arranged the countryside all over again. They later became four stars.

Darwin Hanna and Mamie Henry, Our Tellings: Interior Salish Stories of the Nlha7kápmx People (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1995), 71-75; see also 67-71.