This is a story that is commonly told to Native children in Coast Salish territory tribes. It is a spooky tale with many lessons embedded throughout the story. The audience is traditionally for Native people and specifically Native kids, so when I say ‘we’ that is who I am describing. I chose this story because of the spooky element and because it is an example of how we use storytelling in Coast Salish culture to stress the importance of our teachings to the youngest generations of Native children. These stories have been told by our grandparents and aunties and uncles long before my time. And will continue to be told as new generations are born. Be warned, there are themes of: danger, kidnapping, and eating children. Happy Halloween!
Long ago, when we still lived in the longhouses and traveled by the big canoes, there were a group of children who were being watched over by their grandmother as their parents worked in the longhouse, were fishing, and preparing for the big winter to come. The People lived in a longhouse on the coastline and to the East were the Big Mountains.
Now although grandmother was watching over them, she was also working: she was weaving mats and gathering materials they would need for the big winter to come. The group of children were two boys and three girls with the youngest being one of the little girls. As they played along the beach, they could hear their grandma say to them, “Don’t go too far, stay near the house.” The children played and played, and laughed and laughed as children do with their siblings and cousins. Grandmother continued to weave and gather and a little bit later, she again called to them and said,
Don’t go too far. It isn’t safe away from your families or away from the longhouse.
Now in all honesty, the children could hear their grandmother but did not really want to listen to her. They thought, “Grandma, we play and run all the time, it is all okay here.” And so they kept playing and moving down the beach and shoreline. By this time the children were pretty far from the eyes of their grandma, who was also busy trying to get blankets woven for the wintertime. The children decided to play hide and seek but since they needed to hide, they had to go into the treeline and forest area, so they walked from the beach and into the woods. One of the older girls was chosen to be the seeker and the other four children ran to hide. Little did they know, they were indeed being watched, but by someone other than their grandmother.
So the children hid and the oldest girl counted. But as she finished counting, she started to smell something foul. And in that instant she was picked up and something was put over her eyes and mouth and then she was thrown into a giant basket, too big for her to climb out. Then the girl felt one of her brothers thrown in the basket with her, and the other brother, and then the other girl. All with sap over their eyes and mouth, all too small to climb out of the high wall basket. And the stench, the smell of dirty hair, no baths, and rotting meat. The kids felt the basket being lifted and put on and then they felt the hair of the woman, the Basket Woman. Her hair was long, rough, and dirty. But where was baby sister? She had been watching, terrified and quiet. And then the Basket Woman saw her, hiding, she started running towards baby sister as the girl ran towards the treeline but the Basket Woman was bigger and faster and grabbed baby sister’s arm and started to put sap on her face. Baby sister slipped out of the Basket Woman’s grip and slid underneath some rough brush and tree roots that hid her from the Basket Woman’s sight and reach. The Basket Woman, annoyed and hungry, turned away and started to trudge towards the East Mountains. After she could no longer hear the footsteps of the Basket Woman, baby sister came out from hiding teary eyed and calling for her siblings and cousins. They didn’t answer of course, but she was hoping it was all just some horrible imaginary occurrence. Baby sister began running through the brush and the trees to get to the beach line. She burst out of the trees but was still far from the longhouse and from her family. She began running towards the longhouse but it was still so far up the beach from where the kids had ended up playing.
As baby sister ran on the rocky beach, the Basket Woman carried the other four children in her big basket up the mountain. Her steps were long and she stomped and thumped through the forest up and up until reaching her cave on the mountain. Her cave smelled like she did, like dirty hair and dead animals. The Basket Woman hung her basket on a hook as the four children cried and huddled together, still with sap on their eyes and mouths. The salt water from their tears helped a little bit for them to be able to wipe some of the sap off. They could partially see through the weaved basket as the Basket Woman began to move around her cave. She already had a fire going but she added logs to it and placed a pot with water over the top. She was boiling water.
When baby sister finally got back to the village, she told grandmother and her family that a big woman came and took the other children away in her basket. She told her family that the Basket Woman had taken the children and walked eastward, up the mountain. The family immediately knew where the Basket Woman went, they grabbed their spears, knives, and other weapons and began running towards the East mountain. The men and women warriors of the village ran and ran to get to the cave of the Basket Woman in hopes to save their children.
Meanwhile, back in the cave, the children had been able to wipe some of the sap off of their eyes and were able to see the Basket Women putting spices in the water pot. She was adding chopped vegetables and roots to the hot water. The children were terrified because they knew they were going to be put into the pot and eaten! And they knew they should have listened to their grandmother when she said not to go very far from the village. The children watched as the Basket Woman danced and sang around the fire. They heard her singing, “Time to eat some yummy children. I am so glad they didn’t listen to their family. They wandered too far, and I caught them up.” The children cried and huddled together as they watched the Basket Woman and her long dirty hair move about the cave. Then suddenly, they heard shouting and more voices and they saw the men and women warriors from their villages! The children saw the warriors fighting the Basket Woman and tripping her with ropes and warding her away from the exit with spears. And then they saw their baby sister climb up the very edge of the cave. She was the last of the village warriors to make it to the cave but when she got there, she ran in and pushed the Basket Woman right into the fire! The Basket Woman quickly went into flames from the oils on her hair and unwashed body and clothes. The warriors pulled their children out of the Basket Woman’s basket and hugged their families close. Embers started to spurt out of the fire and fly away. And then the embers began to bite some of the villagers. So the villagers left the cave and made the walk back to the longhouse. And that is how we got modern day mosquitoes.
The End.