Comments: 22
YVTs [2023-04-14 15:50:37 +0000 UTC]
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WhiteWolf2018 [2018-06-05 18:27:36 +0000 UTC]
This is oral history remembered in mythological guise. Over time, History becomes legend and legend becomes myth. Many myths have a basis in real events of long ago. This is the story of a catastrophic Bretzian flood of the Columbia River Basin as told and retold across the generations. This story contains so many aspects that fit the mechanism and effects of the floods, as worked out by modern day geologists quite unaware of native legends, that it cannot be mere coincidence. Such floods occurred between 18,000 and 12,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age, when ice dams retaining huges lakes of meltwater suddenly gave way. Warming and melting did not happen in a regular way ; cold periods between the warming up ones allowed the ice sheets to grow again and the ice dams to be rebuilt. During the period concerned, such floods happened on average once in every two or three human generations. Not all episodes were as destructive as some others. The fight between Spillyay the Coyote and Wishpoosh the giant beaver could be the echo of one particularly catastrophic outburst or the merged remembrance of those times. The most spectacular floods were those that created the huge and very deep temporary Lake Lewis in the Tri-Cities area, when the Columbia Gorge was blocked by debris. I have heard other recountings of the "myth" that mentioning the transport of huge stones (still scattered about the region where the were dropped) and the carrying far out to sea of the flood debris. There is a huge fan of coarse sediments and flood flotsam issuing from the mouth of the Columbia that extends out under the sea surface into the Pacific over a great distance - the site of the last fight between Spillyay and Wishpoosh. Another meaningful detail of the myth concerns the tribes issued from the scattered organs of the Beaver. The human camps along the Columbia River valley and its affluents (where the flood waters surged upstream before draining down again) would have been wiped out, with only rare survivors that happened to be on heights at the time the wall of water up to several hundreds meters tall came racing down the valley. The old ethnic groups were no more; their survivors rgrouped to form new communities, the seeds of present day Native nations. Significantly, the only one mentioned in the myth are those that ethnologists say were already present in the region as far back as 12,000 years ago. Other tribal groups, such as the Salish, Spokans, Sinkiuse and Okanagan, are not mentioned -- and ethnologists estimate their migration into the area to have taken place only 6 or 8000 years ago (I I dont remember off hand it is is 6 or 8000 yrs) - which still makes therm more anciently settled in their country than modern-day Europeans have been living in Europe.
The myth of Spillyay and Wishpoosh is at least 12,000 years old, and more likely 14 to 16,000 years old. I believe this to be a record, although there is another legend from the same area, that of Laliik, that remembers Lake Lewis, and there are some similar legends of Natives East of the Rockies that could be as old. In comparison, the flooding of the Black Sea that probably gave rise to he Biblical Flood myth occurred 7,500 years ago and the oldest European legend, the Trojan War, has its historical roots a mere 3,250 years ago (if not less).
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AnthonyDisneyArtist [2018-05-16 21:02:18 +0000 UTC]
wooow i making illustration toΒ
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Thalarctusmaritimus [2014-06-05 15:47:02 +0000 UTC]
Melissa, I hope you don't mind that I use your image in a presentation I am doing for my mythology class - it is hard to go up in front of a bunch of college kids and explain how a giant beaver should be scary...
Also, thanks for watermarking your image, it reminded me to ask you for permission!
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NixKat [2014-04-19 18:09:44 +0000 UTC]
Cool.
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Islander-60 [2014-01-15 15:40:36 +0000 UTC]
A wonderful story... Old Coyote never did manage to get things quite right!
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GummyBirbs [2011-09-18 22:41:31 +0000 UTC]
So thats what the Were Justin Beiber looks like
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PureMissa In reply to GummyBirbs [2011-09-19 15:24:01 +0000 UTC]
LOL!!!!! the truth has been revealed! now that is an awesome comment!
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GummyBirbs In reply to PureMissa [2011-09-19 19:14:02 +0000 UTC]
I know and your just jelly
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PureMissa In reply to GummyBirbs [2011-09-20 01:54:20 +0000 UTC]
wow. I know I am what I eat but who knew that jelly would win in a PB&J.
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GummyBirbs In reply to PureMissa [2011-09-20 01:56:07 +0000 UTC]
Jelly as in Jealous
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PureMissa In reply to GummyBirbs [2011-09-23 13:51:12 +0000 UTC]
OOOOHHHH... I was having conversations with my hunny trying to figure out what you meant by jelly.
Yes I am Jelly! =^_^=
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GummyBirbs In reply to PureMissa [2011-09-23 19:15:39 +0000 UTC]
Ok I forgot what we were talking about
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PureMissa In reply to GummyBirbs [2011-09-24 04:07:23 +0000 UTC]
Beber... however his name is spelled
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springheel [2010-08-24 03:29:56 +0000 UTC]
I told him not to eat those trees marked: "Property of Gamma Base"!
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JynxMerlin [2010-07-12 00:34:25 +0000 UTC]
Amazingggg~ and a good legend too ^_^
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elygrl [2010-07-11 05:08:21 +0000 UTC]
ooohhhh yeah i like it!!!!
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yiptrip [2010-07-10 23:13:43 +0000 UTC]
RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH -Chomp chomp chomp- ARRROOO
-Pokes eye with stick-
xDD Nice
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