# In the Reign of Coyote

"In the center sat Coyote"
| | IN THE |
| REIGN OF COYOTE |||
FOLKLORE FROM THE PACIFIC COAST
BY
KATHERINE CHANDLER
Author of "Habits of California Plants" and "The Bird- Woman of the Lewis and Clark Expedition"
DRAWINGS BY
J. W. FERGUSON KENNEDY
GINN & COMPANY
BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON
Copyright, 1905 by KATHERINE CHANDLER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
55.9
The Athenæum Press GINN & COMPANY • PRO- PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A.
TO MY BROTHER
ALBERT E. CHANDLER
WHOSE STEADFAST SYMPATHY HAS MADE POSSIBLE
THIS COLLECTION OF FOLKLORE
PREFACE
Some of the tales contained in this book have already been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Sunset, Popular Educator, Children's World, and Good Housekeeping.
The stories from Lower California, as related by Tecla, were told to me by Mrs. Jules Simoneau of Monterey, California, who is an Indian from Mazatlan. The sources of those chapters containing stories of Alta California are as follows: "Old Deer and Old Grizzly," Albert Samuel Gatschet in The United States Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region Contributions to North American Ethnology, II, Part I, 118; "Why the Coyote is so Cunning," Stephen Powers, III, 35; "How the Animals secured Fire," 38; "Coyote's Ride on a Star," 39; "How the Animals secured Light," 182; "Why the Bat is Blind," 343; "The Creation of Man," 358; "The Creation of the World," 273, and J. Owen Dorsey in The American Anthropologist, II, 38; "The Story of the Pleiades," Alexander S. Taylor in The California Farmer, "Indianology of California," January ​18, 1861. The Oregon country represented by Klayukat's tales is meant to include the vast unbounded territory known by that name previous to 1848. The material for the stories was garnered from the following books: "How the Animals got their Colors," Franz Boas, Bureau of American Ethnology: Kathlamet Texts, Bulletin 26, 39; "Why there is only One Southwest Wind," 67; "The Robin and the Salmon Berry," 118; "Why the Owl eats only Small Creatures," The Pacific Northwest Oregon and Washington, 2 vols., compiled and published by the Northwest Pacific History Company, Portland, Oregon, 1889, II, 66; "The Subjugation of the Thunderbird," 67; "How the Animals secured Salmon," 68; "Why the Tick is now Small," 69; "The Frog in the Moon," 70; "Why the Sun travels regularly," 70; "Why the Mosquito hates Smoke," 74; "Why the Snakes change their Skins," 76; "Why the Dead do not come back," 80.
While the essentials of the stories have been retained, the narratives have been elaborated and modified.
The setting of three Indians from different tribes on the same Californian ranch is historically true. Indian servants from Mexico and Lower California accompanied the pioneers northward; the California ​Indians who were taught trades at the Missions often drifted into the service of the families; and the records of San Carlos Mission show that on November 14, 1791, seventeen natives of "Puerto de San Lorenzo de Nutka en el Estrechos de San Juan de Fuca" were baptized into the Holy Catholic Church at that Mission.
I am indebted to Miss Harriet Hawley of New York for criticism both of the spirit and the technique of these stories, and to my sister, Mabel G. Chandler, for assistance in correction.
KATHERINE CHANDLER
San Francisco, California May, 1905
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1930, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 93 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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