The origin of fire

At a Glance

• Central figures: Coyote, the trickster; the Fire Spirits who guard the flames on their mountain; and the animal people - Squirrel, Chipmunk, Frog, and Wood - who help carry fire down to the world.
• Setting: A Karok (Karuk) tradition from the Klamath River region of northwestern California; the story takes place when the world was new and the animal people lived without fire.
• The turn: Coyote devises a relay plan to steal fire from the Fire Spirits atop the mountain, stationing animal people at intervals along the trail to pass the burning brand downhill before the spirits can catch them.
• The outcome: The fire reaches Wood, who swallows it and holds it inside herself, so that from then on fire can be drawn from wood by friction.
• The legacy: The dark stripes on Chipmunk’s back, said to be the scorch marks left by the Fire Spirits’ fingers, and the knowledge that fire lives inside wood and can be coaxed out by spinning a drill against a hearth board.

The animal people were cold. They ate their food raw. They huddled together in winter and some of them died, and there was nothing to be done about it because fire belonged to the Fire Spirits and the Fire Spirits lived on top of a mountain and shared it with no one.

Coyote watched his people shivering. He had watched them shiver for a long time. He was not the kind to feel sorry and do nothing about it.

The Mountain and the Fire Spirits

The Fire Spirits kept their fire burning at the summit of a high mountain upriver. They were not generous. They were not cruel either - they simply did not think about the animal people down in the valley at all. The fire was theirs. They danced around it, they warmed themselves by it, they had always had it. They kept watch over it in shifts, three spirits at a time, and the only moment the fire was less guarded was at dawn, when one shift was drowsy and the next had not yet fully risen. Coyote knew this. He had gone up the mountain alone and watched them from behind a rock, counting the rhythm of their watches, noting when their eyes drooped.

He came back down and called the animal people together.

Coyote’s Plan

Coyote did not ask for volunteers. He told each animal where to stand.

He lined them up along the trail that ran from the summit down to the river - each animal at the distance it could run at full speed before giving out. Cougar was closest to the top because Cougar was the fastest over short rocky ground. Then Fox. Then Squirrel. Then Chipmunk. Then Frog, down near the water. And at the very end, at the riverbank, he placed Wood - an old piece of dry wood, standing upright and waiting.

Coyote himself would go to the top. He would steal the fire. He would run with it until he could run no further, and then he would pass it to Cougar, and Cougar would pass it to Fox, and so on down the mountain, each animal running its portion of the trail and handing off the burning stick to the next.

Do not drop it, Coyote told them. Do not stop. They will chase you.

The Theft at Dawn

Coyote climbed the mountain in the dark. He reached the summit just before dawn and crouched behind the same rock where he had spied before. The three Fire Spirits on the night watch were sitting with their chins on their chests, the fire crackling between them. The sky was beginning to gray. In a few minutes the day-watch spirits would come out of their shelter.

Coyote darted forward. He seized a burning brand from the edge of the fire and ran.

The spirits woke screaming. They were fast - faster than Coyote had expected. He could feel them behind him, their heat on his back, their hands reaching. His legs burned. His lungs burned. He saw Cougar waiting on the trail below and threw the brand.

Cougar caught it in his mouth and ran. The Fire Spirits shrieked and followed. Cougar’s paws hammered the trail, but the spirits gained on him. He reached Fox and Fox took the brand and was gone, weaving between trees, the fire trailing sparks behind her.

Fox passed it to Squirrel. Squirrel ran with the brand arched over her back, and the heat of it curled her tail up and over - they say Squirrel’s tail has curved that way ever since.

The Marks on Chipmunk

Squirrel reached Chipmunk and Chipmunk took the brand and ran. But Chipmunk was small and the Fire Spirits were close now. One of them reached out and raked its fingers down Chipmunk’s back.

Chipmunk screamed but did not stop. The spirit’s fingers left long dark burns down her fur, from her shoulders to her haunches. She kept running. She could see Frog below, waiting at the edge of the water.

She flung the brand to Frog. Frog caught it, turned, and leaped toward the river. A Fire Spirit grabbed Frog by the tail. Frog pulled free - the tail came off in the spirit’s hand. Frog landed in the water and swam, holding the last of the burning coal in his mouth.

They say that is why frogs have no tails.

Wood Swallows the Fire

Frog reached the riverbank and spat the coal out at Wood’s feet. The coal was almost dead - a faint red glow, barely alive. Wood bent down and swallowed it.

The Fire Spirits came crashing down to the riverbank. They saw Wood standing there, silent and still.

Give it back, they said.

Wood said nothing. Wood could not speak. The fire was inside her now, deep in her grain, hidden. The Fire Spirits beat on Wood, shook her, screamed at her. She did not open. She did not give the fire up.

They could not get it out. After a long time, they went back up the mountain.

Fire in the Wood

Coyote came down from where he had been watching - limping a little, his fur singed. He walked to Wood and looked at her for a while.

Then he showed the animal people what to do. He took a pointed stick and set it against Wood’s body and spun it between his palms, fast, pressing down. After a time, smoke came. After more time, an ember appeared - a small red eye opening in the dust where the drill met the hearth board.

Coyote blew on it. It caught. Fire came back into the world.

From then on the animal people could make fire whenever they wanted. They only had to find dry wood and a straight stick and the patience to spin it. The fire was inside the wood, where Frog had put it, where Wood had swallowed it and refused to let go.

Chipmunk still carries the dark stripes on her back. Squirrel’s tail still curls. Frog still has no tail. And when you spin a fire drill against a dry board and the first thread of smoke rises, that is the old coal Frog carried in his mouth, still alive inside the wood, waiting to be asked out.