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Wintu Indians Credit Coyote with Introducing Cooked Food

According to Wintu Indian tradition, the first people ate their food raw for lack of fire until Coyote helped out.  He led the Wintu north until they came to a house where two women cooked over a fire.

He said, “I am the only one who has the right song. I will pretend I’m cold and hungry; I’ll beg to enter and they will take pity on me.”

Coyote instructed Panther, Deer, Squirrel, and all the people to be ready to catch the fire and run with it when he came out of the house. When the woman went to bed, someone knocked on the front door and Coyote ran out the back.

Coyote tossed a hot coal to Panther who ran with it, passed it to Deer, who gave it to Fox, who passed it to Squirrel, who ran up and down the trees. Frog grabbed the coal and dived into the water, but not before the woman grabbed his tail. That is why frogs do not have tails. 

Frog had tossed the coal into a hollow stump before jumping into water, allowing the Wintu people of Northern California to build fires and cook food.

Source: DuBois, Cora and Dorothy Demetracopoulou. "Wintu Myths..." Siskiyou Pioneer, The 2.3 (1953): 37. Print.

Gail Fiorini-Jenner is a writer and teacher. Her first novel "Across the Sweet Grass Hills", won the 2002 WILLA Literary Award. She co-authored four histories with Arcadia Publishing: Western Siskiyou County: Gold & Dreams, Images of the State of Jefferson, The State of Jefferson: Then & Now, which placed in the 2008 Next Generation Awards for Nonfiction and Postcards from the State of Jefferson.