LEGEND OF FLATHEAD ORIGIN
James Henry, a well known Indian of Port Gamble, who follows the sealing
business is responsible for the story of the sky falling down.
A long time ago all the Indians with flattened heads lived away up north
in the region of perpetual ice and snow. The parents of the race were ten
brothers and all of them were very big men. They lived on deer and bear
meat and the flesh of tarmigan or white grouse. They were all excellent
archers and they killed so many white grouse with their bows and arrows
that the Sagh-a-lie Tyee began to think that they would exterminate the
species and he told them to kill no more white grouse for one “snow,” or
winter season. They heeded him not, for they kept on slaughtering the
grouse and eating them. In those days the sun passed over the earth from
east to west and retraced its steps while they slept, and the sky was
above the sun. One day the Sagh-a-lie Tyee became much angered at them
for killing so many grouse, so he let the sky fall on them.
Then there followed a long hard winter and many people perished of hunger
and cold for they had not killed bear and deer and prepared for the
winter and it was so dark and there was so much ice and snow that they
could not see to hunt and fish. These ten brothers awaited the return of
day for a long time and at last the youngest of them in utter despair set
about it and tried to lift up the sky with poles, and all his brothers
helped him. They worked in this way for many months. They would raise one
corner of the sky up so they could just see the day light and it would
fall back on them, and again all would be total darkness, and all the
land would be covered with ice and snow. At length, however, they got one
big tall pole and all the Indians went to work with it and tried to prop
the sky up, but for a long time they met with failure. At last, however,
they succeed in getting the sky to start up long enough so that the sun
could get under the great hollow hemisphere which they believe the sky
to be, then the sun followed around the longest way in the day time of
summer going back on the upper, or outside of the sky in the shortest
route by night. In the winter months it passes across the under side of
the sky by the shortest route, and back on the outside by the longest
route so that ever since that time the Indians have had the longest days
and shortest nights in the dry months of summer when they wanted to fish
and hunt. It has always been light in the day time so that people could
see to work, and dark at night so that they could sleep better, and the
Indians have had the longest nights and shortest days in the wet months
of winter when they could do but little and wanted to sleep most of the
time.