Coast Salish Tales
Also known as: Folk-Tales of the Coast Salish, Coast Salish Stories, Coast Salish Oral Narratives
A large, early twentieth-century corpus of Coast Salish oral narratives—recorded from many speakers across western Washington and British Columbia—preserving Transformer episodes, trickster cycles, place-making accounts, and ritual origins.
Description
“Coast Salish Tales” designates the documented body of narratives from the Coast Salish peoples (Halkomelem, Lushootseed, Nooksack, Twana/Skokomish, Straits Salish, and others) as assembled in the classic 1934 volume edited by Thelma Adamson and in later companion publications. The collection spans origin stories (sxwōxwiyám), Transformer deeds, animal-human encounters, and etiologies of places, names, and ceremonial objects. While many texts were recorded in English or translated from Salishan languages, they retain local geographies and kinship ties that anchor law, subsistence, and ritual practice. The corpus is foundational for scholars of Northwest Coast narrative and for community knowledge work, though its mediated form reflects collector, language, and era constraints.
Historiography
The 1934 Adamson volume consolidated 190 texts from nineteen consultants, becoming the principal early publication of Coast Salish narratives and part of Boasian-era folklore documentation. Later work expanded and localized the corpus (e.g., Elmendorf’s Skokomish tales) and reprints made the material widely available. Wayne Suttles’ essays reframed interpretation toward economy, sociality, and territory, while contemporary community-based publications and projects emphasize language, place, and sovereignty. Editorial Englishing and collector frames require cautious, site-specific reading.
Date Notes
Texts recorded mainly in the 1920s–1930s and published as a major corpus in 1934; subsequent Coast Salish tale publications and reprints continue through the 20th–21st centuries.
Themes
Archetypes
Symbols
Major Characters
- Xá:ls
- Raven
- Mink
- Thunderbird
Myths
- Transformer Xá:ls Shapes the Land
- Raven and Mink Trickster Tales
- Origin of Salmon and Cedar
- The Flood and the Great Canoe
- Winter Dances and Spirit Quests
Facts
- The 1934 corpus edited by Thelma Adamson contains 190 texts from 19 consultants across western Washington Salish communities.
- Narratives were recorded in English or translated from Salishan languages such as Halkomelem, Lushootseed, and Twana.
- Transformer (Xexá:ls) episodes encode law, territory, and the moral ordering of specific places.
- Trickster cycles (notably Mink and Raven) articulate social norms through inversion, humor, and consequences.
- Place-based etiologies often explain rock formations, village sites, and ritual objects like the Sxwáixwe mask.
- Thunderbird–Killer Whale conflicts and sea-power stories reflect marine subsistence and coastal weather realities.
- Reprints and library editions have kept the 1934 collection in circulation for scholars and communities.
- Subsequent localized collections, such as Skokomish-focused publications, complement the wider 1934 corpus.
- Modern, community-authored children’s books adapt teachings for language and cultural education.
- Scholarly debates emphasize reading these texts with attention to language, performance, and colonial collection contexts.