The Fire Bringer
A Paiute Indian legend
Adapted from a story by Mary Austin
The use of fire is probably the most important discovery people ever
made. It provided energy for light, for warmth, and for cooking. People
used fire to make their lives easier and more comfortable.
Tales of how fire was first discovered have grown up in every land.
People everywhere thought of fire as a gift from the gods. This Paiute
Indian legend shows how highly the gift of fire was valued.
There was a time, long, long ago, when the Paiute people did not have
fire.
In summer, this did not matter, for the land of the Paiutes was warm.
The people didn’t wear much clothing. They did not even need houses.
They moved about the land, gathering food. The women and girls used
sharp sticks to dig up tasty roots. With nets made of twisted tree bark,
men and boys caught bright fish in the streams. There was laughter and
happiness. All was well.
But in winter, things were very different. The air was bitter cold and
heavy snow lay upon the land. The people wrapped themselves in robes
made of woven rabbit skins and huddled together in their underground
pit-houses. They were miserable and unhappy.
Among the Paiute there was one boy who was as cold as anyone. But he
thought only of the others. It bothered him to see his people so
unhappy.
One day, as the boy sat huddled on a snowy hillside, Coyote came to him.
In those days, men and animals could talk to one another, and Coyote was
the Friend and Counselor of man.
\”Why are you troubled, boy?” Coyote asked.
\”I sorrow for my people,” answered the boy. \”They are suffering from
the cold.”
\”I do not feel it,” said Coyote.
\”That is because you have a coat of fur,” the boy said. \”The only fur
my people have, they must get by hunting. And this is not easy. Is there
no way to help them?”
\”There is a way—there is something that can be done,” said Coyote.
\”It will be very hard to do, but I will help you. We must bring fire to
your people.”
The boy stared at him. \”Fire? What is fire?”
Coyote thought for a time, wondering how best to describe fire to
someone who had never seen it. \”It is like a bright, red flower, yet it
is not a flower,” he said. \”Nor is it a beast, even though, like a
beast, it runs through grass and woods and devours everything in its
path. It is fierce, and can cause pain. But if it is kept inside a
circle of stones, and fed with small sticks, it will be a friend to your
people. It will give them light, keep them warm, and cook their food.”
\”Where is this fire?” asked the boy. \”How can we get it?”
\”Its den is on the Burning Mountain by the Big Water, more than a
hundred days journey from here,” Coyote told him. \”It is guarded day
and night by the Fire Spirits. No man can get near it. But the Fire
Spirits will not pay any attention to an animal, for animals are known
to fear fire. Perhaps I can creep close enough to steal some of the fire
and give it to you.”
The boy leaped to his feet. \”Let us go, my friend,” he cried.
\”Wait,” warned Coyote. \”I told you that it will not be easy. The Fire
Spirits will chase us, and they are swift as the rushing wind. You could
never run for a hundred days without them catching you! You must have
help. There must be a hundred of your tribe’s swiftest runners, each
waiting a day’s distance apart.”
\”I will get them,” declared the boy.
He went among his people and told them of the things Coyote had said. He
urged them to help him get fire. But some were afraid, others were lazy,
and many simply did not believe him. \”How can you, who are only a boy,
know about this \’fire’?” they asked, scornfully. \”We have never heard
of it.”
But the boy pleaded and argued. Finally, the people decided that they
were so cold and unhappy they had nothing to lose. They might as well do
as the boy wanted. They chose the tribe’s hundred swiftest runners.
Then, led by the boy and Coyote, the people started out.
came to a vast, parched plain, where the dried
earth had broken into countless cracks, and the
horizon was hidden in a blue mist.
At the end of each day, Coyote told one of the runners to stay behind.
\”Wait here,” he said.
They left the place of their home and went into the great mountains
whose peaks reached up out of the snow and touched the sky. They
followed the mountain streams down through a long stretch of dark,
frightening forest. They
\”In time, you will see a man running toward you, carrying a stick upon
which a bright, red flower is growing. But it will not be a flower, it
will be fire. You must take the stick from him and run as fast as you
can to where the next runner is waiting.”
One by one, the runners were left behind. Finally at the end of the
hundredth day, Coyote and the boy stood at the foot of the Burning
Mountain. It was a great, black cone, and from its point rose a plume of
smoke. As the sky darkened with night, the top of the mountain glowed.
And the glare of the fire turned the waves of the Big Watei’ red when
the Fire Spirits began their dance.
\”I will go now and try to steal a bit of fire,” said Coyote. \”When you
see me coming back, be ready to run. The Fire Spirits will be chasing
me, and I will be too tired to go on. You must take the fire from me and
carry it to the next runner.”
Then Coyote picked up a dry branch and started up the mountainside. His
fur was dirty and he was thin from the long way he had come. The Fire
Spirits laughed to see this shabby, skinny, slinking creature, so hungry
he was
chewing on an old tree branch. They paid no more attention to
him—which was exactly what Coyote wanted.
As the Fire Spirits began to dance, Coyote crouched and waited. Then he
leaped forward and caught a bit of fire on the branch. Holding the
burning branch in his mouth, he dashed away. He raced down the
mountainside as fast as his legs could carry him. Hissing and crackling
with rage, the Fire Spirits rushed after him.
The boy saw Coyote coming, and saw the red flower glowing on the branch
in Coyote’s mouth. He also saw the burning sparks streaming back along
Coyote’s sides, and he heard the singing sound of the enraged Fire
Spirits close behind. He braced himself, like an arrow in a bent bow,
ready to fly.
Coyote reached him nearly out of breath. The boy took the burning branch
and began to run. Through the night and into the next day he ran, the
Fire Spirits snapping and singing behind him. Gasping for breath and
about to drop, he finally reached the next runner and handed him the
flaming branch.
And so the torch was passed from one man to another. Runners sped over
the parched plain and through the dark woods. Behind them hissed the
furious Fire Spirits. But when they reached the snowy mountains, the
Fire Spirits stopped. They could not go on, for fire cannot live on
snow.
Finally, the last runner brought the burning branch back to his own
land. The people surrounded the fire with a circle of stones. And they
fed it twigs, as Coyote had told them to.
The fire blazed up and burned cheerfully. The people crowded about,
marveling at the light and warmth and comfort it gave them. In time,
they learned to use it to cook their food as well, which made the food
taste better.
As for the boy, the people named him the Fire Bringer. He was called by
this name until
he died. Then, the Paiute people named Coyote the Fire Bringer,
because there was no one else . with so good a right to the name.The Paiute people know this tale is true. Look at any thin, shabby,
slinking coyote. You can see for yourself that the fur on its sides
looks as if it were singed by the fire brought down from the Burning
Mountain.
