Jane Louise Curry, Children's Books Author
  Illustrated by James Watts. Trouble is not long in coming. Curious and greedy Weasel accidentally unleashes winds and violent weather and a great darkness upon the world. Coyote, hungry and cold in the darkness, sets out to find a better place for all of the animal folk to live, and it is Coyote who discovers the Sun and puts it in the sky so that the animals and birds might have light and warmth, and fire to cook by. It is clever Coyote who frees the salmon after they are imprisoned by witches, and returns them to their rivers. Just as often, though, Coyote’s trickery and boasting get him into trouble with the other animals, so that at last he decides to prove how powerful he is by making Man, and then Woman—and to making them as clever and wise as he himself. But that changes everything…  Back in the Beforetime, in the days after the Sun was put in the sky, the animal people could see at last how wide and empty the World was. The plains stretched north, south, east, and west to the sky's edge. In all the World there were no landmarks but the white-teepee mountain Shasta and the lake that was called Tulare. On the lake lived all the swimmers and divers among the Beforetime People. The ducks lived there, and the geese. Pelican lived there, and Mud Hen. Coyote and Cuckoo, Prairie Fox and Jackrabbit, Jay and Jumping Mouse, and all the others of the bird and animal people lived together in the villages of the foothills or the plain. Coyote was still full of his own cleverness. Had not his Sun been a great success? Even Crane said so. But before long, the animal people took to turning away when they spied him coming. “Trouble-maker," they called him. "Old Nosy." And "Sneak," because of his silent step as he sidled close to listen to the plans and secrets of others. For Coyote snooped and gossiped and meddled. And always he knew better than anyone else. "That is no way to shell an acorn!" he said. "That is no way to feather an arrow !" "That roof will never keep out rain." Far worse was his gossip. If Fox told his wife that Skunk's house was not very tidy, Coyote, overhearing, ran at once to tell everyone else. And with each telling, Skunk's house grew untidier. "Have you heard how Skunk keeps house? His floor is littered with mouse bones." "Have you heard ? Skunk's store baskets hold more maggots than food !" "Have you not heard? Old Skunk grows worse and worse. His blankets are so stiff with dirt that in the daytime he cannot fold them. He props them up against the wall!" Afterward, happy as a swallow in spring, Coyote trotted off to tell Skunk that Fox had been telling tales about him. But then Coyote turned his tongue's mischief on Eagle, chief of all the bird and animal people. Coyote whispered this, and whispered that. He stirred up trouble happily. "Did you hear what Eagle said about Crane?" "Is it true that Eagle ate Cottontail's cousin?" "I hear old Eagle is blind in one eye, and others must do his hunting." At last Eagle could stand it no more. "No more!" Eagle shrilled. "I must find somewhere to live where Coyote cannot spread his nonsense." But where? Coyote wandered everywhere but under the waters of Tulare Lake or on the high mountain slopes. A mountain! Now there was an idea, thought Eagle. At once he called the animal people together-- all of them but Coyote-- to make his announcement. "I am moving away,” said Eagle. " Away from the mischief Coyote makes with his meddling and tale-telling. And you shall help me. All of you." "Tell us what to do,” said Bear. "And where you will live,” added Jackrabbit. Eagle nodded. "Coyote travels the foothills and plains. I must live in the mountains, where he will not go. So you must build me mountains. High mountains, away to the east, where I can make the highest mountaintop home." Eagle was a good chief, so the bird and animal people did as he asked. With digging sticks they dug earth to fill their burden baskets, and when their baskets were full they slung them on their backs and set out toward the east. At the place where the mountains were to be, they emptied the baskets and returned for more. Beaver went, and nd some- Bear. Fox and Weasel, Cottontail and Caribou worked side by side. Mouse and Mountain Lion and Deer came, and Crow and Pelican, Quail and Rail and Owl, Badger, Otter, and Skunk. Hundreds came. Even Hummingbird, and Ant and all of his people. As the earth was heaped higher and higher, the mountains rose. Bit by bit they grew until at last they were so tall that the snow began to fall on their crests. "Enough!" called Eagle. "Enough!” The bird and animal people stopped at the mountain foot and emptied there on the ground the baskets of earth left over: When they looked up at the mountains they had mounded up, they raised a cheer. Such ridges and ranges! Such fine pointed peaks ! And the round mounds you still may see along the foothills of the Sierras? They are the earth from the baskets left over from building Eagle’s new home.    When I gathered together the stories for BACK IN THE BEFORETIME, I found that I had lost or not made note of the sources of a number of the original tales I had copied down years earlier. For that reason, and because I had retold some of the tales by combining two or three versions of that same tale, I did not list the storyteller tribes when I first published BACK IN THE BEFORETIME. The ones I do know are given below. (I learned my lesson, and for my later collections, TURTLE ISLAND, THE WONDERFUL SKY BOAT, and HOLD UP THE SKY, I took careful notes on my sources so that I could tell readers more about the storytellers!) HOW OLD MAN ABOVE CREATED THE WORLD ROADRUNNER'S PACK HOW COYOTE STOLE THE SUN MOUNTAIN-MAKING MEASURING WORM'S GREAT CLIMB THE THEFT OF FIRE – Karok COYOTE AND THE SALMON COYOTE RIDES A STAR – “Alta California” GOPHER'S REVENGE - Kato CLEVER FROG – “Baja California” THE LOST BROTHER – Achomawi/ THE WAR BETWEEN BEASTS AND BIRDS - Modoc CRICKET AND MOUNTAIN LION – Salinan/ COYOTE'S SQUIRREL HUNT COYOTE AND BADGER - Kawaiisu/ MOLE AND THE SUN - Achomawi THE PINE-NUT THIEVES – Owens Valley Paiute COYOTE RIDES THE SUN – Yowlmaynee Yokuts THE MAKING OF FIRST MAN – “Alta California”/ THE WAKING OF MEN - Wappo THE LAST COUNCIL – Michahai Yokuts BACK IN THE BEFORETIME cover art © 1987 by James Watts, and cover art for the Aladdin edition © 2001 by Donna Perrone, are used by permission of Margaret K. McElderry Books and Aladdin Books, imprints of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division. |
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