Minnetonka Women's Thunderbird Moccasins

Legend of the Thunderbird  

     In the time long ago, it is said that animals shared many of the same qualities as people. Once a giant killer whale ate all the salmon in the ocean. Humans began to starve. Although the chiefs begged the whale to leave, it repeatedly mocked them.

    Finally, a congress of the greatest chiefs was convened. after a time, a great wind blew in from the sea. lightning flashed, thunder roared. They felt the presence of an great invisible spirit. "if I were to help you, what will you do for me? "The spirit asked. The chiefs promised, for all time, to reproduce the spirits likeness as a sign of admiration and respect.

    Thus, satisfied with their promises, Thunder bird appeared. He was an enormous manifestation with lightning flashing from his pointed talons and thunder rolling from his sun-blocking wings. Snatching up the Killer Whale the raptor spirit dropped it into the land where it solidified into a mountain.

Another Version of the Legend of the Thunderbird

Long ago, there was a sad time in the land of the Quillayute. For days and days, great storms blew. Rain and hail and then sleet and snow came down upon the land. The hailstones were so large that many of the people were killed. The other Quillayute were driven from their coast villages to the great prairie, which was the highest part of their land.

There the people grew thin and weak from hunger. The hailstones had beaten down the ferns, the camas, and the berries. Ice locked the rivers so the men could not fish. Storms rocked the ocean so the fishermen could not go out in their canoes for deep-sea fishing. Soon, the people had eaten all the grass and roots on the prairie; there was no food left. As children died without food, even the strongest and bravest of their fathers could do nothing. They called upon the Great Spirit for help, but no help came.

At last the Great Chief of the Quillayute called a meeting of his people. He was old and wise. "Take comfort, my people," the Chief said. "We will call again upon the Great Spirit for help. If no help comes, then we will know it is His will that we die. If it is not His will that we live, then we will die bravely, as brave Quillayute have always died. Let us talk with the Great Spirit."

So the weak and hungry people sat in silence while the Chief talked with the Great Spirit, who had looked kindly upon the Quillayute for hundreds of years.

When his prayer had ended, the Chief turned again to his people. "Now we will wait for the will of the One who is wise and all-powerful."

The people waited. No one spoke. There was nothing but silence and darkness. Suddenly, there came a great noise, and flashes of lightning cut the darkness. A deep whirring sound, like giant wings beating, came from the place of the setting sun. All of the people turned to gaze toward the sky above the ocean as a huge, bird-shaped creature flew toward them.

This bird was larger than any they had ever seen. Its wings, from tip to tip, were twice as long as a war canoe. It had a huge, curving beak, and its eyes glowed like fire. The people saw that its great claws held a living, giant whale.

In silence, they watched while Thunderbird - for so the bird was named by everyone -carefully lowered the whale to the ground before them. Thunderbird then flew high in the sky, and went back to the thunder and lightning it had come from. Perhaps it flew back to its perch in the hunting grounds of the Great Spirit.

Thunderbird and Whale saved the Quillayute from dying. The people knew that the Great Spirit had heard their prayer. Even today they never forget that visit from Thunderbird, never forget that it ended long days of hunger and death. For on the prairie near their village are big, round stones that the grandfathers say are the hardened hailstones of that storm long ago.

The Quillayute is a Chimakoan tribe living along the Quillayute River, a six-mile river on the Olympic Peninsula. The fishing village of Lapush is at its mouth.
These stories are adapted from Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest by Ella E. Clark, University of California Press, 1953.

-Harry Edmonn