First Fish First People: Salmon Tales of the North Pacific Rim
The arc of land and water forming the North Pacific Rim is a cut lace work of rivers running to the great ocean. The salmon, sacred to people who lived along the pathways of its journey, once engorged these rivers, but no more. Thirteen writers from cultures profoundly connected to salmon were asked to write about "the fish of the gods" from both a historical and a contemporary perspective. These writers from two continents and four countries are Ainu from Japan; Nyvkh from Sakhalin; Ulchi...
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The arc of land and water forming the North Pacific Rim is a cut lace work of rivers running to the great ocean. The salmon, sacred to people who lived along the pathways of its journey, once engorged these rivers, but no more. Thirteen writers from cultures profoundly connected to salmon were asked to write about "the fish of the gods" from both a historical and a contemporary perspective. These writers from two continents and four countries are Ainu from Japan; Nyvkh from Sakhalin; Ulchi from Siberia; Okanagan and Coastal Salish from Canada; and Makah, Warm Springs and Spokane from the United States. Their writing celebrates the blessedness and mourns the loss of the salmon while alerting us to current dangers and conditions.Karen WyckoffFirst Fish successfully submerges the reader in a world of spiritual celebration where poetic opalescence and the resilience of researched essays flash like scales themselves. -- ForeWord Magazine
List of Illustrations7Acknowledgments8Permissions9Preface10Introduction12The Powwow at the End of the World16That Place Where Ghosts of Salmon JumpTraditional Ainu Life: Living Off the Interest22Kamuy Yukar: My Village Painted on the Face of the SkyWho Owns the Salmon?40Images of Salmon and You46Kettle Falls on the Columbia, Circa 1937IllusionsSalmon Coming Home in Search of Sacred Bliss58Tradition with a Big "T"64TWANAT, to follow behind the ancestorsConversionThe Ulchi World View90Temu - The God of the Waters and the Ritual to the SalmonUlchi Clan Creation MythsThe Anga Clan LegendThe Salmon SpiritFive Slices of Salmon1001Introduction2Trolling3Dryfish Camp4Raven, King Salmon and the Birds5How to Make Good Baked Salmon from the River6Salmon Egg Puller - $2.15 an HourTraveling by Dugout on the Chitose River and Sending the Salmon Spirits Home: Memoir of an Ainu Woman122The Makah Indians132The Politics of Taking FishThe Nyvkhs150At the SourceWhere Love Winds Itself Around Desire160Unclean Tides: An Essay on Salmon and Relations180The Fox's Plea: An Ainu Fable196
\ Karen WyckoffFirst Fish successfully submerges the reader in a world of spiritual celebration where poetic opalescence and the resilience of researched essays flash like scales themselves. -- ForeWord Magazine\ \ \ \ \ BooknewsTaking the Pacific Ocean not as a barrier but as a bridge and a resource shared by many peoples and lands, a collection of 13 accounts of the importance of salmon from both a historical and a contemporary perspective. They also comprise a plea for protection and restoration. Among the peoples are the Ainu from Japan; Ulchi from Siberia; Okanagan and Coastal Shalish from Canada; and Makah, Warm Springs, and Spokane from the US. No index or bibliography. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.\ \
