Reading Notes: Pacific Northwest, Part B

Story: Chinook Ghosts

Story Source: Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest, especially of Washington and Oregon, by Katharine Berry Judson (1910).

Ghosts, Source: Pexels

Summary Plot:

For some strange reason, the ghosts wanted to buy a wife. They bought Ioi, which was Blue Jay's sister. Blue Jay was a wise bird. Noticing that his sister was gone, after one year, he decided to go look for her.

He asked all of the trees, "Where do people go when they die?" But they had no answer. He asked all of the birds the same question and they did not have the answer. At last, he asked his wedge and the wage told him that he would tell him if he received payment. 

The wedge then took him to a village which was the land of the dead. He found Ioi there. Blue Jay saw all of the skulls and bones on the floor. One of them was Ioi's husband. When it grew dark the bones came to life and became ghosts.

Blue jay began to sing, and the ghosts would turn back to skeletons. He went "fishing" with the skeletons. They had canoes full of holes and covered in moss. They caught branches and leaves with their nets, as these were their salmon and trout.

Blue Jay keep messing with them, one day, putting children's skulls in adults. The ghosts did not like him and bid Ioi send him away. Ioi sent Blue Jay home, but he did not follow her directions. Therefore he died and became a ghost. He returned to the ghost land and found all the bones were real men. The leaves and branches were real salmon and trout, and all their canoes were new.