Spring Salmon people (Tate’s account)

Overview

A prince from a Skeena River canyon village gives a hungry enslaved companion a piece of his mother’s stored salmon. After she angrily rebukes him, he leaves home. Four apparent canoe travellers take him to a sea village whose houses bear salmon carvings. Mouse Woman identifies its inhabitants and explains that their chief’s two-year illness corresponds to the dried fish folded inside his mother’s box. Unfolding that fish has already eased the chief’s suffering. He receives the prince as an adopted son rather than simply imprisoning him.

The community appears human to its visitor, but its children become small salmon when killed for food. Restoration follows the proper treatment of their remains. In two episodes, a missing eye and rib leave the restored children in pain until the prince finds and disposes of those remnants as instructed. Mouse Woman explains the connection. Meanwhile the salmon regard cottonwood leaves entering the rivers as their own seasonal salmon supply. Their scouts’ reports govern the move from the deep-sea settlement to the Skeena and Nass.

The journey passes several distinct fish communities, each with its own houses and timing. The text calls them Silver, Steelhead, Humpback, Dog and Cohoes Salmon, as well as Trout; these English designations are retained without imposing a corrected scientific classification. Dog Salmon houses carry rainbow forms, Cohoes houses hooked noses, and Trout houses stars. Chief Spring Salmon gives the prince a smooth pebble to hold in his mouth, promising protection. Later it also sustains him without ordinary food.

Back at the human village, the shaman Nes-wa-ye°tk diagnoses the connection with the stored fish. The parents eat it, and the salmon chief recovers. During the migration, the shaman’s net intercepts the chief carrying the prince inside his stomach. A supernatural helper warns against injuring the child. Two elder women open the fish, recover a tiny prince, and the assembled shamans restore him to his former size. He teaches his family what he has learned about salmon’s renewal and the consequences of retaining their dried bodies.

The second journey begins after the prince lends his protective pebble to his closest friend. Taking a salmon-like form as bait at a bird trap, he is seized by a hawk and left dead in human appearance. Salmon messengers later call him from his coffin, and he rises joyfully to join them. The friend follows unseen, discovering that squeezing their red neck wreaths makes the paddlers faint until released. In the sea village he returns the pebble to the prince, who can then recognise him; the other salmon still cannot see the human visitor.

The friend also sees a dance whose apparent eagle down becomes herring spawn at the viewing hole. Homesick, he urges the prince to return. The prince says he would die on reaching home, and the final journey instead leaves the friend ashore near the mouth of the tributary named G’its!Emgalon in the edition. The prince returns to his salmon household, while the friend reports their story and instructions to the human community. This ending preserves their sorrowful separation rather than supplying a final human reunion. The account groups the chief and his people, without turning each fish community or praise-name into another creature entry.

Origins & earliest records

Franz Boas, Tsimshian Mythology, based on texts recorded by Henry W. Tate, published in 1916 in the Bureau of American Ethnology’s thirty-first report for 1909–1910. Boas translated Tate’s free interlinear English renderings of his Tsimshian texts. The preface notes Tate’s editorial choices and some influence from published collections; the 1916 volume omits the original-language text.

Records & interpretation

Story 27, The Prince Who Was Taken Away by the Spring Salmon, complete pp. 192–206, including Tate’s explanatory footnote on p. 202; preface pp. 31–32.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Tsimshian Mythology

   Henry W. Tate, recorder; Franz Boas, translator and editor · 1916

   Story 27, The Prince Who Was Taken Away by the Spring Salmon, complete pp. 192–206, including Tate’s explanatory footnote on p. 202; preface pp. 31–32.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Primary textBoas/Tate 1916: The Prince Who Was Taken Away by the Spring SalmonResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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