birds and animals. Quawteaht went away before
the apparent change of the birds and beasts into Indians, which took
place in the following manner:--

"The birds and beasts of old had the spirits of the Indians dwelling
in them, and occupied the various coast villages, as the Ahts do at
present. One day a canoe manned by two Indians from an unknown country
approached the shore. As they coasted along, at each house at which they
landed, the deer, bear, elk, and other brute inhabitants fled to the
mountains, and the geese and other birds flew to the woods and rivers.
But in this flight, the Indians, who had hitherto been contained in the
bodies of the various creatures, were left behind, and from that time
they took possession of the deserted dwellings and assumed the condition
in which we now see them."

(1) Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Savage Life, pp. 210, 211.

Crossing the northern continent of America to the west, we are in the
domains of various animal culture-heroes, ancestors and teachers of the
human race and the makers, to some extent, of the things in the world.
As the eastern tribes have their Great Hare, so the western tribes have
their wolf hero and progenitor, or their coyote, or their raven, or
their dog. It is possible, and even certain in some cases, that the
animal which was the dominant totem of a race became heir to any
cosmogonic legends that were floating about.

The country of the Papagos, on the eastern side of the Gulf of
California, is the southern boundary of the province of the coyote or
prairie wolf. The realm of his influence as a kind of Prometheus, or
even as a demiurge, extends very far northwards. In the myth related by
Con Quien, the chief of the central Papagos,(1) the coyote acts the
part of the fish in the Sanskrit legend of the flood, while Montezuma
undertakes the role of Manu. This Montezuma was formed, like the Adams
of so many races, out of potter's clay in the hands of the Great Spirit.
In all this legend it seems plain enough that the name of Montezuma is
imported from Mexico, and has been arbitrarily given to the hero of the
Papagos. According to Mr. Powers, whose manuscript notes Mr. Bancroft
quotes (iii. 87), all the natives of California believe that their
first ancestors were created directly from the earth of their present
dwelling-places, and in very many cases these ancestors were coyotes.

(1) Davidson, Indian Affairs Report, 1865, p. 131; Bancroft, iii. 75.