The Ozette Prairies of Olympic National Park - Natural Resources ...

house to retaliate, “but he stood them off. So, then they went to the prairie to kill his wives, who were
digging fern roots to make into flour. On seeing the armed men coming, the women loaded their baskets
with roots and started for home so quietly as to make believe that they thought that everything was alright.”
In this story, the good man and his wives prevail. After all, the women were digging roots in the
prairies (AR, p.70).
However, not everyone who digs roots in the prairies is upright. The Quileute woman of the woods – the
kelp-haired child snatching cannibal, Dask’iya, is regularly portrayed as digging camas while she plans
her next abduction of innocent children.
Dask’iya was a giantess. She went around eating little children. Q‘wati went to where she was digging
camas on Quillayute Prairie. He offered to carry her baskets, and hung one in front and one on his back.
Then he started running, eating handfuls of camas as he ran. Dask’iya chased him and when she stopped
for a drink, Q’wati changed into a minnow and swam where she was drinking. She swallowed the minnow,
which immediately changed into a whale inside her stomach. That was the end of the evil Dask’iya
(one of her many ends) (R&W, p.312).
When a man encounters a being in the prairies, it could either be a good or an evil one. It is up to the
man to be circumspect. For instance, in the following story, a man, Tuscobuk, survives a meeting with an
evil stranger because he is wary:
Tuscobuk meets a stranger in Forks Prairie who has been killing Quileute hunters and intends to kill
him. The stranger has been killing hunters by trading rubbery “magic’ arrows with the hunters and then
changing into an immense elk that, unhurt by the hunters’ rubbery arrows, kills them all. Well, tuscobuk
is wary and doesn’t trade arrows, nor does he stand behind the tree that the stranger suggests. And,
when the gigantic elk comes along and charges the tree, expecting to find Tuscobuk, he is disappointed.
Then, Tuscobuk jumps out from hiding and hits the elk with four yewwood arrows. The elk dies and
Tuscobuk skins it and throws the hide up into the sky, where light shining through the arrow holes makes
the constellation Cassiopeia’s Chair (R&W, p.326).
There are also a few Quileute myths relating to the prairies that seem impossible or uncomfortable to interpret.
These stories have images that connote meaning for us, but the story does not lead to an obvious
message. For instance:
1) Q’wati Gives the Women Bees – Q’wati came along the trail by the prairie with a basket swung at
his back. He was singing, “I’ve got lots of elk meat in my basket.” He was singing this for he was passing
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