Salmon Magic

" The Shasta believed that the first salmon to reach them each spring was sacred from the medicine and prayer put upon it in the Yurok ceremony at the mouth of the river, and it must therefore be allowed to pass" unharmed as it made its way upstream to lay its eggs. The fish that followed the first leaders up the river could be caught, "but none could be eaten until the first one taken had been completely dried and had been eaten by those assembled for fishing." From A.L. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, 1925.

 

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