Thomas Doty – Storyteller

Refresh for Current Content

---

The First War

In a Takelma story, Jackrabbit went crazy and clear-cut the woods. Coyote told the people that Jackrabbit was killing their relations. Thinking Coyote meant their human relations, the people waged the first war ever on Jackrabbit, and nearly everyone died. It took years for the Human People and the Tree People to recover. Telling and retelling the story helped everyone heal. "As long as this story lives," says the teller, "the trees will live. If the story dies, that will be the end of us and the end of our relations, the trees."

---