Apache Origin of Fire, Oral History
1200s CE • US Southwest
“At that early day the trees could talk, but the people could not burn them, as they were without fire . . . [the fireflies] gathered wood for a great campfire, which they ignited by their own glow . . . Fox ran away with tail blazing, followed by the fireflies . . . and fire was widely spread over the earth . . .”
Frank Russell, “Myths of the Jicarilla Apaches,” The Journal of American Folklore, 1898.
Image: Allan Houser, Apache Night Dancer, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.
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