Tsagaglalal

Chinookan · mortal · Chinookan traditional religion; continuing · mortal

Tsagaglalal, 'She Who Watches,' was in Wishram tradition a woman who was chief of a village on the north bank of the Columbia in the time when Coyote was making the world over. When Coyote asked whether she treated her people well and told her that a change was coming in which women would no longer be chiefs, he transformed her into stone set into the cliff, where she would go on watching over her people forever. The account is attached to the great staring rayed face pecked and painted on the basalt above the river, one of the best-known images of Columbia Plateau rock art, so that the myth of the transformed chief and the enduring landmark explain each other.

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