The Swallowing Monster is the great being whose devouring of the animal people sets the Nez Perce origin story in motion. Lying along the Clearwater, it drew in every creature with its breath until Coyote allowed himself to be swallowed, cut the monster's heart loose from inside, and killed it. From its dismembered body Coyote made the peoples of the region, and from the blood of its heart he formed the Nimiipuu at Kamiah; a basalt formation there, the Heart of the Monster, is pointed to as the petrified heart. The texts name the being only as 'the monster,' and no personal name is consistently recorded.