Origin of the Pinenuts

Long ago, Coyote was always on a journey looking for food. He could not find enough to keep him full. On this particular journey he was traveling late in the year. It started to snow and Coyote could not find any food. The snow kept falling and turned into a blizzard. Coyote was lost and could not find his way home. He kept walking but soon he became tired. He kept thinking that maybe if he just rested for awhile, he would not be so tired and could think better about which way to go. He laid down to rest, which is very dangerous, because he could fall into a deep sleep and freeze to death. That is exactly what was going to happen to him, as he started to fall asleep.

While he slept, he dreamed he was in a nice, warm house, lying on soft furs and sleeping by a fire. It was so warm, he did not want to wake up but he heard a noise and he opened his eyes. He was inside a nice, warm house and there, near the corner, was an old man fixing food. He brought it over and gave it to Coyote. Coyote tasted it and it was very delicious. It was a thick, warm soup. When he finished, he asked for more and the Old Man gave it to him. After eating, he laid down to rest some more.

Day after day, he would wake up and the Old Man would be there with some soup. He thought this was nice. He did not have to go out and hunt his own food to eat. He was getting well and stronger each day, but being a sly and curious person, he was not going to let the Old Man know he was better. He pretended, each day, that he was still very weak. He wanted to find out where this Old Man got his food. One morning as he lay in bed and was pretending to be asleep, he saw the Old Man leave. He got out of bed and followed him.

He watched him go up into the hills and stop near a cave. He crept close to the cave and hid behind some rocks. He saw him go in to a corner where many piles of pine cones lay on the ground. Looking around, he saw trees with many pine cones on them. He watched as the Old Man worked all day. To get the pinenuts out of the cones, he struck them with a stick. He built a fire and with the embers and cooked the pinenuts on a winnowing tray by moving the charcoal embers around with the pinenuts.

The Old Man put them on a grinding rock and crushed them softly, so the shells would crack off. He used a winnowing tray, to clean out the shells, by gently tossing the mixture in the breeze so the shells would blow away. He put more embers on the nutmeat and cooked them again. Then, he put the nutmeats back on the grinding rock and ground them into a powdered meal. He added water to the meal and made soup.

Coyote knew that it would soon be time for him to come back to the house, so he quickly ran back to bed. As he lay waiting for his food, he thought how easy it would be to have the pinenut trees growing near his house. But he knew if he moved the trees, they may die and it took a long time for trees to grow. He thought, he could take some from the old man's trees but that would mean he would have to spend all that time gathering them from the trees. It would be easier if he took the Old Man's pinenuts and he would have enough food until next year. If he ran out, he could just come back and get more.

So when the Old Man returned, Coyote told him that he was feeling much better and that it was time for him to leave. The Old Man was pleased since he knew Coyote was always up to no good.

So the next morning after eating, Coyote left the Old Man's house and hid behind the rocks. He watched and waited for the Old Man to go to the cave to work. Coyote ran back to the house and found a large sack to put the pinenut cones in. Going to the cave, he waited all day as the Old Man worked.

When he saw the Old Man leave, he went into the cave and started to fill up his sack. He filled the sack up to the top. He wanted to make sure he had enough to last until next year. The sack was very heavy and he had to throw it over his shoulder to carry it. It was so heavy, that it dragged on the ground, but Coyote did not care. He was so happy with himself that he did not care that it dragged or that it was so heavy or to even notice that there was a small hole in the bottom of the sack.

You see, the Old Man knew Coyote was always up to no good, so he cut the hole in the sack knowing that Coyote would try to trick him. When he left the cave, he hid in the trees to watch and see if Coyote was going to steal his food. Sure enough, here came Coyote out of the cave with the heavily-laden sack. He watched as Coyote went on his way with the sack dragging on the ground. He followed a little way, pleased with himself as the small hole began to get larger and larger.

Soon the pinenut cones started to fall out of the hole. But Coyote did not notice. He was too concerned with thinking of how he outsmarted the Old Man. He had gone a long way and was almost home when he began to notice that the sack was lighter, but he thought that he was just getting used to carrying the heavy load. So when Coyote got home, he put his sack down and there were just a few pinenut cones in his sack. He had lost all his pinenut cones along the way and he could never find his way back to the Old Man's house. To this day, that is why Coyote is still traveling, looking for food, and why we have pinenut trees scattered all over the mountains of Nevada.