The Fourth Tribe: Coyote’s Lie
The Fourth Tribe: A Forgotten Origin Story of Why We Left Nature
Long ago, before cities rose and rivers were caged, the Earth was alive in ways we can hardly imagine now. It breathed in rhythm with all living things. It spoke in salmon runs, sang through wind in cedar branches, and dreamed through the stars.
Back then, there were Four Tribes.
The First Three:
• The Hupa — masters of rivers and redwoods, keepers of fish and fire.
• The Karuk — singers of mountain songs, weavers of sky and stone.
• The Yurok — river-mouth people, balancing tide and forest.
These were the Earth People — people of balance, ceremony, and deep relationship. They honored the deer, the water, the trees. They gave thanks. They listened.
And then… there was the Fourth Tribe.
They were the Tall Ones.
The Oh-Mah.
Covered in hair, but not beasts.
Silent, but not ignorant.
Elusive, but ever-present.
They lived in the deepest woods — in the canyons, ridges, and mists. They were not above animals, not below trees, but of them. They didn’t worship nature. They were nature.
The Earth did not speak to them — it spoke through them.
They walked between worlds:
In shadow.
In stillness.
In dream.
They are known by many names:
Most Common Modern Names
• Bigfoot (U.S.)
• Sasquatch (from Sts’ailes: Sésquac, “wild man”)
Regional Names
• Skunk Ape, Swamp Ape – Florida
• Momo – Missouri Monster
• Grassman – Ohio
• Woodbooger, Wooly Booger – Appalachia
• Fouke Monster – Arkansas
• Boggy Creek Monster – Arkansas
• Old Yellow Top – Ontario
• Honey Island Swamp Monster – Louisiana
• The Traverse Beast – Quebec
• Wildman, Bushman, Wood Ape – South & Midwest
• Mogollon Monster – Arizona
Indigenous Names (North America)
Pacific Northwest
• Oh-Mah – Hoopa
• Tsiatko, Seatco – Salishan tribes
• Skookum, Skoocooms – Chinook / St. Helens
• Bukwas – Kwakwaka’wakw
• Stiyaha – Lower Chehalis
• Sasq’ets – Coast Salish
California / Great Basin / Plains
• Hairy Man – Tule River Yokuts
• Mai’kwe – Shoshone
• Maxemista – Cheyenne
• Lofa – Chickasaw
• Nantinuck – Wampanoag
North / Arctic
• Tornit – Inuit/Yupik
• Nuk-luk – Northwest Territories
• Wendigo – Algonquian (not exactly Bigfoot, but spiritually adjacent)
Other Native Terms
• Chiye-Tanka – Lakota Sioux (“Big Elder Brother”)
• Boo’Goo’Oh – Cherokee
• Yahgwa’ri – Iroquois
• Stick Indians – Shadowy beings in forests
Canadian & Northern Names
• Bushman of the North – rural Canada
• Woods Devil – New Hampshire, Vermont
• Bush Ape – Manitoba
• Kushtaka – Tlingit (otter-man tricksters, but spiritually similar)
Global Cousins
• Yeti – Himalayas
• Orang Pendek – Sumatra
• Almas – Central Asia
• Yahoo – Ozarks/Appalachia
The Fourth Tribe — under all their names — never left.
But something else did.
The Lie That Coyote Told
Coyote wasn’t evil.
He was clever.
He was chaos in motion.
And chaos cannot abide stillness.
So Coyote crept into the dreams of the Hupa, the Karuk, and the Yurok.
He whispered:
“Why do the Tall Ones live in shadow while you till the soil?”
“Why do they say nothing, yet seem to know everything?”
“They hoard the old ways.”
“They think they’re more sacred than you.”
And slowly, the Three Tribes turned.
Not in hate.
But in doubt.
Then judgment.
Then separation.
They did not go to war.
They simply… turned away.
They built larger fires.
Felled older trees.
Broke rivers and tamed wildness.
In seeking control, they lost rhythm.
But the Tall Ones — the Dream-Walkers — remained where they had always been.
In the fog.
In the ridgeline.
In the dreams we now call “myths.”
We did not exile them.
We exiled ourselves.
Because Coyote’s greatest trick wasn’t casting out the Fourth Tribe.
It was convincing us to sleep above the Earth,
on plastics and polyurethanes,
in cabins of separation,
in tents atop padding,
never letting our skin touch soil again.
And so we disconnected — not just from Earth, but from reality.
We chose comfort over contact.
We lost our place in the dream.
We forgot how to listen.
The Return
Generations passed.
The salmon stopped coming.
The birds went quiet.
The stars dimmed.
And one day, the Three Tribes remembered.
Not in words — but in ache.
In a longing deeper than language.
They returned to the forest.
To the fog.
To the high canyons.
They cried out into the dark:
“We were wrong.”
“We seek the Tall Ones.”
“We want to come back.”
And from the mist, one stepped forward.
Still. Towering. Silent.
And the Oh-Mah said:
“We never left.
You did.
And now… you must carry what you chose.
The path home is not a place.
It is a becoming.
And you are not there yet.”
The forest closed behind him.
The wind said nothing.
But a single white feather fell from the canopy.
And in some forgotten dream,
A song stirred again —
waiting for someone
brave enough
to remember.
AHO.
