The Bloodfish
By Paul Cameron Brown
A story about tears that became minnows and sobs large fishes in their place.
Once, when the sky was young and the spirits were expressing their wishes, peals of light and thunder damaged the heavens until they were swollen and purple. Rain fell like leaves as the victors banished the fallen from the clouds. The vanquished were ordered to supply the empty lakes with forms fitting their previous ways. Swimming in oblivion, they only stopped to rest in reed beds on August days when the Great Spirit smothered his anger.
The evil ones assumed the course of large blood fish scraping the silt bottoms in reminder of their reduced state. All sorts of creatures - the catfish with his whiskers to remind the new creature man of his pre-human state and the eel and lamprey with their sharp eyes to disclose to the world the inherent baseness of their rebellious nature. The giant of the deep - the sturgeon - had a sucker form mouth. Every time man lifted him across the keel of a boat he would see his obsequious face panting to the sky.
In fact, when sturgeon or the spirit commanded to be pike were caught, the thrash of their tails sent small tears as ripples across the lake. These stirred sand people and minnows were born. Each sob from dying pike's tail, doomed to a long toothy snout for her disobedience by Manitou, formed a larger fish. In this way, fish were ever reminded of their punishment and man kept fed.
The Indians enjoyed new food as plenteous as the grains of golden earth on each lake's face.