Tlingit and Haida TraditionSalmon Mother Spirit
Fog Woman
- fog
- salmon
- abundance
In Tlingit tradition, the daughter of Chief Fog-Over-the-Salmon who marries Raven and creates a run of sockeye salmon, then withdraws it and herself into the water after he mistreats her, explaining why salmon return to Tlingit rivers each year.
About Fog Woman
The story
In this widely told Tlingit story, Raven marries Fog Woman, daughter of a chief called Fog-Over-the-Salmon. She conjures a great abundance of sockeye salmon for Raven and his household, drying more than they can eat. When Raven strikes her in anger or disrespect, depending on the telling, she leaves through the water, and every dried salmon Raven had stored follows her back into the river. Tlingit tellers use the story to explain why salmon return to the region's rivers each year, and it is publicly commemorated in the Chief Johnson totem pole in Ketchikan, Alaska, which depicts Raven, Fog Woman, and salmon.
A story still told
This is a living story rather than a closed text: it continues to be told by Tlingit families and represented in public Tlingit art, including totem poles raised well into the 20th century. This site presents it as such, not as a historical record with a fixed date of origin.
Worship and cult
Temples, festivals, and practices recorded for Fog Woman
The story is memorialized publicly in Tlingit totem-pole art, including the Chief Johnson pole in Ketchikan, Alaska; this site does not describe any restricted ceremony connected to Fog Woman.
Family
RavenFog WomanFamily tree
Fog Woman's parents, consorts, children and rivals, as recorded in the atlas.
Questions about Fog Woman's family
- Who are Fog Woman's parents?
- The atlas's kinship records name one parent of Fog Woman: Chief Fog-Over-the-Salmon. Ancient accounts do not always agree on divine parentage.
- Who were Fog Woman's spouses and consorts?
- Spouses and consorts of Fog Woman recorded in the atlas: Raven.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Nora Marks Dauenhauer and Richard Dauenhauer, Haa Shuká, Our Ancestors: Tlingit Oral Narratives
Cite this page
No publication date is recorded for this page, so each citation uses n.d. and today's date as the access date.
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Parallels are editorial comparisons across traditions: a shared role does not, by itself, establish a shared origin.
Family relationships come from the atlas's kinship records. Ancient sources often disagree on divine genealogy.
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