The salmon is an initiate of the mysteries of transformation and self-sacrifice. As the folk who live near the coasts of Europe and America watch these glittering fish wrestle and leap their way upstream to the spawning ground each spring, they may puzzle as to why the creatures are so feverishly eager to perform this act. Intent on reaching their freshwater birthplace from the sea, the fish seemed to be offering themselves to the hunters’ spears. The tribal nations of the Pacific Northwest of North America believed that the salmon belonged to a race of immortals who sacrificed themselves to their mortal counterparts for food. In a Tlingit story a boy insults the salmon but ends up becoming one of them. ‘Salmon-boy’ is caught by his parents when he returns home to spawn. When they butcher him, they find his human body safe inside. The boy then becomes a salmon-shaman, instructing his tribe how to respect the sacred fish who give their lives for food.
Many salmon tales have this poignant quality, a sense that the salmon is the higher, truer version of our selves. By catching and eating it, we can participate in its magical attributes: strength, physical prowess and knowledge.
Like the cat and the owl, the salmon has highly enhanced senses which it uses to find its way back to the exact place of its birth in order to spawn. The salmon myths express an intuition that we all have ‘secret senses’ which would lead us back to the source if we allowed them to operate. It is this liminal quality of the salmon (passing from one realm of consciousness to another as it moves from fresh water to salt water and back again) which makes the fish an archetype of the returner-to-the-source. Another is Christ who sacrificed himself for his people, just as the salmon dies in order for its future offspring to be born.
Photo: Shutterstock – Salmon Making their journey back home upstream.