Qw'ó:ltl'el

— Stó:lō and other Xwélmexw narratives of smallpox reveal understandings of disease as a supernatural affliction, perhaps part of a necessary cycle of the world. Qw’ó:ltl’el narratives from the late nineteenth century depict a monstrous creature that breathed the disease onto children, and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh oral tradition that Mulks−a tribal historian−recounted in 1896 describes how the disease, a punishment from the Great Spirit, afflicted first salmon and then humans.