Raven Tales are the traditional human and animal creation stories of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. They are also found among Athabaskan-speaking peoples and others. His tales are passed down through the generations of story tellers of the people and are of cultural and historical significance. It’s important to note that they are not entertainment and are cultural property of the clan.
While each culture’s stories of the Raven are different, some even share the same title and certain attributes of Raven remain the same. The Raven is always a magical creature able to take the form of human, animal, even inanimate objects. He is a keeper of secrets, and a trickster often focused on satisfying his own gluttony for whatever he desires.
The Haida First Nation credits Raven with finding the first humans hiding in a clam shell; he brought them berries and salmon. The Sioux tell of how a white raven used to warn buffalo of approaching hunters. Eventually an angry shaman caught the bird and threw it into a fire, turning it black.
The Raven Symbol
Mischievous and curious, the Raven plays many important roles in Pacific Northwest Coast Culture. For some, he symbolizes creation, transformation, knowledge, prestige as well as the complexity of nature and the subtlety of truth. The cultures rely heavily on transformation, you’re gifted or cursed through transformation in many different ways. Places are named for people who are transformed into mountains, rivers, fish and beasts.
Raven is the shape changer suggesting Raven’s ability to appear in a variety of guises – for example, transforming into a killer whale in order to follow killer whales on their migration to find out where there is more food. The first story many indigenous children are told is about the raven – how the raven stole the sun and the stars – he transforms itself into a pine needle, that drops into the drinking water of the chieftain’s daughter and he then impregnates her and becomes her child. Later, being a spoiled brat, he steals the treasures of that chieftain – the sun, moon and stars.
He also symbolizes the unknown and shows that every person sees the world in a different way. The Raven was often called upon to clarify truths in visions, as the wise elders knew that what the eye sees is not always the truth. Many people of the Pacific Northwest Coast refer to him as a helper to the creator, and it is believed by some that messages from the creator of the cosmos are buried in the wings of the Raven only to be released to the families most deserving of his knowledge.
The Raven is a long-distance healer and is known as the “keeper of secrets,” he helps us in our lives by exposing the truth of keeping secrets that could potentially harm us, in doing so he helps us back to good health. The Raven was only ever feared if misused.
Raven Symbol and the Haida
Besides being a member of many different clans, most descendants from the Haida Northwest Coast First Nations belong to either a Raven or Eagle Clan. The membership is often defined by which clans the mother belonged to.
In many Northwest Coast Communities stories are told about the Raven and his many achievements. One of the most common stories is how the Raven stole the light in the form of the sun, the moon and stars. Many say that he transformed himself into a baby to find out where the light was hidden and then stole it from an old chief who had kept them in his house locked away in a large bentwood box. After Raven escaped with the box through the smoke hole of the house, he placed the sun, the moon and the stars in the sky for all beings to enjoy. Originally the Raven had white feathers and after flying through the smoke hole with the light, his feathers turned black and stayed black until today.
The Haida tell of how Raven stole the salmon from the Beaver people. Raven again transformed himself into a chieftain’s baby to find out from the beaver people, where they were hiding the salmon from all the other beings. After living with the beaver people for many years he finally found out that they were hiding all the salmon in a hidden stream flowing into a lake. On the same night after he found out, he transformed himself back into Raven and rolled up the stream and lake like a carpet and flew all over the Pacific West Coast and back to Haida Gwaii. The stream and lake with all the salmon were so heavy that he could only fly a short distance at a time. He would stop wherever there was a tree to rest. The Beaver people transformed themselves back into Beavers in order to stop him. They would gnaw down the trees that Raven stopped at and each time some salmon and water would escape, forming great streams and rivers of Salmon all over the country.
Sun, Moon and Stars. One ancient story told on Haida Gwaii tells about how Raven helped to bring the Sun, Moon, Stars, Fresh Water, and Fire to the world.
Long ago, near the beginning of the world, Gray Eagle was the guardian of the Sun, Moon and Stars, of fresh water, and of fire. Gray Eagle hated people so much that he kept these things hidden. People lived in darkness, without fire and without fresh water.
Gray Eagle had a beautiful daughter, and Raven fell in love with her. In the beginning, Raven was a snow-white bird, and as such, he pleased Gray Eagle’s daughter. She invited him to her father’s longhouse.
When Raven saw the Sun, Moon and stars, and fresh water hanging on the sides of Eagle’s lodge, he knew what he should do. He watched for his chance to seize them when no one was looking. He stole all of them, and a brand of fire also, and flew out of the longhouse through the smoke hole. As soon as Raven got outside he hung the Sun up in the sky. It made so much light that he was able to fly far out to an island in the middle of the ocean. When the Sun set, he fastened the Moon up in the sky and hung the stars around in different places. By this new light he kept on flying, carrying with him the fresh water and the brand of fire he had stolen.
He flew back over the land. When he had reached the right place, he dropped all the water he had stolen. It fell to the ground and there became the source of all the fresh-water streams and lakes in the world. Then Raven flew on, holding the brand of fire in his bill. The smoke from the fire blew back over his white feathers and made them black. When his bill began to burn, he had to drop the firebrand. It struck rocks and hid itself within them. That is why, if you strike two stones together, sparks of fire will drop out.
Raven’s feathers never became white again after they were blackened by the smoke from the firebrand. That is why Raven is now a black bird.