Ravens in Native American mythology

The Raven Tales are the group of over 150 stories from Native American Mythology, centering on the creator and trickster god Raven. Raven Tales describes the way Raven tricked, to create the world, to find the first human hiding in a clam shell and bring him berries and salmon, as well as to bring light to the world. The Raven Tales remain one of the least known, but greatest oral traditions of Native American cultures.

The beginning

Although there were many worlds, Raven was born all alone, then one day Raven's father Kitaki told him that one day he would be bigger, older and stronger enough that he could create the world. Raven liked the idea of being the 'Creator of the World'. When he grew older and stronger, he started thinking of the different ideas to create the world, but none seemed to work.

Finally, he gave up the idea and went flying in the wind. Suddenly he saw some dirts and rocks, thereby the idea struck in his mind, that these things could be the foundation of the world, but he could not make it stick together. Over the time he became frustrated and thirsty, thereby he gave up again and went flying in search of the drink. When he saw water, the inspiration struck him again. He brought some water and mix it to make it all stick together.

After working on it for a long time, he wanted to make it smooth and perfectly round, but he failed again, thereby out of frustration he kicked it as hard as he could. Later after coming out of his frustration, he wanted to work on it a bit more, but when he picked it up again, it already hardened and the world was already created.

Bringing the Light

At the beginning, the world was in total darkness. Raven the creator of the world vowed that he would bring the light to the world. One day he came to know that only light was hoarded by a mean old Chief who lived with his daughter, and he was not ready to share the light with anyone. So Raven played his trick, he turned himself into cedar leaf and sneakily fluttered into the chief's dwelling.

When chief's daughter was taking a drink, Raven fluttered into the cup of the drink and the Chief's daughter swallowed him. She immediately became pregnant. Finally chief's daughter gave birth to Raven as the human infant. The chief began to love him a lot and said "Give the baby what it wants".

Firstly, he asked for the bag that contains stars, the Chief gave him the bag unknowing of his tricks, one day out of excitement he threw the bag up in the sky thereby scattering the stars in the sky. Next he did the same with the bag that contains moon in it. Finally, he asked for the bag that contains Sun in it. The chief gave the bag to him though he said not to untie it. As soon as he got the final bag in his hand, he turned himself into his real Raven form and flew though smokehole in the roof of the house and escaped into the darkness with his stolen treasure.

First Human

After the Great Flood, world became lifeless. When Raven gazed up and down the beach, he became upset cause there was no one even to play the tricks upon. After searching for some time, Raven began to cry out loud to the empty sky. Before the echo of his cry faded away, he heard a muffled squeak. After searching, initially he found nothing, but later he noticed that the sound was coming from the half buried giant clamshell. When he peered down into the opening of the shell, he saw it was full of tiny creatures The Male Humans.

He started enjoying with them, he taught them some of the tricks too, but over the time, it became monotonous for him. He thought, that here was only males, no females, but as he knew that for every creatures there must be both men and women. There must be the females somewhere, thus he started searching the women. After a long search he spotted some giant Chitons clinging to the rocks, when he looked inside, he found the creatures similar to the creatures he found in clamshell, but are more like the Chiton, softer and rounder, in contrast to the hard shell and strong muscles of the clam, The Female Humans. He brought the men and women together. Over the time they began to produce children and the mankind began to grow.