Central to the iconography of Haida culture is the figure of the Raven or Yháal. A complex creature – part trickster, part benefactor he is held as the bringer of much that made up the world of Haida Gwaii including the Islands themselves. Robert Bringhurst, the writer and translator of Haida stories, acknowledges that Raven has never created anything but created the world by stealing, exchanging, redistributing, and generally moving things around. He is greedy, lecherous, and conniving; but he is also helpful and as well as releasing the first humans from their imprisonment in a cockle shell, he brought them to fresh water, salmon, lodging, and light.
Two things reminded me of the Raven today and led me to revisit the story of how the Raven stole the Sun and brought light into the world. The first was the impending solar eclipse here in North America; the second was a photograph my friend Kate posted on her Facebook page.
This stunning photo was originally posted by Aaren Purcell on her Facebook page. I am not sure if this is one she took herself but it is a stunning evocation of the Raven’s thievery.
There are many versions of the legend but the one I enjoy the most is Robert Bringhurst and Bill Reid‘s retelling in their The Raven Steals the Light, published by Douglas & McIntyre in 1984. Though there has been some controversy around Bringhurst’s work but I will leave that discussion to better minds than mine – I find this a fine telling of the story of how we were given the gift of light!
Before there was anything, before the great flood had covered the earth and receded, before the animals walked the earth or the trees covered the land or the birds flew between the trees, even before the fish and the whales and seals swam in the sea, an old man lived in a house on the bank of a river with his only child, a daughter. Whether she was as beautiful as hemlock fronds against the spring sky at sunrise or as ugly as a sea slug doesn’t really matter very much to this story, which takes place mainly in the dark.
Because at that time the whole world was dark. Inky, pitchy, all-consuming dark, blacker than a thousand stormy winter midnights, blacker than anything anywhere has been since.
A right click on Bill Reid’s beautiful illustration will reveal how that dark was dispelled when the Raven stole the Sun.
In some versions of the story the Raven had white feathers but when he flew through the smoke hole of the old man’s dwelling the soot turned his feathers black and as a reminder of his trickery they have remained so to this day.
On this day in 1911: The Mona Lisa is stolen by, Vincenzo Perugia, a Louvre employee.
Willy Or Won't He 