But who was he? Raven? Was he god or human? Was he man or bird? Did he have a childhood like some ordinary bird or man or animal, or was he always fully-grown perhaps? Did he hatch full-fledged from some enormous egg, or did he maybe, one day, just appear, way back in time, flying out of the rain? Of all these kinds - man, bird, spirit, ancestor - whatever, or whichever kind of creature YeZ, the Raven was, let's just say that way back, way, way back, at the beginning of all time, somewhere near the head of the Nass River, in the country that the Tlingit people occupied, let's just say that Raven started traveling over water, over woods and hills, alone, his bright eye gleaming in the dark, his wings brushing through the clouds, as he searched his prey, observed the islands and the land, and crying out with his coarse voice that he brought good things for the people, but sometimes he brought tricks and trouble too.

What was Raven after?
What did he want?

Listen. At the beginning of all time, a rich man lived at the head of the Nass River with his daughter. In those days, everything was dark: there was no daylight and no moon or stars at night to guide you. But the rich man and his daughter kept a secret in their house: they held the stars, the moon and daylight in three bags hanging on their wall.

They kept the light there, and only Raven knew it. So Raven hit upon a plan to trick the old man of the Nass and get the light the whole world needed, day and night. He thought: "I'll get myself born as the old man's daughter's baby. I'll make myself into a pine-needle; and when the girl comes down to drink, I'll drop into her cup, and she'll grow big and bear me as her own.

And when I've grown a little, then we'll see.."

And so Raven turned himself, through magic, to a little pine-needle. Then he lay in wait.

He waited in a tree above the stream that ran nearby the old man's house. By and by, the girl was thirsty, and she came down to the stream to drink. Down she bent, toward the water, dipped her cup in it, and sipped.

She filled her cup again, got to her feet, and drank again. Looking up into the tree above the stream, she saw the tall tree's form in the dark. But she didn't see the pine-needle as it tumbled in her cup, fell lightly, and floated on the surface of the water.

She raised the cup again and drank the water: the pine-needle, --the Raven--went down inside of her, and grew. Time passed. The girl got big.

Nine months came and went: she gave birth to a strong and lively boy, not knowing that Raven was her little child.

And now, he grew.
The child was strong.
It was a greedy, healthy boy.
It never stopped its bellowing.
It cried as no baby ever cried.
Sometimes he croaked and rasped too, just like the old Raven that he really was. And when he learned to crawl around, he always went to where the stars and moon and daylight hung in their leather bags, high on the wall of the old man's house. He sat beneath the bags and looked up at them and screamed and screamed as though it hurt him that he couldn't play with them...

Aha aha: Sandy beach where little sea-birds feed! Little sea-birds, little snipe, among them I see raven tracks.
Bad smelling fish, sea-water, white bones on the stones.
Aha aha aha-ha

Oh how that child cries!
How that child does roar!
Never a moment's peace,
never a minute's rest.
Night after night he crawls around bellowing like a little animal.
Oh, what a racket,
Oh, what a noise,
Oh, how he croaks and moans sometimes!
(Mimics Raven)
Ya ya ya,
ya ya ya,
Ga! Ga! Gaaaa!

An odd noise for a baby, a harsh, bad sound for such a little one.

What a din that little tongue makes; what a growl comes from that tiny chest! I never would believe my ears;

I'd never believe it, really; I sometimes think it must be a dream, a strange dream come on me in the darkness.

If I didn't pinch my arm to make sure I'm not dreaming,
If I didn't feel his funny body
raging in my hands, I'd think it was a nightmare come to haunt me, and that some queer creature lay here in the mossy cradle, not a child of mine, not my body's child, but some bad thing, some odd spirit, something that has used my womb to get into the world, to get into my father's house...

But what is he bawling for? The way he lifts his little jaws and bellows, you'd think he wants to swallow everything in reach.
He can't be crying for more milk:
every time I feed him he almost swallows my whole breast! And still he's never satisfied and grasps at me until he'd drink me all up if I let him. It takes my whole strength just to cope with him...

Well, here comes my father; maybe he can soothe the child, maybe he will understand exactly what the baby wants.
He loves him like his own, he'd give him anything, he'd give him his whole life to make the baby happy.

Old Man:
(Grandfather)

My daughters here I am:
home from the forest,
home from the sea,
hunting our food,
spearing the salmon
in the river, chasing deer,
and tracking the brown bear,
following the fox, the beaver and the wolf.

A hunting trip to weary an old man; the kind of journey to make him pleased to be home with his daughter and her child.

But what's this, what's this I hear?

Is the child still weeping, screaming, bellowing, crawling everywhere his little legs can get him to, over our food boxes, up on the bench, pulling down our dried fish and our skins, getting his fingers in the fat, getting his greedy little teeth into our stores of sweet new berries?

What a devil, what a little warrior we have here on our hands. I can see he's too much for you to handle, daughter. I think I know best how to deal with him. Let him have his way a little. Let him play the games he wants to play. Come over here, my little warrior, I'll find out what it is you're screaming for!

Raven crawls up on the platform and tries to grasp one of the leather bags that hung beyond his reach.

He grabs and gropes and scratches at the wooden walls.

But the leather bags are way above his head.

Oh, Father, Father, look at what he's after! Look at where he gets to every time I let him out of my hands: he goes straight as an arrow for the secret bag you hide the stars in. Father, he means evil towards us, he knows what's kept there. I know it. He sees through the darkness, through the thick-skinned bundle of stars. He knows we keep them blazing, shut tight, closely bound with leather knots there, to keep them from the eyes of men and animals.

Nonsense, daughter.
What could the child possibly know - such a tiny bit of a thing as he is, not even talking yet, hardly walking on his two feet - how could he know the secrets of the hunter at the river head?

Let him play:
let him have his way:
give him the bundle
that he asks for: do as I say!

Father, I cannot do it. I'm afraid. Look at his eyes, his bright eyes, moving rapidly; they glitter in the darkness like the stars he's after.

I will not do it, Father, though something in me tells me we've been wrong to keep the stars and sun and moon wrapped up, hidden like this in the house:
something in me says
that one day -- maybe soon--
the world will have
the light of these stars and the sun and the moon.

Mad. The girl's completely raving. I don't know what's got into her today. Maybe she's exhausted, looking after little baby here. Well, go to sleep, girl:
look to my advice and take a long rest now; sleep till it's time to feed the child again. I'll wake you when he cries. Meanwhile, I'll take care of him.

Ya ya ya,
ya ya ya.
Ga! Ga! Ga!

Suddenly the Raven has the bundle in his hands, and croaking with excitement, rushes to the fire with it. Quickly, he unties the leather knots, opens the heavy bag, and tosses it up into the smoke-hole right above the flames.

The stars fly up, and scatter with the smoke, and split into a million lights, getting smaller as they reach the sky. The old man shrieks. His daughter wakes. Their stars are lost: never to return to earth again.

And that was what the Raven went there for. He tricked the old man and the daughter out of all the stars! And that was when the people and the animals who lived in the darkness first saw light up in the sky: high up, little lights, glimmering like sparks of ice. Was that enough for Raven? Was that enough for all the people and the animals to see and live by? Were the stars enough?

Raven didn't think so, so he played the same trick once again: he cried and cried; he cried so hard the old man thought the child would die if the baby didn't get the next bag on the wall, the bundle with the moon in it.

Ga! Ga! Ga! He roared: and never stopped, tmtil his grandfather said once again, "Untie the next bag; give it to him."

Raven took the big bag the moon was in and rolled it with his foot behind his mother. It was heavy, round and hard. He pushed it toward the smoke-hole, and when neither the old man nor his daughter was looking, he let the moon go sailing through the smoke-hole too: and there was a big moon rising in the air for all to see.

Old Man: The moon!

Daughter: The moon!

One more thing remained: a box with daylight in it, and Raven cried for that: his eyes turned round and round, made different colors, dark ones, burning ones; his eyes glowed and rolled in his little head, and people began thinking to themselves that he must be something very strange, no ordinary baby... But it always happens that a grandfather loves a grandchild as much as his own daughter; so that when the Raven cried for what he wanted, Grandfather said, in an unhappy voice, "Untie the last thing for him, give it to him." So sadly the young woman did this and Raven took the box, Raven took it in his hands, the last box with the daylight in it, and uttering his Raven-cry, soared up with it through the smoke-hole, letting the daylight out into the world as he flew along.

Old Man: Daylight!

Daughter: Oh, the daylight!

Then the grandfather was sad at what he'd done for now he knew who'd been there in his house, and said:

"That thieving Raven's taken all my pretty things..."

And...that...was how the Raven brought light into the world...