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Raven Lost His Eyes
Here is a story of Raven and what he
did. Raven sat on the edge of a bank. He looked up
and down the river but he did not see anyone. His eyes were
getting tired so he took his eyes
He went back to bed, and after a long
time later, his eyes to tell him again that someone was
coming down the river. This time he thought to himself,
'It's lying to me again.'
The eyes said that someone was coming
closer. After a while, his eyes did not say anything any
more. Raven was blind so he felt his way back out. He felt
for his eyes where he bought he left them hanging. He kept
searching for his eyes. He really lost the place and he felt
the ground and found a deep trail. Up there a little ways,
there was a ridge coming down from a mountain. He knew of
this place where there were no trees. He though, "Maybe if I
put a berry in my eye, I will see again.' So he started for
that place. He had a hard time. He even crawled. When he got
there, he found a blueberry which he put in place of his
eyes. When he put the berries in, he could not see with
them. They were too dark. He knew there was another ridge
coming down the mountains and a trail going across there so
he crawled across there. He found something like cranberries
and tried those for his eyes. But when he put them in,
everything looked red to him. They did not fit either. They
kept falling out because they were too small. He did not
know what to do, so he kept climbing and found another
berry, it was the Canadian Jay's eyes. He could see with
this berry, but his eyes were red. He looked like a man, but
a person from some other place. He came back down to his
house, and he though to himself, "Maybe I should paddle up
river to see where they put my eyes." He had a canoe and
started up river. He was paddling when he heard up there
among the big trees what sounded like a lot of people
laughing. He wanted to find out what all the noise was
about.
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He stopped on the bank and pulled his
canoe up, and started to walk back there into the woods. But
when he walked back there, it was a portage, and there was
nobody there. The noise was still heard in the woods,
however. When he went down to the river, he found a house.
Before he came to the house, he put a bunch of spruce boughs
in a pile. He spread them out, and then he defecated on it.
When he did that it became clothes. He put these fancy
clothes on. The mukluks were the prettiest. Then he put on
another pile of spruce boughs and defecated again. Again
there were clothes there. He came down to a house by the
river. There was a young girl there who did not go with the
others. She was a single girl waiting for the right man to
come along. She told him she was asked a lot of times by men
to marry her but she did not. When Raven showed her the
clothes that he had in the bag, she decided to marry him.
The girl told him, "I will marry you."
By this time, the people that were in
the woods came back down. They saw Raven. They thought he
was and odd stranger. The girl told them that she wanted to
marry this person. They told her to go ahead and marry him
so they got married.
In the day time, the people went back
into the woods to have fun, but the couple never went there.
One day, he(Raven) asked his wife, "What are those people
doing back there?" His wife told him, "I don't know. But
they are playing with something that someone said was
Raven's eyes which someone brought back. They sewed
something over them so they do not look like Raven's eyes." So Raven
found out that they were playing with his eyes.
The people came back in the evening,
but in the morning, they went back up and started to play
with the ball. "Let's go up and see what they are doing," he
told his wife. "I want to know what they really do." So they
started up the trail.
As they were walking, they saw what
looked like a big sandbar. It was a big area where there
were no trees. That was where they were playing. He sat by
the edge to see the game of ball they were playing. As he
was sitting there, he watched the ball. There were two of
them. Sometimes the eyes fell far apart. He wanted to get
them but there was no way. He really wanted to get his eyes
back. He sat there wishing they would both fall where they
were sitting. As he wished, the eyes fell where they were
sitting. He grabbed them and took them back. As the players
reached for him, he put his eyes back on himself. And he
flew off saying those were his eyes.
He landed on top of a big tree. The
players were really mad at him. They were telling him how
bad he was and told him, "Maybe we should hit you with an
arrow."
He sat there for a while then took
off. As he was going up, his wife who was still standing
there, her clothes became Raven's droppings. They were all
white with it. The clothes that she was wearing were very
pretty before all this happened. Everyone was mad at Raven.
He flew back to his canoe and became a man again. Now that
he had his real eyes back, he threw away all those berries
that he used for his eyes, and he came back to his
home.
Miska Deaphon, Nikolai
Nwch'ihwzoya'
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Marshall
Cultural Atlas