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Yup'ik Raven This collection of student work is from Frank Keim's classes. He wants to share these works for others to use as an example of culturally-based curriculum and documentation. These documents have been OCR-scanned and are available for educational use only.


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Raven and the Old Woman

There was an old lady who lived far away from her village at a camp. She stayed in her camp for the whole summer.

One day Raven flew in to her camp and stayed in a big tree above the old lady's house. Raven stayed in her camp for the whole summer watching over the lady as if she was his child.

One hot sunny day the old lady was sitting outside in the shade enjoying the day when Raven flew down to her and danced around her asking, "Do you want me to check on your daughter for you?" The old lady looked puzzled and didn't say anything for a while. She just watched Raven dance around her until finally she said, "Do you know who my daughter is?" Raven cocked his head at her then flew away to find the old lady's daughter. It took two days for him to find her, but after he found her daughter, he flew back to the old lady's camp to tell her that her daughter was doing fine. But when he got there she was gone. She was nowhere near the camp or in the village either. So Raven decided to stay in the old lady's camp until she returned.

A month later, Raven had just about given up hope and was getting ready to leave the camp when from a distance he saw the old lady pop out of nowhere on the beach. But it seemed like she was staggering and crying. So he immediately flew over to her and asked if she needed anything. When she told him she had no energy to make it up to her camp Raven went back to her house and changed into an old man. A bright light came from inside the house when Raven changed into the man. Then he walked out of the house with a plate of food and a glass of water for her. As he approached her she could hardly believe that Raven had changed into her husband!

Kathy Duny


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