The most essential, and widely shared tale from the Tlingit nation is Raven stories. These stories belong to the Raven clan, but they are some of the few stories which are shared between the clans, and even with the very fortunate outsider. As an outsider, I cannot tell the tales truly, but I will attempt to summarizes the main themes.
The Raven, who was a white raven in those days, made the earth. But the earth was a barren place, without light or water. He had heard of an old man who had both the sun, and the moon, and all of the stars, who kept them all closed up tight, and hidden away in pouches. Raven wanted these things for his world. But how to get them?
Soon, he had a plan. He knew that the old man had a lovely daughter, who was known to occasionally drink from a particular river. So, Raven transformed himself into a small speck, and hid inside of the water. When the daughter drank the water, he went into her, and he planted himself in her womb. She grew great with child, and when the time came, she gave birth to Raven.
(As an aside, these stories do pre-date the intrusion of Christianity on the Tlingit people. So this story is a case of simultaneous evolution, with its elements a of virgin birth and of a spiritual being who was the son of man)
The baby, Raven, was much beloved by his family. When he began to cry and couldn’t be consoled, his Grandfather took down the bag of the stars. (In some versions, Raven pointed cried, in others the Grandfather had the idea on his own.) And Raven played with them, and giggled and laughed, until they flew away. He lost them; they went out the smoke hole and few into the sky.
Raven was mad! He cried and cried and couldn’t be consoled. So his Grandfather gave him the moon. (In some versions, the Grandfather first stopped up the smoke hole so that it couldn’t fly away.) And the baby played with it and giggled and laughed, until it flew away. (In some versions, the moon also went up the smoke hole, in others it rolled out the door.)
Raven cried and cried and couldn’t be consoled. Grandfather reached up and gave him the sun, and Raven flew off with it. (Now, here is where the tales vary. In some, he takes the sun to play with it but it burns his feathers black. He dropped the sun and it flew up into the sky. In other versions of the tale, Raven is boasting to all his friends that he has the sun. They refuse to believe him, so he opens the box or bag which holds it, and it flies out into the sky)
Now, the world had light and beauty and Raven loved his world. But when he looked at it, he realized that it needed just something more. He had heard of water; there was a giant stream of it which was guarded by a jealous and vigilant man, who put a cover over the water and slept by it. How to get water?
Raven had a plan. He visited the man with the water, and spent the night in his home. Hours before the man would have woken up, Raven was awake. He went outside, and found the feces of an animal. He carefully gathered it up, and arranged it by the man who had guarded the water. When the man woke up, he didn’t realized that Raven had played a trick on him. Instead, he was humiliated the he might have soiled himself before a guest, and he went out to clean himself up. Raven sprang up, and gathered up all the water that he could in his beak. Before he was done though, the man came back in. He realized that Raven had played a trick on him, and he was very angry. He chased Raven. (In one version, he chased Raven with a fiery brand, which turned his feathers black) Raven eventually escaped, but as he flew away, he spilled water. That spilled water became all the rivers and the lakes, while some of the little droplets that dripped from his beak became salmon streams.
Some of the central themes of this story are the importance of children in a tribe. Children were much beloved, and occasionally indulged. There is also the idea of income disparity, and the story tells of how Raven shared the wealth of the greedy with the world.
To read more Raven tales which are recorded in a culturally sensitive fashion, please check out:
Or listen to some of the amazing stories told by Tlingit storytellers
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