In Northwest Coast mythology among the Tlingit and Tsimshian nations, Raven is the powerful figure that transforms the world. Stories tell how Raven created the land, released the people from a cockleshell and brought them fire. Raven stole the light and brought it out to light up the world. Yet Raven is a trickster - often selfish, hungry and mischievous. He changes the world only by cleverly deceiving others in his never-ending quest for food and his thievery. Revered as a clan founder and guardian of his people, Raven, like many characters in mythology, also had a dark side. Reflecting the reality of life and death in the cycle of life, in one instance, as companion of a cannibal spirit among the Kwakiutl, Raven ate out the eyes of her prisoners. In Northwest Coast art, ravens signify the many adventures of Raven in the early days of the world. Those who know the stories cannot help being reminded of the trickster whenever they see a raven.
The two most common roles for crow and raven among Native Americans were trickster and fire-bringer. As tricksters, Crow and Raven are both generous and shamelessly dishonest, cunning and foolish, brave and ridculous, greedy and resourceful. A fire-bringer story from the Lenape people of Pennsylvania, popularized in the children's book, Rainbow Crow, tells of Crow's loss of her beautiful plumage and voice when she is burned while bringing fire to the freezing creatures of earth. The people known as the Crow take their identity from the absaroka, an extinct raven-like bird of the western plains.
The Lakota revere Crow's swiftness, ability to find what is hidden, and his powers of observation; one Lakota warrior society was called the Crow Owners. Camp sentinels copied Crow's vigilence and sought his power by wearing crow headdresses. Even today various combinations of the name Crow are common among the Lakota people.
Myths explain the natural world, describe the origin of a clan or tell how the clan acquired rights to perform a particular ceremony. This excerpt is from a Raven story published by Haida artist Bill Reid in 1984.
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. The reason for all this blackness has to do with the old man in the house by the river, who had a box which contained a box which contained a box which contained an infinite number of boxes each nestled in a box slightly larger than itself until finally there was a box so small all it could contain was all the light in the universe. In the story, the old man hides the light because he's afraid to see whether or not his daughter is ugly. In a ploy to steal the light, Raven shrinks himself to become a hemlock needle in a basket of drinking water so that the daughter swallows him. Soon Raven is reborn from her as a raven/human child. The old man accepts him as a grandson, and soon Raven begins begging that he open the boxes, one after another, each time pleading and crying until the old man yields. When the old man finally opens the box containing the light, Raven grabs it and flies out of the house - causing light to spread throughout the world and revealing that the old man's daughter is as beautiful as the fronds of a hemlock tree. As Raven flies away, Eagle sees him and tries to steal the light, causing Raven to drop some of it, which becomes the Moon and the stars.