Raven Steals the Sun

as told by Johnny Stevens

Raven kept going around a point until he saw smoke coming up between the trees. He went over and there was a family who had plenty to eat. "Where do you come from?" they asked. "I come from all over," he replied. They gave him raw meat but Raven didn't like it. "Where I come from," he said, "we cook our meat." They had never heard of that, so Raven showed them how to boil meat with hot rocks and how to roast it on spits before the fire. The people were grateful and gave Raven a place to sleep in their house.

Quantities of fat were hanging from the rafters. After everyone was asleep, Raven turned into a bird, seized the fat, and flew with it out the smokehole. He returned before morning and after changing back into a man, went to sleep again. The people were angry when they saw that all their fat was gone, and they knew that Raven must have taken it, but there were no marks through the doorway to show where he had gone out.

They ordered Raven out. He said that he was innocent but left. He traveled until he came to another house. He took some seaeggs in with him and said, "Have you ever seen anything like this?" (The people never had.) He also showed them game and fish, and they had never seen them either, for they had no weapons and knew nothing of hunting. Raven showed the man how to make bows and arrows with bone points. Then they went and shot a duck. Since that time men have hunted. Next he took a man up a mountain after bear. By and by a large bear began to chase them. Raven threw his spear and cawed. The bear dropped dead. Since that time men have hunted. They packed the carcass back to the house and Raven showed them how to skin it and cut it up with a stone knife.

"What can we use the hide for?" they asked. "You can either dry the meat side and make baskets or you can make moccasins." Before that time people had slept on grass, they had no blankets. "How can we sew the skin?" they wondered. Raven pulled sinews from the bear's back, dried them, and showed the women how to roll them for thread. He also showed them how to cut up and smoke the meat. The Raven went up on the mountain and killed a goat. He dragged it home. He showed the people what to do with the fat. He took bark and made a pail. The bark is taken from the trees in spring. There is one piece for the side and another for the bottom. It is sewed together with young peeled spruce roots. Holes are drilled for the lashing. Raven put the goat fat in the pail and made grease of it. It got hard, harder than butter. He did that much. Then he went up the creek and got some fish. The people did not know how to roast meat by the fire, they knew only how to cook on hot stones. Raven then showed how to make a spit of three sticks and roast the fish.