Raven and the Source of Light

Raven and the Source of Light

The creation myth “Raven and the Sources of Light” talks about a child, dressed as a Raven that played with the stars, the moon and the sun, with his “grandfather”. This took place when the earth was young, people during that time did not have day and night. Raven would play with those elements while his grandfather took care of him. One day, the Raven was playing with the sun, as usual, but that day his grandfather was not as careful as usual. The child took his Raven form and stole the sun. After negotiating, the Raven asked for fish in exchange for the sun. The Raven got his fish and tossed the sun into the sky. From that day on, the people have day and night.

Even though this creation myth does not have a clear category, most people would call this an Accretion or Conjunction. An Accretion type myth is a short story where the characters do not have many resources, especially essential natural resources like water, sun or soil, and as the story progresses they get the resource they need. The resources they need are added to what they have, they don’t 

travel anywhere to get them. “Raven and the Source of Light” starts off in a dark setting, with no sun. Then the Raven “steals” the sun and tosses it up in the air, the people in that specific society get a World with sun, moon and stars. In the end, the Raven provided his world with day and night.