One day our chief went out
into the woods to pray for the fishing party he was about to send out.
Thunderbird had not been seen in months, and the last three fishing
parties had been chased back to the village with no fish by Killer Whale.
The people were getting hungry. Killer Whale saw him praying on the
top of a hill, and decided the quickest way to destroy the village was
to kill its chief. He attacked and quickly killed the chief.
A man, even a chief, is no match for a powerful spirit like Killer Whale.
He had just taken the chiefs spirit when Thunderbird swooped to attack
his old enemy. Killer Whale was determined, and held onto the chiefs
spirit for a long time, but in the end Thunderbird was to strong for him,
and he had to abandon the chief spirit and flee. Thunderbird quickly
returned the chiefs spirit. The chief recovered, and returned to
his village. Thunderbird has never again been absent from the village
for more than a few weeks.
.
Raven thought himself the
most beautiful of the spirits. He often told them so, as he strutted
his
beautiful golden feathers before them. He was also famous for
pulling practical jokes, but Thunderbird
played the greatest trick of all on him. Potlaches are the heart
of village life.
One year we had invited
all of the local villages to join us for an especially great potlach.
The villagers went out and gathered a great pile of tinder to start all
of the fires that would be needed to cook the food for so many guests.
Then they all went out fishing. Raven was flying by, and being curious,
he swooped into the deserted village to see what was going on. He
found the pile of tinder that the villagers had collected, and thought
to himself "This would make a wonderful lining for my nest."
His nest was getting rather old and drafty, so he took the tinder, and
flew to his nest. When the villagers returned from their fishing,
they discovered that the tinder was gone. There wasn't enough time
to gather more, start the fires, and cook the food before their guests
arrived. The potlach would be ruined. They began to search
frantically for the lost tinder. Thunderbird was flying overhead
and saw the frantic activity of the search. Flying low, he managed
to overhear the problem, and wondered who could have taken the tinder.
It was just the kind of trick that Raven was famous for pulling, so he
flew to see Raven. Raven welcomed Thunderbird warmly. "Come
and see what I've done to my nest he said." Thunderbird knew as soon
as he saw the nest what had happened to the tinder, the problem was how
to get Raven to part with it. He tried telling Raven that the villagers
needed it for their potlach, but raven didn't care whether the potlach
was ruined or not, he hadn't been invited. He only cared that his
nest was warmer. Finally Thunderbird invited Raven to the potlach
if he could borrow the nest lining. Raven still wasn't sure.
He was afraid that the lining would be ruined, but Thunderbird promised
to bring it back even warmer than when it was taken from the nest.
With this promise, Raven allowed Thunderbird to borrow the tinder, and
followed him to the potlach. The potlach was a great success and
lasted late into the night. When the guests were asleep, Thunderbird
carefully scooped up a great handful of ashes and embers and flew back
to Ravens nest. He lined the nest with the ashes and waited for raven
to return. Raven was always the last to come home from a party, and
it was very dark when he got home. He snuggled into his freshly lined
nest. It was so warm. Even warmer than it had been when it
was lined with the tinder. He was so pleased, and told Thunderbird
so before he left. It was only the next morning when the sun came
up that he discovered that the ashes and embers had scorched and stained
his feathers. They were no longer a beautiful golden color, now they
were a shiny black. Raven screemed for days, but there was nothing
he could do. From that day on he has been a little more careful with
the tricks he plays, but only a little more careful, and to this day his
feathers are still black.
One afternoon Raven was very
tired and sat down to take a nap. The tree under which he was
napping had a family of very badly behaved young chipmunks. Everybody
had warned them that their
behavior would someday get them in serious trouble, but they would
not listen to their elders. These
chipmunk brothers ran down the tree and looked at the sleeping Raven.
"Wouldn't it be fun to wake him up!" they thought. The bravest of
them slipped up to Raven and nudged him and then ran away. Raven
woke up and yelled at the chipmunk boys for waking him. Then he went
back to sleep. First one and then another of the chipmunk brothers
took turns waking Raven up and getting yelled at. They were having
a great time. Finally Raven got up from where he had been trying
to nap. He was very angry. The young chipmunks ran and hid
from him inside a giant fir cone. Raven shrunk the fir cone down
to the size it is today. If you look closely at a fir cone, you can
still see tiny chipmunk tails sticking out from under the bracts as a warning
to all young chipmunks not to bother Raven, and as a warning to all boys
to listen to the warnings of their elders.
.
Many years ago, the Sun was
not up in the sky. It was kept in a box, and many wars were fought
between the villages for the possession of that box. Finally the
animals decided it was time to do something about all of the wars between
men. They would steal the Sun from the village that had it and put
it up in the sky where everybody could use it. They were very successful
in stealing the box, but how to carry it to the sky was a much harder problem.
Beaver volunteered to throw the Sun in its box up into the sky with his
tail, but the box turned out to be very heavy. He threw the box as
far as he could, but the Sun only got a few feet off the ground and fell
back into the sand. The heavy box fell back on top of Beavers tail
and squashed it flat, and to this day Beaver has a flat tail. The
Sun wasn't up in the sky, but at least it was out of the box. Rat
volunteered to carry the Sun with his long tail, but when he tried, the
Sun was so hot that it burned all the hair off his tail. To this
day no hair grows on rats tail. Trout told them that his tail was
so wet and cold it wouldn't get burned. Trout is very strong in the
water, but weak on the sand of the beach. He wasn't strong enough to get
the Sun any higher than ten feet before it fell back into the sand.
On sunny days you can still see a bit of the Sun shining back from Trout's
side. Finally Spider spoke up and said "I think I can do it".
The other animals all laughed at him. "If Beaver and Rat and Trout
couldn't do it how do you think a tiny insignificant animal like you will
be able to put the Sun up in the sky?" "We'll never know unless I
try," said Spider. He carefully wrapped the Sun in his toughest webbing
and then made a parachute out of his finest webbing. The wind caught
the parachute, pulling him and the Sun high up into the sky. When the sun
finally burned through his tough webbing it was high in the sky, where
all of the villages could enjoy it. If you look at Spiders web early
in the morning, you can still see the bits of the Sun sticking to it as
a reminder that even those we think of as insignificant can do great things
if we give them the chance.
.
One day three young men decided
to go fishing. They were not very experienced, but had
watched their parents fish, and thought they could do as well.
They cast their nets into the river and waited for the fish. The
fish came swimming up the river, but could see the nets, and swam back
down the river again. The boys tried again, but as the fish came
back up the river, they could see the nets again and swam back down the
river. The boys tried one last time. This time they hid a little
better, but the nets didn't seal off the river, and the fish swam past
the nets and on up the river. The boys went home without any fish.