Northwest+Mythology

=__**NORTHWEST MYTHOLOGY**__=

__INTRO__
The Raven: Bringer of the stars, moon, and the sun; has the personality of a trickster, but a confidence like no other. We will be talking about how the story reflects the culture itself, why the culture told this story, and the raven's comparision to that of Helios and Hermes of Greece. This is the northwest's story about the bringing of light to the world, told from passing down of myths and legends of the Raven.

__SUMMARY__
In the story of "How the Raven brings sunlight to the world", there was no sun except for one village. The king has the light captured in three boxes (sun, moon, stars). Many men tried to capture the light of the stars, moon, and sun from the King, but none succeeded. One day, the Raven flew to the village, and saw the Kings daughter drinking water out of a lake. The raven turned into a pine needle, and was consumed by the princess. She became pregnant, and nine months later she had birth to a half-human, half-raven baby. When he was at the age where he could crawl and communicate, he cried, so he was given the star box. He threw it against a wall, and all the stars of the world flew out of the house's chimeny and into the sky. The same happened to the moon, and when he wanted the sun, he flew out of the chimney, turning his feathers pitch black. He later released the sunlight into the entire world. We will be showing how the light came to the world in the Northwestern Indians mind, similar to that of Helios in Greece.



__STORY ANALYSIS__
The Tsimshians told this story to explain how the sun used to belong to one village, but now everyone can see it. This story shows that a small animal/person can outsmart one that is much larger. In the story, “Raven Brings the Daylight”, Raven turns himself into a leaf, gets eaten, and comes back out as a baby. He then tricks the chief of the village into giving him the boxes with the stars, moon, and sun; one by one he releases them all. It also shows why ravens are black. In the story Raven was white, but after he released the stars, moon, and sun at the village he had to fly through the smoke hole to get out, the soot in there turned all of his feathers black. Another thing in this story is it shows how people can be greedy. The chief with the sun was keeping it all to himself and his tribe, making other tribes stumble in the dark when they needed food or were doing anything other then sleeping. In essence, the story was told to show how cunningly one of their own was able to make the world a better place for all.



__CULTURE ANALYSIS__
There are many things we can tell by reading and analyzing this myth. For example, in the myth there is a king, meaning they have a king or a designated person of a higher power. You can also tell from this story that they lived around areas with pine trees and that is why he turned himself into a pine needle to be eaten by the princess. From looking at the main charecter, the raven, we can also tell many things. For one we can tell that they also live in an area where ravens are found. BEcause he is black from a chimney we can see that they have some sort of chimney structure. If we look at the beliefs reflected by this myth there are a few things we can get out of it.We can look at how the story talks about the sun moon and the stars and see that they thought they were important to us and the world. I have showed you many things you can tell by reading and analyzing this myth.



__CULTURE COMPARISION__
When everything is said and done, then Greek and Roman mythology has a very close resemblance to that of the Northwest. First, the Northwest and Greece/Rome are Polytheistic. The Northwest, though not as diverse as that of their over-seas natives, beleives in a handful of Gods with the Raven being the most popular. Greek and Rome have many Gods and Goddesses that each have a job. Secondly, in the myth, "Raven Brings Sunlight to the World," the raven represents a trickster. He tricked the princess to swallow him, only to give birth to him nine months later. When he was born, the Raven tricked the light God into giving him the boxes of the Moon, Stars, and Sun. He stole them and flew off, and this personality is close to that of Hermes, the Trickster of the Gods. This is related to the Raven bearing a job of Helios, the Son of Apollo. Helios brought in the Sunlight everyday to a dark world, the Raven of the Northwest stole the light of the world and released it.



__CONCLUSION__
The story of how the Raven brought Sun to the world is an exact reflection of the Northwest's culture, how the beleifs run, and the comparision that is very similar to that of Ancient Greece and Rome. The raven was the bringer of everything light to the world, using his mastery trickery to get by. This is how the light of the world, or at least the Northwest, was brought in, and the same myth will live untill it dies.

__CITATIONS__
Book citation:  Schomp, Virginia. __The Native Americans__. Tarrytown, NY: Benchmark 99, 2008. 53-57.

Website: ,. "Birds in Mythology." __Encyclopedia of Myths__. 2008. Advameg Inc. 29 September, 2008. .

Website: Gudzune, Jeffrey R. "Trickster Mythology: Raven and Coyote and the Ancient World." __Suite 101__. Dec 8, 2007. . 29 September, 2008. .

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Cornue, Virginia. "Raven Brings the Message of Destruction". VaBoomer. 10-1-08 <http://www.vaboomer.com/the_portal_to_boomeranger/2008/09/the-arrow-of-intention-raven-brings-the-message-of-destruction-depth-and-rebirth.html>.

PICTURES:

http://www.libraryvideo.com/guides/V6941.pd (Cultural raven; Accessed 9-30-08)

http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/ppm/images/aqm-area-map.gif (Raven Drawing with Sun; Accessed 9-29-08)

http://artsii.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html (Raven Drawing with Sun; Accessed 9-30-08)

http://jenthethirdgal.deviantart.com/art/Crow-Brings-Daylight-III-30917972 (Map of the Northwest; Accessed 9-31-08)