Tricksters. Raven Steals the Light

After a week of Cherokee tricksters last week, I've decided to go in a different direction this week and look at Raven, one of the great tricksters of the Pacific Northwest, and I thought I would start with this book of stories by Haida artist Bill Reid and Robert Bringhurst: The Raven Steals the Light.

You will find ten stories from the Haida people told in this book, five of which are about Raven, and Bill Reid did the drawings! For example, here are Raven and the first people:

This might be familiar to those of you who have seen Reid's sculpture on the Canadian 20 dollar bill. Here is a photograph of the sculpture at the University of British Columbia anthropology museum:

Robert Bringhurst collaborated with Bill Reid on other projects, as you can read at Wikipedia. Bringhurst's book Story as Sharp as a Knife is dedicated to Bill Reid, who died in 1998 before the book was published in 1999.

A Story as Sharp as a Knife:
The Classical Haida Mythtellers and Their World

So, that's just a start, and I'll be back every day this week more about Raven... who has a Wikipedia article too of course: Raven tales. Enjoy!

The Raven Steals the Light

by Bill Reid and Robert Bringhurst