Week 11 Reading - Alaskan Legends A

This week, I will be taking a look at the legends from the native people of Alaska, the Inuit. This one stood out to me due to its disconnected connection to the continental United States' native people, being close yet far. Just glancing at the titles of the stories gives an obvious impression - the importance of the raven.
The Raven
Right off the bat, we are given an incredibly interesting, unique creation story in which man is the spawn of what feels to be a side project of this Raven god, emerging from the pod of a vine planted in whimsy. The Raven, almost as confused as the first man, guides him along in a cooperative path of discovery of all the world has to offer for man, including water, fruit, earth, hunting, and the creation of a companion. The Raven's explanations of purpose likely directly reflect the views of the societies that told these stories, like how a shrew isn't good for food but makes the plain more interesting, and integrates many "explanation" myths into its telling, such as why the belly of a caribou is white. Even this Raven is shown to not be omnipotent, as he fails in many human-esque trials, my favorite of which being his nice guy attempts at finding a wife. Even as a nature god, he falls weary trying to follow the geese in their migration with his goosewife. This shows an explicit understanding that divinity is not necessarily correlated with omnipotence, or perhaps that creation is not linked with divinity. Either way, the quaint explanatory tales, in their very grounded, human form, shows a character of the Alaskan native peoples that is unique in relation to the world but not unlike their fellow natives in the continental United States.
I hope to try to integrate a similarly grounded story of creation in my own story this week, perhaps trying to focus more on an Inuit setting.
Bibliography: Alaskan Legends, Untextbook

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