These Inuit tales explore themes of trickery, survival, and transformation, often featuring the raven as a central figure. The raven demonstrates arrogance, resourcefulness, and eventual folly—whether stealing a thigh bone, attempting to dominate others, or failing to adapt to challenges. Interactions with other animals and humans reveal moral undertones about respect, cleverness, and the consequences of hubris, culminating in the raven’s ultimate downfall.
Source:
Tales of the Smith Sound Eskimo
by Alfred L. Kroeber
[The American Folklore Society]
Journal of American Folklore
Vol.12, No.46, pp.166-182
July-September, 1899
► Themes of the story
Trickster: The raven embodies the archetype of the trickster, using cunning and deceit in interactions with other animals and humans.
Transformation: The story features physical transformations, such as geese becoming human and vice versa, highlighting themes of change and adaptability.
Cunning and Deception: The narrative showcases acts of deceit and cleverness, particularly through the raven’s actions and the responses of other characters.
► From the same Region or People
Learn more about the Inuit peoples
1. A raven flew above a person, carrying something in his bill. “What have you in your bill, raven?” the person asked. “A man’s thigh-bone,” the raven answered. “I eat it because I like it. I am going to swallow it.”
2. A man, who was an angakoq, went visiting. He entered the raven’s house. The raven at once began to give orders to his son. He said: “Go out and get excrements.” His son went out and soon returned, bringing a large one. The raven told the man to eat of the excrement. The raven said, “Eat!” But the man did not eat it. The gull said to him: “Come over here to me.” The man came and went in its house. The gull went out and brought back trout. The man began to eat the trout. Then he left the house, went away, and arrived home.
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3. A small snowbird was crying because she had lost her husband. While she was crying, the raven, who had no wife, came along. When the raven reached her he said, “Why are you crying?” “I am crying for my husband, because he has been away so long a time,” said the snowbird. “My husband went out to look for food for me, and has not come back.” The raven told her that her husband was dead; that he had been sitting on a rock, when this became loosened and fell through the ice, and that he had fallen with it. “I will marry you,” he said. “You can sleep here under my armpit. Take me for a husband; I have a pretty bill; I have a pretty chin; I have good enough nostrils and eyes; my wings are good and large, and so are my whiskers.” But the little snowbird said, “I don’t want you for my husband.” Then the raven went away, because the snowbird did not want to marry him.
After a while the raven, who was still without a wife, came to some geese who had become persons. The geese were just going away. The raven said, “I too, I who have no wife, I am going.” The geese, because they were about to leave, now became birds again. One of them said, “It is very far away that we are going. You had better not go with us,” meaning the raven. “Don’t come with us.” The raven said, “I am not afraid to go. When I am tired, I shall sleep by whirling up.” Then they started, the raven going with them. They flew a great distance (having now become birds), passing over a large expanse of water, where there was no land to be seen. Finally, when the geese wanted to sleep, they settled and swam on the water, and there they went to sleep. The raven also grew very tired, and wanted to sleep, but of course could not swim.
So he whirled upwards towards the sky. But as soon as he went to sleep, he began to drop from up there. When he fell into the water he woke up and said, “Get together, so that I can climb on your backs and go to sleep there.” The geese did as he’ told them, and he was soon asleep on their backs. Then one of the geese said, “He is not light at all. Let us shake him off, because he is so heavy.” Then they shook him off their backs into the water.
“Get together,” cried the raven. But they did not do so, and thus the raven was drowned.
4. The hawk was busy marking the raven with spots. Meanwhile a man was coming from behind towards them, so that they did not see him (especially as they were absorbed in their occupation). The man came nearer. (An obscure passage follows.) Suddenly the hawk was startled, and spilled the soot over the raven, so that the latter became black, while the raven bespattered him, so that he became marked with small spots.
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