An old woman lived alone, subsisting on fish and game. After killing a bear, she stored its meat. Raven visited, feigned helpfulness, and borrowed her fishskin parka and boots, which he secretly consumed. While she searched for the missing items, Raven devoured her bear meat and vandalized her home. Upon her return, she discovered his deceit, killed him, and later encountered two women seeking their husband. A confrontation ensued, resulting in the old woman killing them both.
Source:
Ten’a Texts and Tales
(from Anvik, Alaska)
by John W. Chapman
The American Ethnological Society
Publications, Volume 6 (ed. Franz Boas)
E.J. Brill, Leyden, 1914
► Themes of the story
Trickster: Raven embodies the trickster archetype, using cunning and deceit to achieve his goals.
Revenge and Justice: After discovering Raven’s deceit, the old woman takes justice into her own hands by killing him.
Loss and Renewal: The old woman experiences loss after Raven’s theft but encounters new challenges and characters, suggesting a cycle of loss and new beginnings.
► From the same Region or People
Learn more about Koyukon people
There was an old woman who lived year in and year out in the same place. In the summer she fished with a net, to get her winter supply of fish; and in the winter she lived in an earth house, and worked at snaring rabbits and grouse. One day, as she was making a fire, a bear made his way into the house, and she killed him, and afterward she went to bed; and next morning she got up and skinned the bear, and cut up the body, and filled her cache with the meat, and buried some of it in the ground. Then she went into the house and cooked the bear’s feet for herself. As she finished cooking them, the Raven came in. “Where did you come from?” said she. “From somewhere,” said the Raven.
► Continue reading…
So she gave him some of the meat; and he said, “Dear grandmother, I want to get some wood for you.” The old woman agreed; and the Raven said, “But I am too cold. Lend me your fishskin parka and boots.” So she let him take them, and he went off as if he intended to get some wood; but when he was out of sight, he ate the parka and the boots. Then he came back; and the old woman said, “Where are my parka and the boots?” And the Raven said, “Oh, my dear grandmother! I forgot, and left them where I was getting wood.” And the old woman said, “Well, go back and get them!” And the Raven said, “I don’t want to go back for them. Get them yourself, grandmother!” So the old woman started off to get the boots and the parka, but she could not find them; and while she was gone, the Raven flew up, alighted on her cache, and ate all her bear-meat. Then he went down into the house, and turned everything upside-down, and smeared the place with bear’s grease. Pretty soon the old woman came back to the house, and found the Raven playing with the bear’s fat. “Where did you get that bear’s grease?” said she. “Dear grandmother,” said the Raven, “that is what you gave me yesterday evening.” Then the old woman killed the Raven, and hung up his skin in the house; and afterward she cried all the time, because she had no food for the winter. Some time after that, she came in one day, and found two women in her house. “Oh, my!” said she, “where did you come from?” “We have lost our husband,” said they, “and we are looking for him.” “I haven’t found anybody,” said the old woman; but one of the women began to look around, and she saw the Raven’s skin; and they both set upon her to kill her, but she turned out to be the stronger, and killed them both.
(Another version) There was once an old woman. She lived in a little house. One day she heard a great noise at her door. It was a big beast trying to get in. The old woman got her hammer and awl, and she struck the beast and killed it. Then she brought it into the house and cooked it, and there was plenty of meat and fat on it. She put it all into her cache, except the entrails; and she was cooking these, when she heard some one coming. It was the Raven, and the old woman told him to come in. They ate the entrails, and afterward the old woman told the Raven to get some wood for her. She gave him a pair of fish-skin mittens and a fish-skin parka and fish-skin boots. As he was going out, he ate one of the mittens; and while he was in the woods, he ate the other, as well as the boots and the parka. Then he got some wood and came back to the house. The wood was wet, and the old woman threw it all out again -, and at that the Raven came in, and she asked him where all the clothing was that she had lent him. He said that it had been very hot, and that he had left the things on a tree and had forgotten all about them. She told him to go and get them, and he refused. Then she went into the woods to get them herself, and the Raven stole all the fat that she had put into her cache, and fouled the floor of the cache with his excrement. When the old woman came back, he had made a ball of the fat, and was playing with it. The old woman asked him where he got the fat; and he said, “You gave it to me this morning.” She was angry, and said, “I did not give you that this morning.” Then she went to look at her cache, and saw what he had done, and that the fat was gone. This made her angry, and she got her hammer and awl. When she went in, she told the Raven that she was going to cut his hair, but she hid the hammer and awl under her parka; and when she came up as if to cut his hair, she drove the awl into his head with a blow of the hammer, and killed him. Then she pounded him to a pulp with her hammer, and put him into a bowl, and put him into a hole in the ice, and went into her house again. As she sat in her house, she heard a noise at the door. There were three women, and they had three little babies on their backs. They came in, and asked where the Raven was. She said, “I don’t know where he went.” But they did not believe her, and they began to fight with her, and dragged her down to the hole in the ice and fought with her there; but she forced one of them into the water, and then another, and then the other, and then she went back to her house.
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