Raven

How to recognise Raven

1. The ravenLook for the large, heavy-billed black bird, shown naturally and with a bright, curious, clever air, never sinister.
2. Sun in the beakRaven carries a glowing sun or has just released it into the sky, recalling the freeing of the lights in the Tlingit story and the Tsimshian telling in which he carries the sun himself.
3. Black plumageHis feathers are black. Many Tlingit tellings say he was first white (Dleit Yéil), and sources differ on whether smoke, ashes or soot darkened him.
4. Stars, moon and sunThe three lights kept in boxes in the chief's house may appear together, with the sun in the biggest and last box, and a small crescent moon and a few stars in the sky.
5. The white ravenSome images show the white Raven, Dleit Yéil, as he was before the smoke blackened him.
6. Raven and the clamshellIn the Haida story, Raven stands on the beach at Rose Spit as the first people emerge from a clamshell.
7. Formline RavenRaven is also drawn in formline, with ovoids and U-shapes, the living art of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian nations.

Names and titles

• Who Set the Sun FreeIn the Tlingit telling, Yéil released the stars, moon and sun from the boxes where a chief kept them
• Transformer and TeacherSealaska Heritage's curator presents Raven as a cultural transformer, trickster and teacher
• Once Pure WhiteIn many Tlingit tellings Raven began as a white, supernatural bird before the smoke blackened his feathers
• Out of the ClamshellIn Haida tradition, Raven coaxed the first people out of a clamshell at Rose Spit
• A Mirror of OurselvesThe Haida see Raven as a complex reflection of one's own self