Case file · Folklore / legend
Raven and the First Men (Haida)
In a Haida story Raven, on the beach at Rose Spit (Naikun) on Haida Gwaii, found a clamshell full of small frightened creatures and coaxed them out: the first people.
1905 CE · 54.18, -131.66 · status: legend
The account
Haida accounts of Raven were written down by John R. Swanton in 'Haida Texts and Myths' (1905) from tellers such as Skaay. Haida artist Bill Reid's yellow-cedar sculpture of the scene, 'The Raven and the First Men' (1980), stands in the Museum of Anthropology at UBC.
The sceptical view
A sacred story with many versions; it is told here only in outline.