Happy Winter Solstice everyone. Tonight is the longest night of the year. Worldwide, interpretation of the day has varied across cultures, but many have held a recognition of rebirth, involving holidays, festivals, gatherings, rituals or other celebrations.
For the tribes north of Kanata, the daylight will last less than six hours. The Wheel Walkers of these tribes gather their people around the fire. They feast upon caribou and tell the story of how the sun came to be.
This story was passed to me by my mother from her mother, so I know it to be true:
Raven Steals the Light
Now, this happened in the long-ago days. Back then, it was always dark. There was no sun in the sky, and people had to creep along the ground so they wouldn’t bump into anything.
“This is boring”,” Raven said to Raccoon. “I can’t even see to fly. I mean to do something about this!”
There was a wealthy man who lived with his daughter away from anyone else. But a strange story reached Raven’s curious ears: It said that the man owned two toys, two globes, that glowed brightly in the dark. One of them was big, the other small, but they were both bright.
“I’m going to get them shining toys,” Raven said.
So he stole to the rich man’s well and turned himself into a bit of dirt (he could do that, change shape, without trouble). And Raven said a wish spell: “I wish that the rich man’s daughter would grow thirsty and drink from this well.”
As he said it, the rich man’s daughter did, indeed, grow thirsty. She pulled up a bucket of water from the well and drank it down – and she drank down the bit of dirt that was Raven, too.
Soon enough, the rich man’s daughter grew around with child. She gave birth to a baby boy-Raven. The only sign that he wasn’t a normal human child was that he made a slight mistake; he been born with the tail of a Raven.
His mother didn’t like that. Neither did his uncles, her brothers. But whenever they started to tease the little boy about his tail, Raven outshouted them.
“I want the gleaming globes!” he yelled. “I want the glittery, glowy, gleaming globes!”
“You only break them.” he was told.
“I want the gleaming globes!” Raven yelled.
He made so much noise that last the rich man, his grandfather now, gave Raven the globes, just to keep them quiet. Raven played with them a bit, just the way a child would play, rolling the gleaming toys about on the floor and laughing. But each time he rolled them, Raven rolled those gleaming globes a little closer to the door.
Raccoon, who had been patiently waiting all this while, crept up to the door. Raven saw her and suddenly gave the globes a great kick! Raccoon caught the larger globe and ran. Raven ran after her. The rich man ran after them both. Every time the man got too close to Raccoon, Raccoon tossed the globe to Raven. Every time the rich man got too close to Raven, Raven tossed the globe to Raccoon. At last Raven turned back into his bird-shape and flew up into the air with the globe.
“Give it back!” the rich man called.
“No.”
“Give it back!”
“No.”
“I have the other globe. See how it gleams?”
Raven laughed. “I’d rather have this one.”
“But if you take this globe,” the rich man said, “the nights will be nice and long, dark as your feathers.”
“I’d rather have the days long and bright,” Raven said, “to show off my feathers!”
And Raven through the globe up into the sky, where became the sun.
Some people say the rich man was so angry that he threw the small glow up there, too, where he became the moon, but some people will say anything.
Source:
Balikci, Asen. The Netsilik Eskimo. New York: Natural History Press, 1970.
