American Indian Trickster Tales (Myths and Legends) (42 page)

Long ago Raven was a man, a human being. He was lazy and he was a thief. He stole rather than fend for himself. He was always trying to scavenge, to get something without working for it. He was living at the end of a long rocky beach. A certain woman lived at the other end. This woman went down to the shore, saying: “I will dig clams while the tide is low.” She dug up a lot of clams. She had a basket. Each time it was full she went up on the beach and emptied it upon a reed mat. Whenever her basket was full she did this. The clams piled up. “This is good,” she said, “because I am very hungry.” She was digging clams the whole time during which the tide was low.

Raven was walking along the beach. He happened to come across the woman’s pile of clams. “What a big heap of fine clams!” he exclaimed. “What luck to find clams without having to dig for them. How pleasant to get food without having to work for it!” He saw the woman digging clams in the distance. “She is far away,” he told himself. “She won’t see me.” Raven smacked his lips. Quickly he ate up all the clams. Then he hurried off with a full belly.

The woman came back with another basket of clams. She discovered that all the clams she had piled up on her reed mat were gone. “I know who has done this,” she cried. “It was that no-good, thieving Raven who has stolen my clams!”

The woman was very angry. She decided to get even with Raven. She had great powers, which she used to punish him. She fixed it so that Raven could not get a drink of water anywhere. The weather was hot. Raven was thirsty. He went to the stream to drink, but as soon as his lips touched the water it receded. He went to a pond. He cupped his hands to scoop up some water, but when he put his hands to his lips the water disappeared. His throat became parched for lack of moisture. His mouth was dry and his lips cracked. He was dying of thirst. He did not know what to do.

Raven hit upon a plan. “I am going to fool this powerful woman,” he said. “I shall disguise myself.” He covered his body with feathers to make himself look like a bird. He made himself a bag from bird skins. He went to a stream to fill this skin-bag with water, but as soon as he lifted it to his lips to drink, all the water in the bag evaporated. He could do nothing to quench his awful thirst. He had not fooled the powerful woman.

Raven saw his reflection in the stream. “With all those feathers stuck on me,” he said to himself, “I look like a bird. Well, I might as well be one.” And so Raven changed himself into a bird. He flew all over the country to find a place where he could get a drink of water. When he was far enough from the powerful woman (and her powers reached very far), he at last found such a place. Raven has been a bird ever since. But his nature did not change. He is still a thief and he is still lazy.

{
Haida
}

Yehl, the Raven, was a cheat, a thief, a selfish scrounger. What somebody else had, he wanted. Whatever he himself had, he kept. He was the most covetous and stingy fellow on earth. When people were talking, he always eavesdropped. Maybe he could snatch up a piece of information here and there that could be of use to him.

There was a group of men coming back from fishing. They had beached their canoes and stood talking in a circle. Yehl crept up on them unseen. “Maybe they will reveal where the fish are biting,” he told himself.

One man was relating a strange tale—he was saying: “Out there, beyond the lonely spruce tree, at the mouth of the river, way beyond, there is an island. It is always shrouded in fog. I don’t think anybody has gone there for years. A gale swept me there, swept my canoe high up on the beach. I found a village there of big houses with tall totem poles in front of them. These houses were filled with many treasures. One was full of many kinds of food—smoked salmon, halibut, dried fish, jerky meat, cured deer, elk and moose meat, fish roe, seal blubber—so many kinds of food I can’t remember them all. The house next to it is filled with objects made from copper, and the house after this is filled with objects made from iron. Then there is a house full of carvings made from walrus ivory, and finally a house stuffed with the finest furs—otter, sable, silver fox, beaver, soft deerskins, and warm blankets made from animal pelts. And nobody lives there. The island is abandoned. It is very strange.”

When Yehl heard this, he became terribly excited. His heart pounded. His brain heated up. “I must get to this island,” he cried. “I must get all these wonderful things!” In his mind he already owned them. He flew and hopped back to his home as fast as he could. He screeched, he rasped, he sputtered, he raved: “Wife, wife, come quickly! Hurry, hurry, hurry! Help me get our canoe into the water. Be quick!”

“What is the matter, husband?” asked Yehl’s wife. “It is already afternoon. It is too late to go fishing.”

“Who’s talking of fishing?” croaked Yehl. “There is an island out there with a whole village full of wonderful treasures. I must have them. Hurry, hurry, before anyone gets there first!”

“That would be stealing,” said his wife. “These wonderful treasures must belong to someone.”

“How could I have married such a stupid woman?” screeched Yehl. “That stuff belongs to nobody. It belongs to whoever finds it! The people who lived there died long ago. Or they moved away. Or, if they should still be around, they don’t deserve those wonderful things, because they don’t take proper care of them. Hurry, hurry!”

They pushed the canoe into the water. They paddled in a frenzy. They paddled far out into the sea. Yehl steered the canoe into a fog bank and in it found the island. Yehl beached the canoe. He jumped out and, in his eagerness to get his hands on the wonderful things, ran toward the houses faster than he had ever done before. What he found in the seemingly abandoned houses surpassed his expectations. Here was wealth beyond imagination. The thought of possessing these things made Yehl giddy. He jumped with joy; he capered and frolicked like the fool he was. He screamed for his wife to come and help him pack and load the goods. “Lazy woman!” he shrieked. “Hurry, hurry, pack, pack, load, load!”

Yehl is just about the laziest person in the world. He always lets his wife do all the work. But this time it was different. He toiled like a slave. Feverishly he gathered goods, tied them up in bundles, carried them to the boat, hurrying back to the houses for more. He panted. He was drenched in sweat. He urged on his wife to follow his example: “Pack, pack, load up, carry, carry, faster, faster!”

His wife finally collapsed from exhaustion. She sat down in the middle of the largest room of the largest house and refused to move. “Husband,” she said, “I am almost dead from my exertions. I will sit here until you are finished. I don’t want these things that, I am sure, belong to somebody.”

“Sit there, lazy one!” croaked Yehl. “I would beat you, but I don’t have the time for it.” He continued frantically to load his canoe with loot. His greed had no bounds. “I am rich!” he croaked. “Oh, how I will enjoy my wealth! Kaw, kaw, kaw!”

At last Yehl was done. He had emptied the houses of whatever was valuable or edible. He called his wife: “Useless woman, get going. We are leaving.”

“Husband, I can’t get up,” his wife called back. “Invisible hands are holding me down. Invisible hands of invisible people. I can’t move!”

“Don’t make up silly stories, you old, no-good hag!” Yehl shouted. “Get a move on! Hurry, before it gets dark.”

“I can‘t,” wailed his wife. “Invisible people won’t let me go!”

“Don’t lie to me, stupid woman!” Yehl shouted. “Stay there till you rot. I’m going.” He ran to his canoe, sagging under the weight of so many goods, trying to shove it back into the sea. The canoe would not move. Yehl pushed and pushed with all his might, but the canoe would not budge.

Then, to his horror, Yehl felt invisible hands grabbing hold of his arms, his legs, his wings, even his hair, gripping him with suffocating, supernatural strength, as a hundred voices whispered: “Give it back, give it all back!”

For a while Yehl resisted. “These treasures are mine, mine, mine! I will keep them. I won’t give them back!”

But immensely strong arms, belonging to unseen people, held him in a deadly embrace, squeezing the breath out of his body while he heard his wife wailing: “Husband, I beg you, don’t leave me behind!”

“All right, all right,” Yehl croaked at last. “Whoever you are, you can have these things back, you stingy people.” And, at once, the invisible hands let go.

Then Yehl’s wife came running, saying: “Husband, the people one cannot see released me. Here I am. Let’s bring all these things back to where they belong and let’s get out of here. This place makes me shudder.”

All night, and most of the next day, Yehl and his wife labored to carry the ill-gotten things back. Then they shoved off in their canoe, paddling ever so slowly, bone-weary and tired. “I could weep,” said Yehl, “thinking of all those wonderful things we had to give back.”

“And I could weep,” said his wife, “for having married such a greedy, foolish fellow like you.”

{
Haida
}

There was a tribe dwelling on the coast. They lived by fishing. They were nurtured by the sea. They were fish eaters. Now, Raven, the Trickster, was a very lazy bird. Instead of going fishing or hunting for himself, he followed the boats of the people, begging them to give him some of their catch. “Caw, caw, caw,” he screeched with his hoarse, raucous voice. “Gimme, gimme, gimme.” He was always hungry. He was insatiable.

The people were kind. From time to time they threw him a fish, but it did not matter how many times they fed him; it was never enough. “Caw, caw, caw,” he screeched. “More, more, more.” He grew even more demanding.

The people got tired of his unending begging. “This bird is a pest,” they said. “He is a big nuisance. He is getting too overbearing. He does not leave us in peace for a moment. He gorges himself on half of what we catch. It is too much. We won’t feed him anymore!”

Then they told Raven: “Enough is enough, never-full Trickster! No more fish!”