Week 9 Reading Diary Part I: Alaskan Legends

Alaskan Legends, an anthology by Katharine Judson

Raven's Creation: I think it's interesting the way the storyteller describes the raven lifting his beak as though he's taking off a mask, and then he is suddenly a man. There was also an interesting idea that the ground the raven made earlier was thick and solid, whereas the ground he created later was still squishy and thin. I also found it interesting that the raven shaped several animals out of clay, and the storyteller seemed to explain different colored animals by the way the "clay" dried. for instance, only the white belly of the wild deer was completely dry when Raven made it come to life.

Raven Creates People: I like that the Raven supposedly created the shrewmouse simply so that the earth would not look "bare and cheerless." How simple a reason to create a mouse. ...But then he also makes mosquitoes and insects so that the earth is less cheerless, and that just seems wrong.

I'm curious now whether people believed the myths of The Raven and creation (like a religion almost), or if they just viewed them as stories...either way, it all seems kind of odd to me, and random. Why a raven? When do the men come from pea pods?

It might be fun to do a retelling of one of these stories as a little child listening to the story and asking questions about where things came from.

Skyland and Sea: I thought it sort of came out of nowhere when the raven decided to turn the man into a polar bear while they were hanging out at the bottom of the ocean...It might be fun to develop this small part of the story to give an explanation for why the raven did this. Maybe something happens while the man is asleep and the raven really needs a white bear... or has to protect man from being seen.

I think I'd like to write a story about the terrible a-mi-kuk animal that sounds like a seal, but wraps its four long arms around kayaks and tries to kill men if they attempt to escape. The story tells of the creature burrowing through the earth to chase men, so it would be a formidable villian/fear for any story.

I do think it's almost...whimsical or twisted, the way all the animals and characters in the Raven Myths are sort of not-as-they-should-be. Deer start out with teeth like wolves, and they can attack people...The raven is some sort of god and can become a man, and there's a whole world of sky-people who are like dwarves and wear fancy clothes. In essence, it almost reminds me of a Tim Burton movie, where everything is just a little bit backwards. I think I might like to write a story like this, maybe borrowing one of these basic plots (or probably one from one of the later stories), and then setting it in a very backwards world.

(A place where the Sky People would live? Or maybe the evil sky people...)