Raven and the First Men

This story appears in John R. Swanton's *Haida Texts and Myths* (1905) as a short supplementary text that Franz Boas obtained from Charles Edenshaw, chief of the Stᴀ′stas at Masset. Edenshaw was also a celebrated carver, and his earlier miniature of the scene is what the Haida artist Bill Reid drew on when he carved the monumental sculpture *The Raven and the First Men* from laminated yellow cedar between 1978 and 1980; it is held at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. Reid's version is itself a public, widely seen retelling of Haida tradition, not a departure from it, and this narrative draws on both his and Swanton's versions.

Raven, walking the beach alone at Rose Spit on Haida Gwaii after a great flood has receded, notices an enormous clamshell lying in the sand, and from it come small sounds. Looking closer, he finds it full of tiny beings, the first humans, crowded together and afraid to come out into his strange new world.

Using his voice, by turns coaxing, teasing, and persuading, exactly as Raven persuades and tricks his way through every other story told of him, he convinces the beings to leave the shell's safety. Some hesitate at the edge; others emerge readily, curious about the wide world of sea, sky, and forest Raven describes to them. Once out, they become the first Haida people, beginning their life on Haida Gwaii.

Reid's work, about two metres tall, shows Raven perched on a half-open clamshell with the small figures squeezing out beneath him, some eager and some afraid. It was unveiled in 1980 in its own rotunda at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, where it remains, and it appears on the reverse of the Canadian twenty-dollar note issued from 2004. Reid and the poet Robert Bringhurst later retold the story in *The Raven Steals the Light* (1984). Haida tellers tell of the first people in more than one way, and this is one of those tellings, not the only account of Haida origins.