The Raven in Creation is the trickster

Trickster

In mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior. It is suggested by Hansen that the term "Trickster" was probably first used in this...

 and creator

Creator deity

A creator deity is a deity responsible for the creation of the world . In monotheism, the single God is often also the creator deity, while polytheistic traditions may or may not have creator deities...

 in the traditional creation stories of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian

Tsimshian

The Tsimshian are an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Tsimshian translates to Inside the Skeena River. Their communities are in British Columbia and Alaska, around Terrace and Prince Rupert and the southernmost corner of Alaska on Annette Island. There are approximately 10,000...

 peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast

Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast

The Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest Coast, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those historical peoples. They are now situated within the Canadian Province of British Columbia and the U.S...

.

One version of the Raven creation story begins when Raven was taught by his father, Kit-ka'ositiyi-qa to be a creator, but Raven was unsatisfied with the product. Raven created the world but was unable to give it light or water. On hearing that light could be found hidden in a far off land, Raven decided he would travel there and steal it. When he discovered that dwelling in the house of light was a young woman who lived there with her father, he played the first of many tricks. He turned himself into a small speck of dirt and slipped into her drinking water and was swallowed. This made the daughter pregnant, and she gave birth to an unusual and fussy child who cried demanding to touch one of the bundles which had been stored hanging from the walls. The child was given one of the bags to quiet him, but when tired of playing with it he let it go, and it floated away from him and disappeared through the smoke hole

Smoke hole

Smoke holes refers to the historical and modern reconstructed Native American long house ceiling ventilation...

. Once it reached the sky the bundle came undone and scattered stars across the sky. When the child cried to have it back again he was given the second bundle to play with, and he let it too float away through the hole in the ceiling, and it released the moon. This would happen again with the third and last bundle, which flew away and became sunlight. After Raven's tricks succeeded in bringing all the light to the world, he flew away through the smoke hole.

Raven continued using such trickery to bring water and stamp people, animals and other features in the world with certain characteristics. Many versions of Raven's theft of water are told but all center on Raven's trickery against the owner of water. In one version Raven leads its owner to believe he has soiled his bed in his sleep and threatens to shame him unless he shares his water with Raven. In another version Raven puts ash on his tongue to fool the owner to believe his extreme thirst is unquenched. Instead of drinking the water Raven collects it in a seal's bladder hidden under his clothes and flees with all of it.

Various myths are told of how people were created and Raven is often thought more as their reconstructor than a creator. In one myth Raven mated with a sea shell and nine months later heard voices coming from it. When he opened the shell to investigate he discovered he had fathered tiny human beings living inside. A variant account describes Raven as a passerby who freed the scared and timid beings inside the shell who were first men of the world. When he bored of them, he considered returning them to their shell, but opted instead to find female counterparts of these male beings. The raven found some female humans trapped in a chiton

Chiton

Chitons are small to large, primitive marine molluscs in the class Polyplacophora.There are 900 to 1,000 extant species of chitons in the class, which was formerly known as Amphineura....

, freed them, and was entertained as the two sexes met and began to interact. The raven felt responsible and very protective of them, thus many Haida myths and legends often suggest the raven as a provider to mankind.

In another recorded version of Raven creation, when an earlier people were all killed by a flood he created new ones from leaves.