RAVEN CYCLE

collection of oral trickster-transformer tales popular mainly among the Indians of the Northwest Pacific Coast from Alaska to British Columbia. The tales feature Raven as a culture hero, an alternately clever and stupid bird-human whose voracious appetite and eroticism give rise to violent and amorous adventures. The cycle begins with a boy's birth and relates early adventures that include the seduction of his aunt (sometimes replaced by the daughter of the Sky Chief) and his flight to the sky to escape the ensuing flood. Raven, his child, falls to earth, where he is adopted by a chief; as an adult he transforms the earth from a dark and arid land inhabited by a variety of ferocious monsters into a land of rivers, lakes, and mountains inhabited by animals and human beings. He later travels about, changing aspects of the physical environment into their present form, often through deception. The dozens of tales that result include Raven's impersonation of a woman to embarrass a man; his killing of a monster by putting hot stones down his throat; and his role as the bungling host, a common motif of a guest who is fed by an animal wizard, then tries to imitate him in producing food, but, lacking his magic, fails ignominiously. In other geographic areas, Mink, Blue Jay, or Fox replace Raven as the hero of similar tales.