Raven has visited QBO several times, so here is one of many versions of the story of how he Stole the Moon. In the Before Times, when everything existed in darkness, Raven, one of the Creators, heard that in a faraway place lived an old Immortal and his daughter. The Immortal had a remarkable treasure that he kept hidden in his hut, inside a series of ever-smaller sealed cedar boxes. It was the Moon. Or, the Sun. Or the Moon, the Sun, and the Stars. It was LIGHT.
So Raven went to spy on that little family in the never-ending darkness and figure out how to get ahold of LIGHT. After observing father and daughter in their doorless hut and seeing how jealously the old Immortal guarded the nested boxes securing his treasure against all possible thieves, Raven hit upon a plan: he would become the old man’s grandson! Ever the tricky shape-shifter, Raven turned himself into a speck of dust, or a hair, or a pine-needle and wafted down through the hut’s smoke hole to land upon the surface of the daughter’s drinking water, where she sipped him down unknowingly. Once he reached her stomach he curled up and slowly grew larger until at last she gave birth to this strange, bird-like baby. A strange bird-like baby who cried and fussed and held out his pudgy little hands begging his ‘grandfather’ to let him play with those marvelous sealed boxes. As soon as his grandfather relented the infant grabbed the boxes, became Raven again and flew right up out of the smoke hole, spilling light, light, LIGHT out across the world. And that is how we have the Sun, the Moon and the Stars.
The first Raven we have here is this 14″ long hand-carved and painted wooden bowl, wherein Raven’s wingtips balance the stolen moon upon his tail. The bottom is signed TUFFLUKK. The bowl was almost certainly made as a souvenir in the 1950s, when a number of similar hand-carved Native American or Inuit souvenirs such as bowls, masks and miniature totem poles were produced under the same signature, sometimes written as TUFF LUKK, ALASKA. The name may have been taken from the Tough Luck Creek that flows north-northeast of the city of Fairbanks, in the Fairbanks North Star Borough.
The second bowl is black cast resin. Mass-produced in the early 2000s, it’s an indication of the popularity of Northwest Coast art among both non-native Americans and tourists from abroad.
Last is this beautiful blanket produced by Pendleton Woolen Mills, a sixth-generation family-owned Oregon company. In 1895 Pendleton started producing blankets for general use and beautiful trade robes for Native Americans which became prized apparel. In the 1990s Pendleton partnered with tribal designers from across the U.S. to produce blankets featuring modern Native American art. Production continues today with a portion of sales going to the American Indian College Fund. Raven is such a key figure that he has appeared on several different blankets by Northwest Coast artists. This one is titled “Raven Steals the Moon”.
Raven the Trickster/Creator is well-known and important to many Northwest Coast, British Colombian and Alaskan tribes including the Tlingit and the Haida, but remarkably his range extends much farther, south to the Cahto people in Northern California and north east to the indigenous peoples of Siberia and the Russian Far East where there are stories of the tricksters Big Raven and Little Raven who make their supernatural mischief together. We at QBO hope that both you and Raven will visit us again soon!
Tuesday Treasures was started by our staff member, Jeanne Lusignan. Each week she will be featuring items that have been found at our estate sales. If you would like to submit a treasure for Jeanne to feature in a future installment of “Tuesday’s Treasures”, please follow the button below and send us an email! Please attach a few photos of your treasure in a beautiful setting as well as any details you have about your item such as manufacturer, use, age, region of origin. If you don’t know about the piece, that’s okay! We still might be able to research it for you! Don’t forget to tell us what makes this item such a treasure to you!