The Raven Steals the Light

Tom King was Assistant Professor, Native American Studies, University of Lethbridge, Alberta.

The Raven Steals the Light combines the considerable talents of Haida/Irish artist and woodcarver Bill Reid and Canadian poet Robert Bringhurst. The book brings together ten drawings, which were part of a larger series that Reid showed at Elizabeth Nichols Equinox Gallery in Vancouver, and the ten Haida stories that were the inspiration for the drawings.

The majority of the drawings and the stories in The Raven Steals the Light deal with the Northwest Coast trickster figure, the Raven. The drawings are impressive; the stories are engaging. But the real value of the book lies in the ability of Reid and Bringhurst to recreate the voice of the storyteller and in their ability to capture the sensual qualities of Haida oral literature.

English translations of Native stories tend to be burdened with a formality that removes the story-teller from the story in favor of a disinterested, omniscient narrator and attempts to develop good taste and order out of what the non-Native mind sees as ribald and chaotic. As a result, much of the drama and the comedy, the ironies and the fantasies, along with the disgusting, the licentious, and the ridiculous, are often discarded in favor of linguistic accuracy and an organized plot.

In The Raven Steals the Light, Reid and Bringhurst have maintained the sense of a storyteller telling a story. There is a distinct voice here that is neither apologetic (for the mythological) nor explanatory (for the mystical). It is a voice concerned simply with telling a story and having a good time in the process. It reminds us that the Haida probably laughed at the antics of Raven and that we should, too. For Raven is neither hero nor fool, neither god nor devil. He is a long-time resident of the world, creative and destructive, a symbol of the explicit balance that the Haida saw within their universe.