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Kirsten Rugeley - Raven Steals the Sun
Category: Body Adornment.
The bag was done in tubular odd-count peyote stitch with tapered edges at top and bottom. The sides are edged with size 15 seed beads. I used flat peyote stitch to make the center sun ray, the bottom fringe tabs, the upper neck strap, and the short blue and black tubes in the lower strap. The accent beads are mostly Austrian crystals, with a few seed beads, semiprecious stones, glass, and metal beads.
I started beading in 1996 when my mother showed me how to make amulet bags. I had been designing patterns for her bags and decided to make a few myself. I make several types of design, but the most popular are totemic animal images in the style of the local native people. Raven is my favorite subject. Fortunately there are many stories about the trickster so it is never difficult coming up with a new variation.
This bag, Raven Steals the Sun, illustrates the most famous of Raven's exploits and conforms on most points to traditional Tlingit style. The highly stylized art of the Northwest Coast peoples, with its broad curves, ovoid forms, and bold outlines, lends itself to expression in peyote stitch. Raven is identified by his long, broad bead with a tongue. The wing and tail are composed of ovoids (trapezoids in this case) with attached feathers decorated with split-U shapes. The sun is portrayed as a human face with extended rays. The most significant deviations from traditional are the separation of the body elements and the addition of non-Tlingit style moon and stars in the background. The colors chosen reflect traditional use of black, white, red, yellow and blue.
The following legend comes from the Tlingit / Haida culture in the coastal region of British Columbia and southeast Alaska. Raven is one of the most important totems in this culture and is often cast in the role of the trickster. Of the many stories about Raven, this is the most widely known, and is the one most frequently depicted in the art of the Northwest peoples.
In the distant past, a powerful chief wanted all of the light in the world for himself. He took the sun, the moon, and the stars from the sky and put them in boxes that he kept in his lodge. All of the world was left in darkness. No one liked this situation; including Raven, who decided to do something about it.
As the chiefs daughter was getting a drink from a stream, Raven transformed himself into a piece of moss. The daughter swallowed Raven and, nine months later, gave birth to a baby boy. The chief did not know that the child was Raven in disguise and doted on his new grandson. Any thing the boy asked for was given to him.
One day, Raven asked his grandfather to let him play with the box of stars. The chief gave it to him but said he must not open it. Raven waited until the adults were not watching, then opened the box, letting the stars escape. The chief was angry but forgave the boy. A month later, Raven asked to play with the box of the moon. Reluctantly the chief agreed, but made the boy promise not to open the box. Again, as soon as he was alone, Raven opened the box, and released the moon.
Another month went by and Raven begged his grandfather to give him the box of the sun. The chief refused but the child would not stop crying and eventually, the chief gave in. He closed all the doors and windows of the lodge and gave the boy the box of the sun, watching closely to be sure Raven did not open it. After a few minutes, the chief looked away for a brief moment. It was all the time Raven needed. Flinging open the box, the trickster grabbed the sun and flew up through the smoke hole of the lodge. As he squeezed though the small opening, Raven’s gleaming white feathers were blackened by the soot, and so they remain to this day. Light flooded over the land as Raven carried the sun up into the sky. And that is how light was returned to the world.