230 



BIRDS IN LEGEND 



in the formative period of the northern Indian's world, 

 would fill a big book. 'The creator of all things and 

 the benefactor of man was the great raven called by the 

 Thlingit Yel, Yeshil or Yeatl, and by the Haida Ne-kil- 

 stlas. He was not exactly an ordinary bird but had . . . 

 many human attributes, and the power of transforming 

 himself into anything in the world. His coat of feathers 

 could be put on or taken off at will like a garment, and he 

 could assume any character whatever. He existed before 

 his birth, never grows old, and will never die." So Mr. 

 (now Admiral) Niblack, U. S. N., characterized this 

 supreme magician; 100 and Dr. E. W. Nelson 101 adds 

 that this creation-legend is believed by the Eskimos 

 from the Kuskoquim River in southern Alaska northward 

 to Bering Strait, and thence eastward all along the Arctic 

 Coast. The purely mythological relation of this widely 

 revered northwestern raven is thus summarized by 

 Brinton 27 : 



This father of the race is represented as a mighty bird, called 

 Yel, or Yale, or Orelbale, from the root [Athabascan] ell, a 

 term they apply to everything supernatural. He took to wife a 

 daughter of the Sun (the Woman of Light), and by her begat 

 the race of men. He formed the dry land for a place for them 

 to live upon, and stocked the rivers with salmon that they might 

 have food. When he enters his nest it is day, but when he leaves 

 it it is night; or, according to another myth, he has two women 

 for wives, the one of whom makes the day, the other the night. 

 In the beginning Yel was white in plumage, but he had an 

 enemy ... by whose machinations he was turned black. Yel is 

 further represented as the god of the winds and storms, and of 

 the thunder and lightning. 



It is plain that in studying the deeds and accidents 

 attributed to this American member of the sun-born 

 "fabulous flock" described in another chapter, it is often 



