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The Raven Proposes and is Accepted [archive]

The Raven Proposes and is Accepted

as told by Louis Miranda

What I will be relating here is something that was often told to us, by our elders, of what Raven did. So, they start their story like this: It is said, this happened when all the birds and animals were all people. It is said, there was a big Chief and his wife, they were all happy with all of their friends. This couple had only the one daughter, a young girl.

They brought her up as a very special, respectable young lady. They kept a very strict watch over her, and that it will be only a Chief or some highly respected man, like their daughter, who will get her. There were many a young men from their village and young men from other villages that came and asked for their daughter, but they could not accept any of them. They were waiting for someone, also, a big Chief's son, to come and ask for their daughter. They refused all of the young men.

And as they waited, early one morning when it was still dark, it really happened, there came a strange young man. He came into the house where the highly respected young women was, He asked for the young woman. They told him to be seated for awhile. So, some of the relatives of this highly respected girl went out to see in which manner this young man arrived. They were really surprised and were really happy when they seen the great big canoe. It seemed to have a lot of mountain goat blankets and a lot of spun mountain goat wool.

After seeing all this, they went up to the house and told the young stranger that he was accepted as a son-in-law. Since it was still early and a little dark, they told him to go and lie in bed with their highly respected daughter. But, as it got a little later , then started to become daybreak, someone went down to take a look at the canoe and the blankets. They seen that it was only a log with some limbs on it and that it was only an old man's beard that was draped over the limbs. That is what he was calling his wealth. The party went up and told her parents.

It was then, that they took a good look and they recognized that it was the Raven who was posing as a person of great wealth. Everyone knew that he was just a tricky, worthless person. So, they took a hold of him and beat him up, then they took him down to the waterside and threw him in, close to this thing that he called his canoe. So it ends there, the very brief marriage of the Raven.

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  Squamish Nation
  Raven legends
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The Raven Proposes and is Accepted [archive]

The Raven Proposes and is Accepted

Additional Reading

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