Talk:Ravens in Native American mythology

Untitled section
talk:Raven Tales ravens are inportant to the native americans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.56.200.136 (talk) 28 February 2008

Page title and scope
Seeing these early improvements, I wonder if I was premature I'm moving the article from Raven Tales to its current title Ravens in Native American mythology. Looking at those sources, it seems like raven tales are a real thing, and not just a generalized title for raven stories from Native American mythology. Should we move the article back to its original title? With the current title, it is much broader and would include things like art, where as the Raven Tales article would be strictly about the oral and written myths. My thinking was that the Raven Tales would make a good subsection of a broader article, but I could be convinced otherwise. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 02:37, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Support move. Raven tales are a thing. Ravens per se, on the other hand, have a very complex palce within mythologies and societies. Eg: "The Raven moiety [of Haida] does not use the Raven as a crest, but the Eagle moiety does use its namesake frequently, as well as many other bird crests including the Raven" (Mythology and Crest). Too diverse to be kept within the scope of a single article. Besides "in Native American mythology" is too broad to begin with considering that Raven Tales are a Northwest continent thing. Finnusertop (talk &#124; guestbook &#124; contribs) 02:59, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * By the way, there is an article by the name Raven in Creation which seems to be the deity in question. That article already includes descriptions of some of these stories. Finnusertop (talk &#124; guestbook &#124; contribs) 03:34, 1 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I have moved the page back to it's original title, for the time being. Hopefully this doesn't cause any of our contributors any grief. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 06:07, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Merge proposal
Proposal: Raven in Creation should be merged into this page. The scope and content are essentially identical. We don't want to end up with duplicates. Finnusertop (talk &#124; guestbook &#124; contribs) 06:18, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * As fast as you can propose the merge, it has been merged. Brilliant minds thinking alike, and all that. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 06:20, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * That sure was quick. See for the content. There are some claims and refs that could be used here. Finnusertop (talk &#124; guestbook &#124; contribs) 06:24, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Can we also merge from Txamsem because Txamsem is the name that one of the tribes refer to Raven as. And Haida_mythology because the content of the article is all about Raven. David Condrey (talk) 08:48, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose, mythology is not only about Raven. Cathry (talk) 19:01, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Order of stories
I'm trying to decide what the best way of organizing all of the raven stories should be, what do you guys think? I'm thinking, it would probably be best to have primary sections for each tribe, and then within that, have a subsection for each story. Or do you think perhaps broad chronological order would be best? Or perhaps each story doesn't warrant its own subsection? David Condrey (talk) 05:34, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * As I begin.. it's quickly apparent that there are far more stories than I originally imagined. Perhaps near to a hundred or so..  I wouldn't be surprised.  So perhaps not a good idea to give each and every story it's own section heading.  I have however started grouping by tribe and if you would like to help, there is a vast amount of additional detail that can be gathered from the references I've been adding.. I've only scratched the surface..  It seems the Raven stories vary greatly from tribe to tribe and region to region. The Tahltan tribe even records a whole life cycle of the Raven through their stories. David Condrey (talk) 06:37, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * @Finnusertop, sorry if I messed up anything you were doing.. I went to save and saw a conflict but couldn't figure out what changes were made. Looked like minor edits so I just went ahead and saved. Not sure if I screwed you up or not.  Sorry! David Condrey (talk) 07:52, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I think organizing by tribe is the best way. However, if there are stories that span multiple tribes we might have trouble with that system. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 12:55, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Though the story may have the same name, they should still be considered independent of each other because 2 tribes may tell 1 story in 2 ways, creating 2 stories rather than 1. I haven't found any reference yet to any stories that are identical across tribes. David Condrey (talk) 19:33, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Regional Map
I'd love to find a regional map depicting the location and relation of the numerous tribes.. I may start scribbling one myself as I dig deeper. This is a cool subject. :) David Condrey (talk) 06:40, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Found this somewhat useful . Taking account of geography; having gone thru the history of the Tahltan's raven stories it's unclear to me the geographic relation between Tahltan and Tlingit territory here's what I gather..


 * The Tlingit live on the western coastal edge against the ocean. Tahltan territory running parallel along Tlingit's eastern side and encumpassing the areas in which the Nass, Skeena, and Taku Rivers flow.  Immediately south of Tlingit is the Mink territory and the north, south and eastern boundaries of Tahltan are where the Kaska, and Haidi people live but which is where isn't clear yet.  As I continue reading I'm going to make notes of what I find as far as geographic locations here so hopefully when I'm done it will all make sense like a jigsaw puzzle. Where Tlingit is in relation to Tahltan is still confusing me because the story talks about Raven traving up and down the coast of Tlingit, but in the Tahltan storyline.. (are Tlingit and Tahltan the same territory maybe?) David Condrey (talk) 08:15, 3 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I've seen this map being used in many articles to show where the Northwest Coast people are. Of course, it doesn't offer explanation to the inter-relations of those tribes. By the way, should we write more on geography, it's important to note that many Natives to the south and east of Northwest Coast have similar trickster stories (sometimes even the same stories as presented here) but they have other figures such as coyotes. See Boas 1914. Finnusertop (talk &#124; guestbook &#124; contribs) 08:22, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Tinglit and neighbouring peoples. Old German language ethnographic map. Finnusertop (talk &#124; guestbook &#124; contribs) 08:34, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * An uncropped version of the former includes Vancouver island (home to Kwakwaka'wakw). Since it's a vector it could be modified to represent all of the tribes. There is a project that could help.Finnusertop (talk &#124; guestbook &#124; contribs) 08:49, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Same applies to this. Finnusertop (talk &#124; guestbook &#124; contribs) 09:05, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I submitted a request to that project, thanks. Not sure if I did it right but we shall see I guess.. David Condrey (talk) 05:11, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Assessment
How are articles assessed? Is there a tool that checks articles? I was tempted to change the class and importance scale because I think we've met the req. for B class, potentially even A at this point... and this article should def. be high importance for WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America. For WikiProject Mythology I'd suggest medium or potentially high importance as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Condrey (talk • contribs) 19:40, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * While all article assessments are based on Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment, the exact details may vary between projects (especially for importance). Most projects will have their own assessment page, usually with more details or relevant examples or both. The WP:IPNA page is WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Article Assessment, the WP Mythology page is WikiProject Mythology/Assessment, and the TAFI page is Today's articles for improvement/Assessment. Also, articles with (valid) cleanup banners (at the top, or within sections) would usually not be higher than C-Class, as the problems they indicate generally cause the article to fail one or more of the B-class criteria. Not all projects actually make use of A-Class, but when used it would usually be the next step after GA, before FA – the criteria are quite similar to FA, but the review process (still with independent reviewers) occurs at the individual WikiProject. - Evad37 &#91;talk] 00:03, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Todd Baker: Raven Releasing the Sun
This image is next to a section about the story "Bringing the Light" by the Cahto but I think it may be incorrect; I think the artist may even be incorrect if the footnote of the image is accurate.. If you look at the Tlingit section it says "All the people asked Raven to persuade Seagull to open it and release the light.".. Makes me wonder this image is actual representative of that story. Not sure. Perhaps open to interpretation. David Condrey (talk) 19:55, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * If the truth of the content is doubtful, we should remove it to be on the safe side. Maybe we can find more out about the image, and then caption it appropriately. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 04:43, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a plan to me. David Condrey (talk) 05:10, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Todd Baker is Coast Salish bio (pdf). The image portrays the Haida myth "How Raven Brought Light To The World" Art Country Canada. The article was oriented by story and not by tribe when the image was inserted. Finnusertop (talk &#124; guestbook &#124; contribs) 07:37, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Article Organization
As I've been organizing the article by tribe thus far, I just learned that all of the tribes may possibly fall under 1 of 3 larger groups.. The Coast_Salish_peoples or Interior Salish peoples. Recommend, not changing the structure currently but dividing it further within parent sections for the Salish groups if this is correct. Also, ultimately hoping that each section will have a list (like a few of the sections currently do) so we can ultimately gather a list of ALL of the raven stories. Pretty much every section's list needs lots of expansion and some sections don't even have a list at all yet. As I run across story names I've been slowly ticking them off.. David Condrey (talk) 06:27, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I think we have enough lists already; it's not even a list class article. Too much of them and the article will turn into a directory or storybook of Raven Tales, while it should be an encyclopedia article thereof. I think we need to further clarify what is common to these stories, what is their place within society. These are currently addressed mostly in the lead, but since those are the encyclopedic questions we should be asking, they need to be more prominent. This can be organized partly in a by-tribe fashion as the article is; the tribes' sections could be more than just lists of stories attributed to each tribe. Finnusertop (talk &#124; guestbook &#124; contribs) 12:10, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I think subdividing by region then people would be useful, there are probably (not sure) common myths within ethnically related groups, and it would do more to show the relation between them. It would also give a space to give some background on the people/region/cultures. The expansion and improvements to this page have been significant, and I think further expansions should focus on providing context for the content that we already have, in the form of cultural connections between tribes, common store elements, how the raven fits into the overall mythology, maybe a section on oral storytelling and such. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 14:52, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * A basic distinction other articles make is Indigenous peoples of California (including Cahto and Miwok) and Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast (most other tribes belong in that category). See Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas. --Melody Lavender (talk) 19:52, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with NickPenguin, and must apologise for not being confident enough to help you edit it. (You seem to have it under control atm though :D). This article should be about how all the Raven Tales are all related/connected, rather than creating subsections to demonstrate how they are all different. Everything in the article so far would be great in a List of Raven Tales article. But this article, as Nick said, should talk about "cultural connections between tribes, common store elements, how the raven fits into the overall mythology, maybe a section on oral storytelling and such".--Coin945 (talk) 20:12, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * That said, there's nothing wrong with having list style content to support other types of content in an article. It's just to say that some additional attention should be spent focusing on increasing the number of connections running through the article. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 00:58, 6 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I've been focusing on just trying to research the scope of all of the various tribes that have told stories of Raven, list of each tribes stories on the subject, and the relationship each tribe has with the Raven character; just those things have taken up all my effort. When I started I hadn't expected it to get so large but as it got bigger it seemed to me that the scope of how many different tribes told stories of Raven was important so I've kept going.  I figured, getting each of the tribes defined .. then each section could be expanded further (I actually wrote inline notes in a few places when I knew I was starting a section rather bare of context).  I just put a lot of work in on this one and didn't really get any notes about changing direction till now after I already put a ton of time in on this one.  Since it is the way it is, perhaps you guys might want to move this article to List of Raven Tales as Coin suggested and start a new page for Raven Tales.  Not sure what exactly you guys want to do, but I'm kinda feeling kicked in the butt and don't wanna spend any more time working on this, worried I'll continue pushing the article in the wrong direction.  I did only notice this discussion after I'd spent a couple hours this evening reading further into the boas2 reference and was going to add much of this to the article this evening but rather I'll just note it here so you guys can do whatever you like with it..


 * On page 566, Boas defined a list of all the tribes Tate had encountered that told stories of Raven. Some of them are already defined in the article, but some have not even been defined yet. His full list was:

• # Nuxalk or Bellacoola

• # Dakelh or Carrier

• # Chilcotin

• # Chinook

• # Comox (K'ómoks)

• # Cowichan

• # Eskimo

• # Haida

• # Haida of Masset

• # Haida of Skidegate

• # Heiltsuq or bellabella

• # Kaigani

• # Kathlamet

• # Kwakiutl

• # Lillooet

• # Nanaimo

• # Nass

• # Newettee

• # Nootka

• # Quinault

• # Rivers Inlet

• # Seshelt

• # Shuswap

• # Squamish

• # Stsee'lis

• # Tahltan

• # Thompson

• # Tillamook

• # Tlingit

• # Ts'ets'aut

• # Tsimshian

• # Uta'mqt

• # Wishram


 * Also, in the same reference, if anyone wants to read thru it a bit, starting on page 565 and continuing all the way to page 720, Boas breaks down several of the most significant Raven stories, and discusses how each of them relate and contrast among all the different tribes that told the story. These pages would probably make for an excellent starting point. David Condrey (talk) 09:22, 6 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Oh man I'm really sorry. I didn't want my comments to make it seem like you'd wasted your time and effort. What do I know - I haven't touched a piece of research relating to the Raven Tales. You are the expert and I trust your judgement. It was just a random thought I had. Our Life sciences article follows the philosophy of this article rather than what NickPenguin and I were talking about, which proves it is a valid way of going about an article. You have done an incomparably amazing job, and I now feel bad that you feel disheartened. If you wanted to keep on pushing through, we're going to end up with a fantastic article, whatever it ends up being called. (after all, you can only talk about what they all have in common once youve listed in depth what each of them are).--Coin945 (talk) 11:16, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I hope you don't feel discouraged about all the excellent, well sourced content we have in this article. Remember that less than a week ago, it looked like this. I think many of us found the subject matter difficult, and thus hard to collaborate on. Getting a truly well balanced article either takes a great deal of time, or broader collaboration from many editors with different perspectives. All things considered, this has really turned out well. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 12:39, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Coin, don't be sorry. If there is disagreement I'd prefer it to be mentioned as soon as possible, rather than waiting as was my only frustration with this issue.. the fact that it was not mentioned until so late.  I just felt a bit frustrated that I'd done so much work and could have used that effort more effectively if there'd been some chat about it sooner.  Not to worry tho..  Sorry guys, I've been distracted by some personal drama going on over on Commons whereas some childish admins have decided to flex their power at my expense whereas I was just trying to clean Commons up from turning into the hosting ground for people's private parts... As far as this article goes, I just got confused and didn't want to do anything that was going to continue moving the article in the wrong direction if that's the way people felt. The only thing I'm discouraged by is this other matter that's going on.  I've still yet to get any assistance in resolving the issue in my attempts to escalate the matter to higher levels of authority. :( David Condrey (talk) 23:39, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Undeletion of image requested
I found an excellent image which I uploaded and added to this article but it was deleted. .

I'm unable to dispute the deletion or re-add it myself because I've since been indefinitely blocked from Wikimedia Commons but I would like to request that someone else please republish it to Commons or dispute the deletion and re-add it to this article once the deletion is reverted because it was an excellent illustration and the deletion was done without merit, and the image is one of very few that I was able to find for this article (not to mention I was actually very thrilled to find this image because I had been searching exhaustively for images for this article without much luck until I came upon this one). I think that adding some highly relevant images to this article could do quite a bit to improve it's overall appeal and readability.

|The talk page of the deleted image still exists here where you will see that I had left a comment about the images license when I originally added it. If you go to | this article, this is where the image was found. If you look more closely and view the source code of the page here. [view-source:http://sacred-texts.com/nam/nw/tmt/index.htm | View source code] notice on line 18 it reads Dancers: Edward Curtis 1910; Public domain image. David Condrey (talk) 06:03, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I have requested the undeletion of the image. See request here: Current requests. Finnusertop (talk &#124; guestbook &#124; contribs) 13:10, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * ThanksDavid Condrey (talk) 16:23, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Pending edits
All open to debate of course, but please speak up early if you have a different idea.. Just going to summarize the current direction I'm planning to go with this in case anyone wants to discuss alternative ideas before I get started.. I don't plan to do any major edits until Friday or Saturday.

Merge of other articles doesn't seem to have gotten any opposition so I'll be looking into merging the content of those articles. Afterwards, I'll start working on the subsections which are in need of expansion. Some contain only a list of a few works that I came across while reading. These sections should be expanded or removed. My goal is to have at least a single strong paragraph for each subsection and end each section with list of works if applicable. (basically hope to have every section match the quality of the Tsimshian section which I think is the best so far)

If it's difficult to come up with a lead paragraph then the section is probably not significant enough and I would suggest removing.

Lists with only a couple works should be expanded or the list should be removed unless the fact that the list is short is in someway notable and mentioned in the lead-in (e.g. potential tribe controversy or disconnect). Thought being that a tribe that may only have 1 or 2 works likely had little to no vested interest and may not be worth creating a section for.

Additionally, I recommend improving all section lists with prefixed year and page reference similar to how the list in the Tahltan section is currently.

Sections titled after the name of a story should avoid being primarily quotations from the story. Stories probably shouldn't have their own section unless they are substantially more significant than the other stories. In such case, the content of the section should probably be more focused on why that story is most significant and how it's significance affected things or influenced things rather than a general synopsis of the story itself. David Condrey (talk) 03:39, 24 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Commenting only on the merge proposals, I think there is content to be merged into here, but I don't think the articles should be redirected here. Certainly there is more to Tsimshian mythology and Haida mythology than just tales involving Raven. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 03:53, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

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Requested move 24 January 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved  &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 10:08, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Raven Tales → Ravens in Native American mythology – The page seems to have been at that title, but was moved to its current one a decade ago. The current title is strange, because it does not involve any story called "Raven Tales" as a proper noun. The original title seems to have made far more sense. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 06:45, 24 January 2024 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support per nom. Reviewing some sources, it does seem that the term "raven tales" is used to a reasonable extent, but I think the proposed title is more illustrative of the article topic. (Also, if there does end up being consensus to use the "raven tales" term, we should at least sentence-case it.) ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:48, 31 January 2024 (UTC)