Reading Notes A: Raven's Feast

• Raven went to get food from Groundhogs to throw a feast because his mother died.
• Groundhogs throw winter food out when there is a snowslide from the mountains.
• Raven wanted the food they throw out.
• No one knew about the snowslide, though Raven says there will be a great big one.
• It happens during the Spring and the Groundhogs throw their herbs out of their burrows.
• He then decided a great feast, inviting everyone in the world
• The Gonaqadet - because they had a Chilkat Hat and a Chilkat Blanket
• All the rest of the chiefs of the tribes
• They came at the right time
• With the Gonaqadet, the Chilkat hat had many crowns and with it, his blanket.
• He was surrounded by fog, but not inside the Raven's house
• Because of the feast, especially a burial feast, everyone must have a feast now and during burial feasts, there will be a many-crowned hat carved into the grave post. 

(Raven eating.  Flickr.) 

I can utilize this story as a way to showcase funerals.  The Raven will standstill as the creator of feasts during funerals.  Or it can be a simple man back in the 1800s.

Rather than the Groundhogs, there will be farms/crops of food that will grow and be put out when ripe at the Farmer's Market.

The Raven/Man will go and pick and buy the food at the market and he will invite everyone in the town because he has no more family.  He is all alone in this.

He meets someone at the market, a woman, and invites her to the feast.  She happens to be a jeweler and comes bearing gifts to the feast in honor of the man's mother.

All of these come together in the end, to provide offerings/gifts to the person who is in mourning, feast when someone passes, and through all of this, gain people that can become family.

Bibliography:  Myths and Legends of Alaska:  Raven's Feast by Katharine Berry Judson.