Raven

A deep, rolling croak drops out of the top of a cedar, and there it sits, bigger than any crow, head tipped to one side, watching you. It is working something out, and it is probably ahead of you. Ravens are some of the cleverest birds going. They use tools, plan for later, and have been caught trading one thing for another like they invented the idea. The word for raven in Halq'eméylem is sqéweqs.

Up close it is unmistakable, about the size of a hawk, with a heavy bill and a tail that fans to a wedge in flight. It remembers faces. It mimics sounds it likes. And it plays, for no reason except that it can, dropping and catching sticks in mid-air, rolling through the sky, sliding down snowbanks on its back like a kid who found the one good hill.

In many stories told up and down this coast the raven is the clever one, the trickster who can change shape and talk its way into any room. In one of them the whole world sat in darkness until raven found where the light was being kept, shut away in a box, and let it out so the sun and the moon could rise. The bird who stole the light handed it to everyone.

Mischief and brightness in the same small black body. Next time a shaggy-throated shadow calls down from a tall tree and fixes you with one clever eye, you will know the word for it. Kw'átset te sqéweqs, look at the raven.