Skip to content

Raven Got the Sun and Moon (1991)

Wood Engraving
Dale DeArmond
Artist's Edition: 25
Edition of Artist Proofs: 2

Book Edition: 5

Paper type: Rives BFK
Print size: 8" x 9"
Image size: 5" x 6"

AKA: Crow Goes to Get the Sun and the Moon

Hand pulled by the artist from the original endgrain block on an Ettan etching press at Sitka, Alaska, October, 1991.

Book edition print is featured in Tales that Raven Told: Athabascan FolktalesThe image is also illustrated in the book Tales From the Dena: Indian Stories from the Tanana, Koyukuk & Yukon Rivers.

An Athabascan folk tale. Raven wanted the sun and moon. He dressed himself as a wealthy man by beating grass against his legs and the grass turned into wolf-skin leggings. He made a wolverine jacket from spruce cones and aldercones and a dentalium shell necklace from wild rhubarb and green berries. Then he went to the village of the man who owned the sun and moon and married the girl's daughter. They had a child and the grandfather let the child play with the sun and moon. Raven was afraid his magic finery would melt so he grabbed the sun and moon and flew off with them. The wind took them up and placed them around.