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Raven Rescues his Mother (1993)

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

Paper type: Archival quality
Print size: 7 ½" x 8 ½"
Image size: 5" x 6"

Hand pulled by the artist from the original endgrain maple blocks on an Ettan etching press at Sitka, Alaska, December, 1993.

A Tlingit folktale. Raven went to the house where he was born and rescued his mother from the box where her father had imprisoned her. Her father tried to kill him but Raven survived and the chief was so angry he made a great flood.

Raven put his mother in the skin of a seabird and he hung by his beak from the highest cloud.

After the water started to go down Raven walked on the bottom of the sea. When he came up he found the old Tide Woman and stuck sea urchin spines in her bottom until she agreed to let the tide rise and fall each day. It is because Raven stuck sea urchin spines in Tide Woman's bottom that old women have black spots on their bottoms.