Alaskan Legends and Mythical Stories
The Raven, incarnated as a young man, had paddled his canoe across a great body of water to ask a woman to marry him. She refused to be his wife, so he made her sink into the mud and disappear; and then he began paddling back home. The woman's mother kept two brown bears, and in her anger she told them to drown the young man. They dug furiously at the lake's edge, making huge waves everywhere on the water. But Raven calmed a narrow path before him and paddled on.
Eventually he became exhausted, so he threw a harpoon that struck the crest of a wave. At that moment he fainted from the intensity of his concentration, and when he awoke a forested land had replaced the water.
He saw that the first wave his harpoon had struck had become a small mountain. Then it had glanced off, eventually striking a huge wave that solidified into another mountain - the one now called Deenaalee, or Mount McKinley.
---Julius Jette' Riddles of the Ten'a Indians
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After the Raven created humans, a man came and stole his wife away. So Raven went out and gathered rotten willow wood, pulverized it to a powdery dust, then scattered it into the air. The particles became mosquitos, which ever afterward would cause suffering for mankind.
-Make Prayers to the Raven by Richard K. Nelson
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It's just like talking to God, that's why we talk to the Raven. He created the world.
--Make Prayers to the Raven by Richard K. Nelson
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Many tribes believed that the Northern Lights were ancestors coming back to visit or souls of those who have passed.
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Some tribes believed that a woman should not come out on the ice to bring food or anything when the men are hunting whale if she is menstruating. They believed it was bad luck.
Some also believed that women who were in that time of the month should not walk in rivers when traveling to hunt, as it would also bring bad luck.
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Some tribes also believed that if the man wanted to, he would make the woman take a newborn baby out on the ice and leave it to freeze to death just after birth, if he didn't want the baby for some reason. Perhaps the baby was clearly not well or they couldn't hope to feed it.
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Some villages believed that women and young children should not step over a dead animal of various kinds, as it would bring bad luck.
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Some villages around the turn of the 20th century believed it was poor manners to talk loudly, like so many white men did. They believed it was more correct to mumble or talk softly and found the white man's manner of laughing loudly or talking loudly as being rude and bad luck.
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Some tribes, especially in the interior of Alaska, believed that the raven created the world and that the raven has mystical powers and is at the same time clever. The raven is also believed to be very bold and a scavenger, as it can be seen easily stealing a kill from a pack of wolves or from a grizzly bear. Many believe the raven comes to someone who is getting ready to pass on, in order to take them there. Ravens are a protected bird in many areas of Canada. Ravens have been known to copy hundreds of sounds, some even sounding like machines they've been around.