Petrel

The keeper of the spring

In the Raven cycle John R. Swanton recorded in English at Sitka and published in Tlingit Myths and Texts (1909), Raven hears of a man named Petrel (GAnû'k) who owns an everlasting spring of water, at a time when there is none to drink anywhere else in the world. Petrel keeps the spring covered and sleeps beside it so that no one can take it.

Outwitted

Raven visits and stays the night. While Petrel sleeps, Raven smears dog dung beside him, then wakes him and tells him he has soiled himself. While Petrel goes outside to clean up, Raven uncovers the spring and drinks it dry. Petrel returns and Raven flies for the smoke hole, but Petrel's spirits hold him there, and the smoke of Petrel's fire blackens him: that is why ravens are black. Escaping, Raven spits out the water as he flies, making the great rivers, the Nass, Stikine, Taku, Chilkat, and Alsek, and from the smaller drops the salmon creeks.

Other tellings

Petrel's name and the details of the trick vary between tellers and between Tlingit and neighbouring nations' versions. Some modern Tlingit tellers treat Ganook as an important ancestral figure in his own right; this entry keeps to the published Raven episode.