Raven (Tulugaq)

Raven, Tulugaq in Inuktitut, is one of the most widely distributed figures across circumpolar mythology, appearing in various regional Inuit narrative traditions as a creator figure credited with shaping features of the land, releasing the sun, moon and stars from captivity to give the world daylight, or, in some tellings, playing a direct role in the creation or transformation of the first humans, while in a great many other stories he behaves as a purely self-interested trickster, driven by greed, hunger and vanity, whose clever schemes to satisfy his own appetite end up reshaping the world as an unintended side effect rather than a deliberate act of creation. This dual character, genuine creator in some narratives and pure appetite-driven trickster in others, is treated by folklorists as entirely typical of the trickster-creator figure found across a huge swath of Arctic and Subarctic mythology, from Siberian Chukchi and Koryak raven tales through Inuit tradition and on into the raven cycles of the Pacific Northwest Coast peoples further south, reflecting one continuous, if regionally varied, mythological tradition running across the whole circumpolar north.

Raven's stories vary considerably across the different Inuit communities and neighbouring Arctic peoples who tell them, and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit scholarship emphasises that no single "the" Raven story exists to summarise definitively, since specific communities preserve their own versions with their own emphases, some focusing on Raven's role releasing light into a previously dark world, others on his trickster escapades stealing food or outwitting other animals, and still others largely separate from the creator role entirely. This atlas keeps its Inuit entry for Raven distinct from the unrelated Norse Valravn already catalogued among mythical creatures, since the two share only an English common name and belong to entirely separate mythological traditions with no historical connection between them.

Raven's continued cultural importance across the Arctic and Subarctic today, including in contemporary Inuit and Northwest Coast Indigenous art, storytelling and cultural revival efforts, reflects a living tradition rather than a purely historical one, with Raven stories continuing to be told, adapted and passed on by the communities whose tradition they belong to.