Master Carpenter
Haida · deity · mythic primordial · Recorded classification
Treated as a deity-class culture hero. The name Nankilstlas/Nankil'slas ('voice handler') is in some Haida tellings an epithet of Raven himself, and the carpenter figure overlaps with the Raven complex; recorded by Swanton at Skidegate.
Domains
- carpentry and canoe building
Powers
- wage a carving-duel against the South-East Wind
- Carve the dugout cedar canoe
- Shape and order the things of the world by carving
Sources
- Master Carpenter is a Haida culture-hero and supernatural shipwright whose battle with the South-East Wind explains the origin of the seagoing canoe.: Swanton, John R. Haida Texts and Myths: Skidegate Dialect, BAE Bulletin 29, 1905. (secondary)