Dotson' Sa
Koyukon · deity · Koyukon traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
In Koyukon cosmology Dotson' Sa, the Great Raven, is the being who ordered the world during Kk'adonts'idnee, the Distant Time. Neither wholly creator nor wholly trickster, he moves through the early world giving animals and people their present forms and natures, sometimes by deliberate act and sometimes through appetite, deceit, or accident. Narrators hold that much of the visible world took shape through his doings and that he retains power in the present, so that ravens are watched for omens and addressed with care. Sources differ on how sharply the dignified world-maker is separated from the greedy trickster of the tales, the two being told as a single Raven.
Domains
- creation
- world ordering
- trickery
Powers
- order and shape the early world
- change form at will
Epithets
- Dotson' Sa — Great RavenNelson, Make Prayers to the Raven (1983). (secondary)
Sources
- Dotson' Sa, the Great Raven, is the being who ordered the world in the Distant Time and remains the central figure of Koyukon cosmology.: Nelson, Richard K., Make Prayers to the Raven (Chicago, 1983). (secondary); Attla, Catherine, Bakk'aatugh Ts'uhuniy: Stories We Live By (1989). (primary)
- Raven combines the roles of world-maker and trickster in the recorded Koyukon story cycle.: Jette, Jules, 'On Ten'a Folk-Lore,' JRAI 38 (1908) & 39 (1909). (primary)