Thunderbird
Tlingit · deity · mythic perennial · Recorded classification
Male thunder-being, classed as deity. The prompt's 'Kah-lit' is, in Swanton's Wrangell texts, a lightning-creature/firedrake linked to the Thunder cycle; it is folded here into the Thunderbird's lightning faculty given its thin separate attestation rather than authored as its own figure.
Domains
- thunder and storm
- lightning
Powers
- make thunder by beating its wings
- flashes lightning from its eyes
Sources
- The Thunderbird (Xeitl) is a Tlingit thunder-being whose wingbeats produce thunder; it is a major lineage crest of southeastern Alaska (Thunderbird House, Xeitl Hít).: Swanton, John R. Tlingit Myths and Texts, BAE Bulletin 39, 1909. (secondary); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, acquisition note on the Thunderbird House (Xeitl Hít) screen, 2017. (secondary)