Chief of Heaven

The Chief of Heaven (the Chief in the Sky) is the sky-being from whom the Raven obtains the daylight. He keeps the daylight — with the sun, moon and stars — in a box called Maa in his house above, while the earth lies in dusk. The transformer, reborn as the chief's grandson, cries for the box and, given a raven skin, flies off and breaks it open, releasing the light. He is named in the texts only by his title; he is distinct from the being 'Laxha' of the separate clamshell-emergence tradition.

Children

• Chief of Heaven's Daughter
• Txä'msem

Domains

• sky
• light

Powers

• keeps the daylight, sun, moon and stars in the box Maa in his sky-house

Relations

• father of: Chief of Heaven's Daughter
• father of: Txä'msem

Sources

• Franz Boas & Henry W. Tate, Tsimshian Mythology, 31st Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (1916)
• 'The Theft of Light', a Tsimshian retelling of the Boas–Tate text (firstpeople.us)