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Overview
In Qo´tirġịn’s Raven tale, Hare joins the animal suitors seeking Ku´urkịl’s daughter despite initially lacking a sledge. His grass bow strikes the target that the other suitors miss, and his grass sledge withstands the bride’s weight when their sledges break. He brings her to his mother, who lives beneath drifted snow without a house. Hearing his mother lament their situation, Hare kicks a hummock into a house, small willow boughs into a train of sledges, and black stunted willow bushes into a reindeer herd. His mother tells the bride to enter with her eyes closed; when she looks, she finds a fine white-skinned room hung with ornaments.
The couple have a child and visit her parents. Hare refuses the dead puppy and excrement they offer as food and leaves in anger. When Raven visits as the family is moving camp, Hare allows him to slaughter a reindeer and offers to carry it for him; Raven insists on managing it himself. The later destruction of the carcass belongs to Raven’s conduct, not Hare’s magic. The narrative gives Hare a mother, wife and child but does not name them individually or describe him shedding an animal skin. His material transformations are explicit, while a transformation into a human bridegroom is not.
Origins & earliest records
Chukchi; narrated by Qo´tirġịn at Mi´s·qạn, November 1900
Records & interpretation
Complete English narrative, ending and attached notes read; title page, introduction and HTML transcription limitations inspected.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Chukchee Mythology
Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Volume VIII, Part I; Chukchee Texts II.14, A Tale of the Raven Ku´urkịl, pp. 77–83, including all notes
Family, evolution & connections
Raven, Miti´ and Hare’s marriage — Qo´tirġịn’s telling
Complete II.14 narrative and footnotes, pp. 77–83; November 1900 attribution.
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- Raven Ku´urkịl and wife Miti´
- Unnamed son, brother of the daughter
- Unnamed daughter, wife of Hare
- Their unnamed child, sex unspecified
Explicit spouse, daughter, son/brother, marriage and child statements. Names of the two children, Hare’s mother and the grandchild unstated. The grandchild’s sex is not supplied. Hare’s mother is a separate maternal relation, not Raven’s wife. Raven’s first death is explicitly simulated and final death real; no revival is inferred. This account is not a universal Raven genealogy.
Ku´urkịl in Qo´tirġịn’s raven tale
After the contests the text says Hare marries Raven’s daughter. Raven thereafter calls him son-in-law; this is marriage kinship, not Hare’s biological parentage.
His unnamed mother
Hare brings his new wife to his own mother, who is then identified as her mother-in-law. No father of Hare is supplied.
The couple’s unnamed child
Hare’s wife gives birth to a child before their visit to Raven. The child’s name and sex are unstated; the narrative does not identify it with Raven’s already existing son.
Primary records and illustrations
Waldemar Bogoras, Chukchee Mythology (1910)
Chukchee Texts, II. Myths and Tales. II.14, pp. 77–83, all footnotes; II.13 comparison pp. 75–77
Caches bogoras1910-cm14/15.html/.txt. Qo´tirġịn, Mi´s·qạn, November 1900. False first death and explicit final death kept separate; no animal-to-human change asserted for Hare. Native/interlinear text omitted from HTML, not collated.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Historical recorded narrative and English translationBogoras, II.14, A Tale of the Raven Ku´urkịlResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
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