In this, as in many Native American tales of creation, great things take place when a spirit or power associated with the sky comes down to earth. The Tsimshian, a fishing and foraging people of the rugged British Columbia coast, relate a story that honors the raven, for bringing light from heaven to illuminate the world below. When the earth was young and still shrouded in twilight, the tale begins, the chief of the sky gave one of the youth of heaven the skin of a raven, which the boy donned in order to fly about the world. Skirting the earth, Raven took pity on its people, whom he observed fumbling about in the twilight. He knew that there was light in heaven, and he made up his mind to bring it he world.
To steal daylight from the chief of the sky, however, Raven had to assume an elaborate disguise. Ascending to his home in heaven, he transformed himself into a cedar leaf and dropped into a stream. There, the chief's daughter later stopped for a drink of fresh water and unwittingly swallowed him. Impregnated by this action, she soon gave birth to Raven. The precocious infant insisted on playing with a magic toy--the box that held the daylight. His doting grandfather, the chief, could deny the boy nothing and gave him the box. The boy played with the box for four days in the great house in the sky. Then, when the chief was not lookiing, the boy put on his raven skin and flew down to the earth, carrying the box of daylight under one wing.
After alighting on a tree near a river, Raven, who was always insatiably hungry, called to the people who were fishing in the twilight to bring him some of their catch. But they only ignored him. Furious, Raven smashed the box on the rocks that lay below the tree. There was a blinding flash of light, and instantly, the world was transformed. Dawn arrived. And so it has ever since.
{See also the version of the Yakutat Tlingit}
The Beaver people (now called the Dunneza) of central Alberta tell of a creator named Yagesati who charted the directions by drawing a cross upon the primeval waters. Through the center of the cross, he thrust a pole that led to the upper world above and the lower world below. Then Yagesati moved in a great circle around the pole, assigning each cardinal direction a color, a time of day, a season, a sex, a stage of life, and a quality. The east he colored the red of the dawn, for the first flush of spring and the blood of birth; East was masculine, potent, and benevolent. Yagesati colored the south a dazzling yellow for the high sun, for the warmth of summer and the profusion of growing things; South was female, fertile, and kind. Yagesati next moved to the west and painted it the red of dusk, for the setting sun, for the chill of dusk and autumn; West was a dangerous female, who would lead people to death. At last, Yagesati reached the home of the moon at its zenith, the north. He colored it white for snow, for winter and its icy blasts; North represented a dangerous male and the trials of puberty when one state of existence ended and another began.
According to Sioux legend, the thunderbirds decided that if they were going to preserve humanity, they would have to attack the water monsters. A fierce battle was said to have raged back and forth all across the land until, ultimately, the thunderbirds released all of their bolts in a single, terrible blast: "The forests were set on fire, and flames consumed everything except the top of the rock on which the humans had taken refuge. The waters boiled and then dried up. The earth glowed red-hot, and the Unktehi, big and small, burned up and died, leaving only thier dried bones in the Mako Sicha, the Badlands, where their bones turned to rock."