Raven's Children Word Sketches of the Land and Native Arctic Peoples of Alaska

Songs, stories, legends and chants of the Eskimo people of the Arctic Rim and Alaska (the Yupik, Inuit, Inupiat, Chukchi, Inuvialiut, Loucheux, Denendeh and other Northern First Nations) are the material from which the word-sketches of Raven's Children are made. The author prefers not to call this collection "poetry," but in one way that is what this book is: poetry. Here then is a sort of poetry where stories of life's experiences are distilled into feelings and thoughts that are universal. Tales taken from real-life travels and adventures among the dwellers of the land of the white dawn are in these pages. Here are tales of love, betrayal, courage, defeat, acceptance, loss, grief, passion, delight, courting, coming of age, birth and death, youth and old age, hunting and surviving. The day-to-day existence; the business of survival in a harsh land is the theme; the people, places and animals of Alaska and the Northland are the subjects. "These great people, their lives entwined and dependent upon one another in the inhospitable world they inhabit, inspired me to create these word-sketches detailing a land, its people and animals, at many points in time and in many places across the Arctic Rim." -- Jacques L. Condor (Maka Tai Meh)