캐나다의 갈가마귀 이야기

Canadian Raven Tales:From Myths to Children’s Literature

This paper examines how the crow myths and tales were transformed in the children’s literature and transmitted to the native peoples of the Northwest Coast and Arctic regions of Canada during the 1960s. Indigenous Canadian stories have largely been transformed for readers familiar with Western moral and aesthetic values. Robert Ayre’s Sketco the Raven is the imaginative mixture of the two raven images: a creator and a trickster. In the process of transformation, the self-serving and lustful appearance of the raven was deleted, and his heroic deeds were dramatically constructed. Ronald Melzack’s Raven Creator of the World is a reproduction of Inuit myth for Western children. It emphasizes the joy of listening to tales in which Inuit myth is transformed to be familiar to Western readers. In this context, it shares the typical features of contemporary Inuit art. For George Clutesi, the raven tales unfold with more interest in transferring the wisdom of the natives to future generations rather than pursuing the value of Western aesthetic beauty. In conclusion, Canadian children’s literature concerning the myths of native people in the 1960s shows the agony of finding a compromise between preserving the traditional values that native people have kept and transforming myths to suit Western readers’ tastes.