By John Wesley and John Wood
October 2023, First Choice Books printed the second edition of Raven and the Salmonberry Rapture (first published in 2015), an adaptation and rearrangement of the stories recorded in Skidegate in 1900–1901 by anthropologist and linguist John Swanton.
This new edition, rechristened Raven Star and Octopus, includes illustrations by three Haida artists: April White, Giitsxaa (Ron Wilson, Chief Cumshewa), and the late Patrick Wesley (John Wesley’s brother).
Three of Alfred Muma’s paintings were retained from the first edition. His cover painting, used again, was this time overlaid with April White’s Raven Star design. The book begins with “About the Artists.”
A sixth section, consisting of stories from Masset, was added, “selected by Oeanda”—along with new explanation and commentary as the book progresses—and a new introduction, all by “Oeanda and Willow.” John Wesley and John Wood, now seemingly eclipsed and sidelined, have also slipped in some new introductory material. This new version is 619 pages long, up from 375 in the first edition.
Skidegate Haida words and names have been used for all the supernatural beings, as well as the human characters, places, plants, animals, and selected kinship terms and objects. Some knowledge of the grammar of the language was required to make these choices and to select the appropriate forms of the words.
The Haida words and names are in italics, with English prompts in parentheses, so we had to find a friendly font that is equally easy to read in italics (most are not). We used Calibri, size 12, which is larger than the font size in most books.
We used yet another font—Segoe UI Semibold, size 8—for the Haida letter that looks like a capital G underlined and shrunk down to lowercase size. Finding that was a real treasure hunt!
The target audience for the book is Skidegate, Daajing Giids, and Sandspit, the three communities where the Skidegate dialect of the Haida language is being revitalized, practised, and spoken. John Wesley is the wholesale distributor of the book in Haida Gwaii.
John Wesley has also been distributing (through personal contact) free copies of a USB card compiled from various sources (another treasure hunt) called The Woman in the Moon – A Toolkit for Haida Language Learners. The USB card “goes with the book.”