The story of the Rainbow Crow is a supposed

Lenape The Lenape (, , or Lenape , del, Lënapeyok) also called the Leni Lenape, Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. Their historical territory includ ...

legend, symbolizing the value of selflessness and service. However, the Lenape origins of this myth are denied by the Lenape-Nanticoke Museum, which attributes the myth to a recent modification of a Cherokee story known as the "First Fire". And in fact, the museum states that the crow has no significant role in traditional Lenape culture. No source for a Lenape version of this story is known to exist prior to a 1989 book of the same name supposedly "retold" by

Penguin Random House Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, from the merger of Penguin Group and Random House. On April 2, 2020, Bertels ...

author Nancy Van Laan. Van Laan ultimately attributes this story to a Chief Bill "Whippoorwill" Thompson.

Plot

After a long period of cold weather, the animals of the community become worried. They decide to send a messenger to the Great Sky Spirit to ask for relief. The Rainbow Crow, the most beautifully feathered

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

, offers to make the arduous journey. He travels safely, and is rewarded by the Great Spirit with the gift of

fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition ...

. He carries the gift in his beak back to his people, but upon his return, he does not appear to be the same bird that he once was. The fire has scorched his plumage black, with only hints of his previous color, and his voice has been made rough and hoarse by the smoke. In this way, his sacrifice is commemorated. Another name for Rainbow Crow is Many Colored Crow. This is in reference to the iridescent feathers created from the fire that scorched his plumage black, with only hints of his previous color that reflect when sun light strikes them.

Adaptations

This legend is the basis of multiple American animated short films, including one by online media platform

HitRecord HitRecord (pronounced ; often stylized as HITREC●RD) is an online collaborative media platform founded and owned by actor and director Joseph Gordon-LevittGordon-Levitt. The company uses a variety of media to produce such projects as short film ...

and another by Baobab Studios titled ''Crow: The Legend'', with singer John Legend voicing the titular crow.{{Cite web, url=https://www.baobabstudios.com/crow-the-legend, title=Crow: The Legend, website=baobab studios, language=en, access-date=2018-11-27

References

Legendary creatures of the indigenous peoples of North America Legendary crows

Plot

Adaptations

See also

References