... In the morning of the world, there was nothing but water. The Loon was calling, and the old man who at that time bore the Raven's name, Nangkilstlas, asked her why. 'The gods are homeless', the Loon replied. 'I'll see to it', said the old man, without moving from the fire in his house on the floor of the sea. Then as the old man continued to lie by his fire, the Raven flew over the sea. The clouds broke. He flew upward, drove his beak into the sky and scrambled over the rim to the upper world. There he discovered a town, and in one of the houses a woman had just given birth.

In the beginning there was nothing but 'water', because the Milky Way had 'inundated all land'. Even the birds seem to have been affected, because loons are swimming low:

The Raven stole the skin and form of the newborn child. Then he began to cry for solid food, but he was offered only mother's milk.

There was no solid ground, therefore there could be no solid food. But milk there was plenty of, Raven was in the Milky Way.

That night, he passed through the town stealing an eye from each inhabitant. Back in his foster parents' house, he roasted the eyes in the coals and ate them, laughing. Then he returned to his cradle, full and warm. He had not seen the old woman watching him from the corner - the one who never slept and who never moved because she was stone from the waist down. Next morning, amid the wailing that engulfed the town, she told what she had seen. The one-eyed people of the sky dressed in their dancing clothes, paddled the child out to mid-heaven in their canoe and pitched him over the side. He turned round and round to the right as he fell from the sky back to the water.

The one-eyed people of the sky were stars. They dressed in their dancing clothes in order to synchronize themselves with the Stag who danced when he stole the fire ('an eye'). And at mid-heaven Raven was pitched (cfr pitch black and a water pitcher) overboard.

This is where the antlers of the Stag are located, in the center of the 1st quadrant. This is also where we should find the Hand Stained with Henna. He turned round and round to the right when he fell from the sky - right is the direction of Sun, wrong is the direction of Moon.

Still in his cradle, he floated on the sea. Then he bumped against something solid. 'Your illustrious grandfather asks you in', said a voice. The Raven saw nothing. He heard the same voice again, and then again, but still he saw nothing but water. Then he peered through the hole in his marten-skin blanket. Beside him was a grebe. 'Your illustrious grandfather asks you in', said the grebe and dived ...

The hole in his blanket corresponds to the hole through which Sun returns. The red-eyed grebe illustrated the direction by diving.

13 * 29.5 = 383.5 could be the length of the completed solar cycle counted by the moon, and 'land' could here begin anew. Thus the 'sea' should not stretch for more than 383½ - 295 = 88½ nights.

2 * 88½ = 177 (= 6 * 29½), i.e. 88½ = 3 lunar months. North of the equator there are ca 89 days from winter solstice to spring equinox.

However, if we put the beginning at Gb6-1 (where we have found the Rat), then the measure could be 152½ nights: