There's a very brief but good-looking page here on Kutkh, the raven spirit revered in "far east Russia." Siberia, really. And there's a resemblance in the art between this and the art created by Inuit and far north Amerindian peoples. The native peoples of Alaska, Northern Canada, and Greenland have ties to Siberia if you go back far enough.
Trickster gods are interesting. They represent what a people doesn't quite trust but thinks they may need. They're never entirely benign or entirely hostile.
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To say that website is brief certainly isn't overstating, or understating for that matter. Most of it was blank. Oh well.. maybe they started the blog and then forgot the address - these things happen.
I found another website that recognized the name Kutkh where it said:
If you wish to know who is responsible for bringing light to planet Earth or teaching mankind to speak, it’s him. He also created the mountains and invented sex. But not for our benefit, oh no. He just does it all for kicks.
As with most trickster gods, he is practically an anti-deity. No-one bothers to actually worship him as he doesn’t take any notice. It’s far better to roll your eyes to heaven, giggle at his antics, and appreciate the craziness of creation.
About the neatest collection of trickster stories we've read is Barry Lopez's "Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with his Daughter".
There are other webpages that went into a little more detail on who Kutkh is, stories, etc. I picked this one to link to because I liked the visuals. Especially the carving on the left. Of course I guess I could have had a secondary link. Oh well.
Corvids seem to be a natural for trickster gods, both because of their intelligence and because they mix plainness with beauty. I think that's what Ted Hughes was evoking with his Crow poems. Of course Hughes was also quite depressed when he wrote those, for understandable reasons. Ravens and crows are a reassuring sight for me.
I remember reading Lopez's book. Coyotes are subtly strange animals, their snouts almost like beaks. I can see how they made their way into myth.
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