Master Carpenter
Also known as: Master-carpenter
Mythological Narrative
A supernatural craftsman of Haida tradition who, in a Skidegate story Swanton recorded, sets out to build a canoe to make war on South-East, the storm wind.
Scholarly Commentary & Evolution
## The craftsman
Master Carpenter is a supernatural being in the Haida stories John R. Swanton recorded at Skidegate in 1900 and 1901, the embodiment of the woodworking skill on which Haida life depended: great cedar canoes, plank houses, boxes, and poles.
## A canoe for war
In 'How Master-carpenter began making a canoe to war with South-East', he begins work at a steep place at one end of the town of Sqa-i. His first canoe splits when he throws it into the water; so do the next, each thicker than the last. Along the way a figure called Greatest Fool shows him how to use bent wedges to split one log into two canoes. At last he gives up on building and sets out for South-East's house, the stormy south-east wind whose weather dominates the coast of Haida Gwaii.
## Craft against weather
The story sets human and supernatural skill against the sea and storm that every canoe on the coast must survive. This entry follows Swanton's published text and does not fill in episodes it does not give.
Academic Discussion & Critique
Exchange peer-reviewed hypotheses, comparative Indo-European etymologies, and archaeological field interpretations regarding Master Carpenter.
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