Raven Mocker

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The Raven Mocker, or ka'lanu ahkyeli'ski, is an evil being from Cherokee mythology who robs the old, sick and dying of their lives. Normally appearing as old, withered men and women, when they hunt a victim they take to the air in a fiery shape, and with the sounds of a raven's cry and a strong wind. After tormenting and killing their victim by slitting the victim's head they consume his heart (doing so without leaving a mark on the victim's skin), and add a year to their life for every year that the slain would have still lived. Much like a banshee, the sound of a raven mocker means that someone will soon die.

Raven mockers are normally invisible when feeding, but those with strong medicine can not only spot them but cause them to die within seven days. Medicine men will sometimes stand guard over the dying to prevent raven mockers from stealing the heart of the afflicted.

Raven mockers are feared and envied by the other witches of Cherokee folklore, and their bodies may be abused by said witches after death. He is the Angel of Death in such a way he was menacing.

In fiction[edit]

Manly Wade Wellman used raven mockers in his novel The Old Gods Waken (1979), where they were one of the many creatures of Appalachian folklore encountered by Silver John.

Scott Nicholson used withered beings much like raven mockers in his novel They Hunger (2007), where they were encountered in a gorge similar to the Linville Gorge Wilderness area of Appalachia.

P.C. Cast also used Raven Mockers as one of the main groups of villains in her House of Night Series. The story describes them as the being the few living "spirit" children of fallen angel Kalona and any one of his many human mistresses. They have the ability to annoy the living and also steal the lives of those close to death.

Raven mockers are a central theme in the book The Curse of the Raven Mocker, by Marly Youmans, where the main character, Adanta, chases a man who appears to be a raven mocker in order to rescue her enspelled mother. In doing so, she finds out more than she expected as she searches through Adantis, a land where the Cherokee legends mix with those of the early settlers in the Appalachian mountains.

The Ravenmocker appears in to a modern day Cherokee medicine man in the ballad novel Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb.

In the Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition adventure "the New World", created by Role Playing Public Radio. Raven Mockers appear a magically recreated raven that harvests necromatic energies and creates undead servants for the Black raven tribe.


Mooney, James (1900). Myths of the Cherokee. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications. pp. 401–403. ISBN 0-486-28907-9.