Raven's
Moon
NaNaQuish
was told this story by his Grandpa as a young boy.
Long ago, it was believed that the world was in complete
darkness and the only source of light was encased within a box and guarded
by a chief. The Raven heard about this light and wanted to steal it, so
he went to the chief's longhouse where he waited for the chief's daughter
to go fetch some water from a local stream. Raven then changed himself into
a pine needle and fell into the bucket. When the woman took a drink of the
water, she swallowed the pine needle. Raven then transformed into a human
child. The chief loved his new grandson and spoiled him with gifts. But
the child was only interested in what was in the boxes. Every day, a box
was opened and he was shown what was inside, but the chief refused to open
the last box. The child cried for days until the chief showed him the ball
of light, which he grabbed and then transformed back into Raven. Raven escaped
through the smokehole of the chief's longhouse. As he was flying away, an
eagle started to chase him. Raven saw the eagle pursuing and started flying
higher and faster, but with all this stress, Raven bit down too hard and
broke the ball of light in half. The severed half fell low int he sky and
the pieces scattered all across the sky. Finally, when Raven was really
high, he truned to see if the eagle was still chasing him and dropped the
last half. Hence, the Sun, Moon and Stars are all brothers of light.
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