CHAPTER XXIV
ORIGIN OF SUN AND MOON
MASK USED TO APPEASE CRYING CHILDREN—OLD-MAN-HOUSE TRIBE
Joe Anderson, a Port Madison Indian, tells the story of the origin of the sun and moon, a story which many of the Indians still continue to believe, notwithstanding their present Christian education.
Long, long ago an Indian woman went to a creek to wash some clothes and left her little babe at home alone. When she returned she found that the child had been stolen and she wept bitterly. When she again went to the creek to wash she took the baby’s clothes with her. While washing, some of the baby’s dresses sunk to the bottom of the creek and some mud got on the inside of them. When she lifted them out of the water the mud was transformed into another baby. However, it was not a bright clean baby like the other, but a very black and dirty one. The new baby thrived and grew very rapidly and the mother loved it dearly, although she longed for her kidnapped child to return.
When the new baby got big enough he was always out at play in the mud puddles, seldom returning until late at night.
After awhile the prodigal boy returned and played with the other boy, who still continued to wear a dirty face.
The parents loved the clean boy best and the dirty boy became very jealous. So one day the dirty boy thought he would go home as clean as the other boy and spent the whole day in washing himself. At night when he returned he was as clean and bright as the sun, and his brother who had hitherto been so clean shone only like the moon in comparison. Then the clean boy said: “You be the sun and I’ll be the moon,” and together they flew away and the once dirty boy became the spirit of the sun which throws bright light on the earth by day, and the once lost boy became the moon which reflects dim light on the earth by night.