Zuni Indian Mythology :: essays research papers

Hundreds of years ago the Zuni people created and told stories of compassionateand world creations, tales of love and lust, and merely about anything"that gave people an explanation for something they could nonunderstand" (Gaarder 25). They made up all these legends or mythsbefore in that respect was anything called science. The stories came from theheart and soul of these native people. Legends are not just foolishstories that were told for amusement they are like magic lenses, theyallow us to charter a glimpse of social orders and the daily life of howthe Indians interpreted things persistent ago. One legend of the Zuni tribetells the tale of the sun and the moon and how these ii heavenly bodiescame into being. The legend is called "Coyote Steals the Sun and Moon."The story begins when an out of mountain Coyote can never seem to killanything. He watches double birdie catch rabbit after rabbit with all theease. He decides to go to double birdie with a pro position. Coyote told Eaglethat they should hunt together, Eagle accepts, so they begin to hunt inpartnership. Still all Coyote catches is just a couple of grubs, whileEagle is far ahead with more rabbits. At the time the world was stilldark, the sun and moon had not been placed into the sky yet. So coyoteblamed his hunting problems on the fact that he could not see and eagleif he knew where they could have light. Eagle was not really sure, buthe figured it was somewhere on the west. So they set out to find it. They soon came to the Kachinas village, where the villagers were busilygoing all out in their sacred dances. The Kachinas invited Coyote andEagle to rest and have a bite to eat while they proceed to dance. Eagle observed the people and could sense all the power they bestowedwithin. He began to wonder if they were the whizzs who had control of thelight. Coyote pointed to two boxes, a large one and only(a) and a small one. Theynoticed that when the people wanted light they undefended the lids of theboxes. In the smaller box was the moon, it contained little light. Inthe larger one was the sun and it gave off a lot of light. Coyote toldEagle that they should go and steal the big box. So when all theKachinas went home to sleep, Eagle site both the sun and the moon intoone box and flew off. After a while Coyote wanted to carry the box