A Zuni tale: The theft of Sun and Moon

Coyote, there at the Beginning, creator-by-chance…. Coyote, there at the making of the Rules of the World….

At the very beginning of things, neither sun nor moon were in the sky. The Kachinas, the spirit people, kept them, safe and secret, in a box that they opened whenever they wished some light. Without the sun, the world was always dark. Without the moon, there were no seasons; the world was never cold nor warm, never white with snow nor green with leaves.

Coyote thought this was a sorry state of affairs. He liked change, did sly Coyote—most certainly, since he was a clumsy hunter in the darkness shrouding the world.

“Ho, Eagle Chief,” he called, “let us form a hunting partnership. Two hunters should do better than one.”

Haughty Eagle looked down at Coyote and laughed. What, he, the keen of eye and mighty of wing, make a pact with a flightless ground crawler? But he remembered that Coyote, the sly one, could steal an eagle’s meal, even in the darkness. Better to keep Coyote in the open, where he could play no pranks! So Eagle agreed to the partnership. But even so, Coyote caught nothing but bugs. “Bah! How can anyone do any decent hunting in all this darkness? Tell me, Eagle, you who fly so high, have you ever seen any light in your travelings?”

“Why, yes, from time to time I have seen a flickering of light in the west, where the Kachinas live.”

“Then west we shall go.”

Eagle soared lightly in the winds. Coyote, wingless, had to struggle through desert and mountain, river and mud. But he would not give up, not he!