The Ancient World (HUM 124 - UNC Asheville)/Texts/Daughter of the Sun by Freeman Owle

Summary

The Sun and her daughter the Moon are traveling through the sky. The Sun decides to look down at the people below her, and by doing so she notices that every time they look at her it's with squinted eyes and scrunched up faces. The Sun didn't like these ugly faces because she believed the humans were making fun of her, and so she became angry and increased her heat causing the human's crops to dry up. The people prayed for her to stop, but still the sun was mad. So, the humans went to the Medicine Man who told them to sing to calm her down. The Sun didn't like the noise the humans were making so she became even angrier and even hotter. The trees became dry and the rivers dried up. The humans decided that this was becoming a real problem and they'd have to kill the sun to fix it. The plan was for the Medicine Man to turn himself into a rattlesnake and slither up to the sky, and when the Sun and Moon crossed the sky he would strike at the Sun, killing her. But he missed and hit the Moon instead causing her to fall down to Earth. When the sun saw what the man had done she grew so angry she set fire to the land. The Medicine Man decided to fix this the humans would have to travel to the land of the dead, find seven sourwood sticks, find the Moon, and tap her with the sticks seven times to place her into a slumber so they could take her back to Earth in a basket. The plan worked. The humans found the Moon dancing in a circle of death and tapped her with the sticks when she wasn't paying attention. The Medicine Man warned them not to open the lid of the basket no matter what. But on the way back to Earth the Moon kept asking to be released. The Moon said she had no air and so one of the humans opened the lid a little to let air in, and a bright red light flew out of the basket. When they got back the Medicine Man opened the basket to find it was empty but looking over to a nearby bush there was a bright red bird singing happily to the Sun. The red bird was the daughter of the Sun, and from then on the Sun has been kind to the Cherokee people.