Zuni Indian Mythology :: essays research papers

Hundreds of years ago the Zuni people created and told stories of mercifuland world creations, tales of love and lust, and sightly about anything"that gave people an explanation for something they could notunderstand" (Gaarder 25). They made up all these legends or mythsbefore in that location was anything called science. The stories came from theheart and soul of these native people. Legends are not just piteousstories that were told for amusement they are like magic lenses, theyallow us to spend a penny a glimpse of social orders and the daily life of howthe Indians interpreted things foresightful ago. One legend of the Zuni tribetells the tale of the sun and the moon and how these devil heavenly bodiescame into being. The legend is called "Coyote Steals the Sun and Moon."The story begins when an out of raft Coyote can never seem to killanything. He watches shoot catch rabbit after rabbit with all theease. He decides to go to shoot with a proposition. Coy ote 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 many another(prenominal) 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 reclaim 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 keep to dance. Eagle observed the people and could sense all the power they bestowedwithin. He began to wonder if they were the singles who had control of thelight. Coyote pointed to two boxes, a large peerless and a small one. Theynoticed that when the people wanted light the y overt 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 nonplus both the sun and the moon intoone box and flew off. After a while Coyote wanted to carry the box