The Sun's Child Dances with his Mother

THE SUN'S CHILD DANCES WITH HIS MOTHER ⁷

A girl lived with her father and mother in White House. All the men of the village tried hard to marry her, but she would never marry them. They brought mantas and belts and gave them to her, but she refused.

She always slept at noon. One day while she was asleep the sun shone through the hatchway. Four days the sun shone through the hatchway. She conceived and she had a baby boy. Her father and mother gathered together all the men and asked them who was the father of the boy. No one answered; they did not know.

They put the baby on a cradle board and carried him up to a small spring where all the women of the village got water and they threw him into the spring. Nobody knew where the baby disappeared, but his father Sun had taken him to the sky.

When he was big enough, Sun brought him back to the village and put him in the spring where they had thrown him. He was dressed in buckskin, with red paint on his face, a downy eagle feather on his head, and he had a bow and arrows. Early in the morning his mother came for water and found her pretty little boy sitting on a rock. She went home to tell her father and mother. She said, "At the spring there is a pretty boy dressed in buckskin, with red paint on his face, and downy eagle feathers on his head, and carrying a bow and arrows." They went to see, and when the others heard about it the whole village went.

p. 32

The boy said, "May I dance? I will dance my own dance." He danced the harvest dance (uatyautci). The men of the village went into a house to start the dance. When the dancers came out the little boy came with them, and they danced in a circle in the plaza. All the people were watching. They started the song. The men said, "Shall we go and get you a girl to dance with?" "I will go myself and get a girl to dance with." He went among the people and chose his own mother to dance with him. He began to dance, and his mother danced with him. When the dance was almost over he let his downy feather fly and it went straight up to the sky and drew him up with it, and his mother. At last they were so high that people couldn't see them any more. The people cried for the girl. He took her to Sun. Sun covered her with his rays till nobody could see her any more, and he took the girl home to his father.

Footnotes

31:7 Informant 6. Notes, p. 214.