Coyote and the Stars

Originally posted to Shrubbery, 10 Sept 2003

After Naapi had put the animals on the earth he came back to see what they thought of their home. "Old Man," they said, "we like the daytime very much, but at night it's too dark to see and we keep bumping into things. Can you give us something to help us find our way at night?"

Old Man thought for a moment and then picked up a smooth, polished stone from a riverbed. He threw the stone as hard as he could into the sky where it stuck, becoming the star that never moves (Polaris). He then left for a long time.

When he returned he asked the animals again what they thought of their home. "Old Man," they said, "thank you for the light in the sky to help us find our way, but there is another problem. Sometimes the days are warm but sometimes they are cold. Duck has no way of telling when the he should be flying away for the cold winter, and Hare has no way of knowing when he should change his brown coat for a white one. Can you help us know the seasons?"

Naapi thought for a while and then collected a handful of stones from the riverbed. He walked up to the sky and carefully placed them close to the first stone, but in such a way that they would circle around it in the sky. He made those stones in the shape of Bear.

When he returned, Naapi showed the animals how they could tell the seasons by how far Bear had circled around the first stone. Then he told the animals that he would go back to the sky, and if they brought him more stones he would make all their pictures to go with Bear's.

The animals were very happy about this and soon set about collecting smooth stones to take to Old Man in the sky. He placed the stones very carefully in patterns, one after the other.

Soon, though, the small animals were very tired from running all the way up to the sky. They called to Naapi for help, and he told them to ask Coyote.

Coyote thought for a moment, and told the small animals that if they did the work of collecting stones and putting them in his leather bag he would take them up to Old Man all at once. Naturally he would want a very good picture of himself in the sky as a reward, but the other animals didn't mind and set to work finding the best stones to put in Coyote's sack.

As the small animals worked, Coyote started thinking of the fine picture Naapi would make of him. He thought of his picture being up in the sky forever, always admired by everyone. He'd be remembered long after he was dead. How wonderful that would be!

Coyote was so busy dreaming of his fine picture in the sky that he didn't notice how full the leather bag was getting. It was so full it was practically bursting at the seams, but the animals thought Coyote would tell them when he had enough so they kept bringing more stones. Finally Naapi called out from the sky, "animals, where are my stones? I will be leaving soon, so I must have the stones now if you want your pictures finished."

With that, Coyote looked down at the bag and realised how full it was getting. He knew it would be hard work to get it all the way to the sky before Naapi left. He grabbed the bag in his mouth (oh, it was heavy!) and started trudging to the sky. He slogged along as best he could, but every once in a while a stone or two would fall out of the bag and onto the sky.

Coyote was getting closer, but Old Man was impatient and cried, "animals, where are my stones? I want to finish the pictures." Coyote tried to hurry, but more and more stones fell out of the bag as he ran. They were spilling all over the place. Finally, Coyote made it to where Old Man was waiting, but by then there were very few stones in the bag indeed. Naapi used them to make one more picture.

When Old Man and Coyote went back down to the other animals, the animals wanted to know what had happened to their fine pictures in the sky. Some shapes did look like pictures, but many more of them just looked like scattered stones on the beach. In the middle there was a trail of stones where Coyote had travelled to the sky (the Milky Way).

And they say that the sky looks like that to this day because of Coyote's daydreaming. Coyote was punished for a while by being made into the moon but he was so noisy the other animals eventually asked for Naapi to bring him back down... but as they say, that's another story for another time.