Creation of the Sun and the Moon
Page 3
As the sage was speaking, a rabbit came jumping along, nibbling eagerly at the lush cool grass growing near their feet.
“Take a rabbit along with you, son,” said the sage. “A rabbit can leap, is a friendly companion, and can be of good use to you.”
Huachinog-vaneg accepted the sage’s counsel. He lifted the rabbit up by its ears and held it softly in his arms. Then he thanked Nahevaneg and bade him farewell.
Now Huachinog-vaneg set himself to the task of making two shields. As soon as he had found a convenient place to work he made a heavy shield to carry on his right arm. Then he made another of the fine silky fibers of the maguey plant. It was so light and wondrously woven that when he held it against the Sun, he could see the Sun like a dark disk behind it. This shield he did not fasten to either arm, but carried it first in one hand, then in the other. He had no need of a spear, for he meant to follow the golden road his father had built from which all evil spirits had been driven back into darkness. In that bright light and always in full view of his father, he need fear no enemies.
He provided himself also with a strong and long lasso, and when finally he was ready, he took his rabbit—Tul by name—and traveled to the end of the world.
At the world’s end there was a deep cavern in which lived the great tiger Cananpale-hetic. This tiger came out of his cavern and said to Huachinog-vaneg: “Do not fear me, for understand, I am the world tiger. Here is the very spot from which your father started on his journey. It was here he hesitated, because he feared to jump to the lowest star. Here in his hesitation he stamped one foot, and then the other, treading so hard that this cavern was formed. I fled here, pursued by savage coyotes which the evil gods sent to destroy me. It was then Chicovaneg saved me from the coyotes, and offered me this cavern as a home. And he sent the Feathered Serpent to kill the coyotes, so I was left in peace to heal my wounds. Now I remain here for eternity, to protect the road from the earth up to the lowest star.
“Rest here, Huachinog-vaneg, and gather strength for your difficult task. And your rabbit Tul may eat all it desires of the green prairie grass that lies around us.”
Huachinog-vaneg rested, and Tul ate well. Then together they climbed the rock Chabuquel.
Huachinog-vaneg looked at the lowest star and saw that it was too far away to reach in one leap. He became afraid and much discouraged, but Tul said, “I will go ahead and jump while you wait here. If I fall into the abyss of Balamilal, I alone will be lost. Find another rabbit then—there are many. I, myself, have a hundred and forty sons. You may select the strongest one, and tell him that I, his father, command him to follow you, and he will come.”
Then Huachinog-vaneg said, “Hear me well, Tul. We are friends, and I do not want to lose you. Let us wait here until the rock Chabuquel has grown a little more; then the jump to the lowest star will be easier than it is today.”
But the rabbit Tul replied, “My life is not so long as yours, Huachinog-vaneg. I cannot wait.”
And before Huachinog-vaneg could reply, the rabbit Tul had jumped. He fell back at first without touching the lowest star. But he tried again and again, and at last the tip of one of his long ears touched the star, and he struggled with his legs to get a foothold. A branch of a thornbush helped Tul to scramble onto the star. Then free of the thorns, he leaped up onto a high rock, jumping up and down until Huachinog-vaneg could see him. Huachinog-vaneg threw his lasso to the star; Tul caught it and fastened it onto the peak of a rock, and Huachinog-vaneg swung through space on the lasso and landed on the star.
Together in triumph they went to greet the inhabitants of this first star.
And thus did they wander from star to star, taking only tiny fragments from each one; for the Sun of the Night did not need to be as large or as bright as the Sun of the Day. To make a lesser and cooler light than that of the great Sun, Huachinog-vaneg tied each bit of star as it was given him to his lasso and let it down into the black void to cool off.
And Huachinog-vaneg said to Tul: “My Sun will not be as beautiful or as marvelous as the Sun created by my father; but the Sun I have almost completed is as my mother wanted it, sometimes great, sometimes thin, and sometimes invisible.”
“How clever you are!” said Tul. “How did you manage to do that?” And Huachinog-vaneg showed him. He took the shield in his left hand and moved it slowly in front of the shield of the Night Sun which was fastened on his right arm. As the shade of the lighter shield moved across the heavier shield, the Night Sun became smaller and smaller until it was completely shadowed and only its darkened outline was visible. And slowly, slowly, Huachinog-vaneg moved the lighter shield along, letting the Sun-of-the-Night shield become larger and larger until it regained its full size.
When his mother looked up at the sky and saw this, she called her neighbors together, and said: “Now I can lie down and die in peace, for I have done my duty on earth. I have repaid the good earth for the life it granted me. I had a brave husband, and I bore him a son who was wiser and cleverer than he.” Saying this, she bent down to earth, and died on her knees.
The men of her tribe took her up to the highest mountain peak in the center of the land, where she would be closest to her husband and her son. And the sky covered her body with a white mantle of eternal snow. The first ray that Chicovaneg sends to earth each morning kisses her forehead before it reaches other people, and the last ray in the evening envelops her body in a red-gold glory.
Huachinog-vaneg journeyed steadily across the firmament bringing the light of the Night Sun to mankind. And so faithfully did the Night Sun make its changes that people on earth came to look to it for the order of the days and the hours and the months and the tides.
Once Huachinog-vaneg stumbled on his way and was late in his journey, and the people became confused in their accounting of the time. And so it is to this day.
Wherever Huachinog-vaneg went, the rabbit Tul leaped in his way, full of pranks and play. Now Tul was in front, now behind, and now between his legs; at last Huachinog-vaneg became impatient with Tul’s antics, and he said: “The people on earth will think that I stumble drunkenly across the heavens, and they will build no more temples to me and no pyramids, or any longer name days after me. It would be better for both of us if you went down to earth to join your family. You will live happily there, begetting perhaps a thousand more sons. I know that you love the nights more than the days, so when you wander at night longing to find the choicest cabbage leaves, I will send you the brightest light; my light will help you to see the coyotes or the wild cats who are after you. So I think it is time for you to go, Tul.”
Tul knelt before Huachinog-vaneg and blinked, his eyes moist with tears, as he said: “I learned long ago that human beings do not know gratitude, Huachinog-vaneg. But you are not part of the people any more; you are a god now and people build temples and pyramids on earth in your honor. Now to my surprise I learn from you that even gods know no gratefulness. And I hoped that your people on earth would make me half a god, if not a whole one, for I helped you reach your first star, and I have been a true friend and useful companion to you since the day we met for the first time.”
Huachinog-vaneg answered: “But don’t, you understand? You are in my way, leaping and jumping as you do. So leap and jump back to earth, Tul. I thank you for your help. Anyway, perhaps I might have found my way without you.”
“I am not very sure of that,” Tul replied. “For I remember too well how frightened you were, standing there by the cavern of the tiger, hopping from one foot to the other, afraid to make the leap. Now I’d have to jump from star to star to get back to earth from where we came, and my bones are old. If I fail in just one leap, I’ll fall into the bottomless void, and go falling forever. You couldn’t come to help me, now that your godly duty is to mark the times of the month and the year to people on earth.
“Or perhaps I would arrive on earth—but with broken legs, unable to search for my food at night or for the hole in which I lived with my family,
no matter how much light you sent me. I’d be unable to escape from the coyotes and dogs trying to catch me. And should an eagle spy me, I wouldn’t be able to sprint to a burrow before he’d swoop down and gobble me up. So, Huachinog-vaneg, like it or not, there’s no other remedy, I’ll leap around your legs as long as is good for my health.”
Angered by these words, Huachinog-vaneg grabbed Tul by his long ears and lifted him to hurl him forevermore into the black void of Balamilal. But Tul turned his face to Huachinog-vaneg, grinned and blinked, and cheerfully kicked his legs above the black void to show he was not afraid. And seeing those great kicking legs Huachinog-vaneg suddenly remembered how this rabbit had leaped out into space for him, risking his life every time, over and over, so that he, Huachinog-vaneg, could become a god. And gratefulness rose up at last in his heart.
He embraced Tul and said to him: “You shall stay with me forever. I will put you in the middle of my great shield and carry you around with me on my trips across the firmament. And the people down on earth shall see you there for ever and ever in the very center of my shield.”
Then Huachinog-vaneg removed some of the little star-fragments from the middle of his big shield and set the rabbit Tul there, where he can be seen to this day.
And this is how the rabbit Tul became part of the Mexican people’s calendar, as a grateful reminder of his help in kindling for them the glorious Sun of the Night.
B. Traven is the internationally known author of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Death Ship, The Bridge in the Jungle and other novels. He personally directed the preparation of the first English edition of The Creation of the Sun and the Moon, his only children’s book. Traven died in Mexico City in 1969. You can sign up for author updates here.
Alberto Beltrán is one of Mexico’s leading artists. A founder of the National Arts Academy in Mexico City, he has won several national and international prizes and has illustrated the work of such American writers as Victor W. Von Hagen and Oscar Lewis.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
About the Authors
Copyright
Copyright © 1968 by B. Traven and R. E. Luján
All rights reserved
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Library of Congress Catalog Number 68-30765
eISBN 978-0-374-72254-8
Reprinted by special arrangement with Hill & Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.
First Farrar, Straus and Giroux ebook: 2020