Native American Legends
The Men of the Early Times
A Zuni Legend
Eight years was but four days and four nights when the world was
new. It was while such days and nights continued that men were led
out, in the night-shine of the World of Seeing.
For even when they saw the great star, they thought it the Sun-father
himself, it so burned their eye-balls.
Men and creatures were more alike then than now. Our fathers were
black, like the caves they came from; their skins were cold and
scaly like those of mud creatures; their eyes were goggled like
an owl's; their ears were like those of cave bats; their feet were
webbed like those of walkers in wet and soft places; they had tails,
long or short, as they were old or young.
Men crouched when they walked, or crawled along the ground like
lizards. They feared to walk straight, but crouched as before time
they had in their cave worlds, that they might not stumble or fall
in the uncertain light.
When the morning star arose, they blinked excessively when they
beheld its brightness and cried out that now surely the Father was
coming. But it was only the elder of the Bright Ones, heralding
with his shield of flame the approach of the Sun-father.
And when, low down in the east, the Sun-father himself appeared,
though shrouded in the mist of the world-waters, they were blinded
and heated by his light and glory. They fell down wallowing and
covered their eyes with their hands and arms, yet ever as they looked
toward the light, they struggled toward the Sun as moths and other
night creatures seek the light of a camp fire. Thus they became
used to the light.
But when they rose and walked straight, no longer bending, and
looked upon each other, they sought to clothe themselves with girdles
and garments of bark and rushes. And when by walking only upon their
hinder feet they were bruised by stone and sand, they plaited sandals
of yucca fiber.
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