How We Inherited the Sun

In the beginning there was only darkness and people kept bumping into each other.  The fox said that people on the other side of the world had plenty of light but were too greedy to share it.

The possum went over there to steal a little piece of the light.  He found the Sun hanging in a tree, lighting everything up.  He took a tiny piece of the Sun and hit it in the fur of his tail.  The heat burned the fur off his tail.  That is why possums have bald tails.

The buzzard tried next, in vain.  He hid a piece of Sun in the feathers of his head.  That is why buzzards are bald.

The spider tried next.  She made a clay bowl.  Then she spun a web to create a Milky Way across the sky reaching to the other side of the world.  She snatched up the whole Sun in the clay bowl and took it back home to our side of the world.

That is how we inherited the Sun.

(A Cherokee folk tale)