STORIES 499

THE SUN’S CHILD

Very long ago there lived at Sux a chief whose daughter, Copper, was
a source of perpetual worry tohim. The girl was restless and disobedient,
always wandering off by herself and being on too friendly terms with men.
At last the father, losing his patience, told Copper to go her own way, that
he would have nothing more to do with her. She wandered about, aim-
lessly, from place to place until she came to a road leading up to a large
house within which was a man; it was the dwelling of the supreme deity,
but the girl did not know this. Atguntdm asked her to come in, surprised
her by calling her by name, and talked to her about the trouble she had
had with her father. In this way Copper discovered the identity of her
host. She stayed with him that night, and in the morning he told her
to go home.

“How?” she asked.

“On the power of my eye,” replied Afguntim.

With that he opened a hole in the side of his house and sent her sliding
down to her father’s upon one of his eye-lashes, a sunbeam. Though
Copper had spent but a single night with A/juntdm, it was equivalent to
a year upon the earth and in that time she had conceived, passed through
the period of pregnancy and given birth to a male child of whom A/guntdém
was the father. Copper carried the infant with her on returning to her
own home, outside of which she waited until a younger sister chanced to
seeher. The little girl rushed to her mother saying:

“Copper has come back!”

The old woman did not believe her and was angry. When another of
Copper’s sisters had confirmed the news, the mother believed it and was
glad. Copper told them to spread clean sand on the floor for herself and
her child, then, removing a board from the roof, she entered the house
from above.

As time went on Copper’s son throve and grew big enough to play
with other little boys. But he had inherited from his father some of the
heat-giving power of the sun so that he burnt his playmates who were
naturally angry and showed their resentment by calling him a bastard.
Mortified at this insult, the child told his mother, who instructed him to
prepare a bow and a large number of arrows. When he had done so, she
told him to shoot upwards. His first arrow went so high it stuck in the
floor of Sonx”< itself. He sent up arrow after arrow and each lodged at
the base of its predecessor, until a ladder was formed to the land above.
Up this the boy climbed, each arrow falling to the ground as soon as he
had transferred his weight to the one immediately above. On reaching
the upper regions, the lad proceeded to the house of his father and told

>