Note 18 — The Origin of the Stars and the Explanation of Sunset and Sunrise

The Moon returned duly, and after depositing her burden in the house turned to where the children slept but found only their dried, inanimate forms. She broke out into a loud wail, and in the wildness of her grief called upon her husband. But he gave no answer. Finally softened by the loud long plaints, he returned to his house. At the sight of him the wild cries of grief and of despair and of rebuke redoubled themselves until finally the husband, unable to soothe the wife, became angry and called her his chattel. At first she feared his anger and quieted her sobs, but, finally breaking out into one long wail, she seized the burnt forms of her babes, and in the depth of her anguish and her rage threw them to the ground in different directions. Then the husband became angry again, and, seizing some taro leaves that his wife had brought from the fields, cast them in her face and went his way. Upon his return he could not find his wife, and so it is to this day that the Sun follows the Moon in an eternal cycle of night and day. And so it is, too, that stars stand scattered in the sable firmament, for they, too, accompany her in her hasty flight. Ever and anon a shooting star breaks across her path, but that is only a messenger from her husband to call her back. She, however, heeds it not, but speeds on her way in never-ending flight with the marks of the taro leaves18 still upon her face and her starry train accompanying her to the dawn and on to the sunset in one eternal flight.