From: li@Data-IO.COM (Liralen Li)
Subject: Re: Smoke tells a story
Organization: Data I/O Corporation
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 05:35:21 GMT

In article <1992Oct12.152746.13324@samba.oit.unc.edu> Jack.Smoke@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Jack Smoke) writes:
>Evening falls.  The feast has ended.  THe adults sneak off back
>to the bar, leaving Smoke surrounded by children of many ages,
>clamoring for another story.
>	Smoke sighs.  "I did not think I would be one of the 
>old  men at such a young age."  He takes Phee, the youngest child,
>on his lap, and begins to speak.

Phee hushes very quiet for the story, and listens with round eyes.  
She likes being held by Smoke when the Wolves chase after Rabbit, 'cause it
scares her a little and beams with the Didi Sprite when Rabbit gets away.

------

David smiled at the end of the story, and also at Bear's story, which Phee
looked a touch puzzled over.

He quirked a grin, took a deep breath and suddenly realized that he's
the center of attention of a lot of little people's eyes.  He blinked and
then bowed a little bow, and said with a smile in Smoke's direction, "I am
not entitled by blood to tell this story, but... it was told to me by a
proud Raven of the Snohomish," he smiled at the kids, "when he told it to
children as small as you.  And this is what he told..."

"Way back when the world was still young and the Creator/Changer was still
walking the Earth, he started in the East and walked West, creating as he
came.  For each people that he made, he gave them one of the languages
that he had.  When he finally came to the Puget Sound, he liked it so
much that he decided to go no further, so he just tossed all the
remaining languages in the air.  That is why there are so many languages
spoken in this area.

"No people could talk with any other people; but, as it turned out, no one
was real happy with the job that the Creator had done.  The sky was so low
that the people walking around would..." David stood up and recoiled as if
he'd thumped his head on a ceiling, "bump their head on it!  Can you
imagine?"  He smiled at the kids laughing at the idea of that low a sky.

"There was also the added problem that since the sky was so low, some of
the people would accidentally wander into the Sky World and get lost in
that strange land.

"So all the wise men of all the different people, bird, animal and human
got together and had a meeting to figure out what they could do about they
sky."  David grinned at Phee and asked, "What would you do if the sky was
so low and you wanted it to go up?"

Phee looked at David and thought a moment.  "Push it up?"

David grinned, "Exactly!  That's what they decided to do.  But they had one
big problem.  Since no one spoke anyone else's language, they needed a
signal to tell everyone when to push.  They needed such a signal, so they
all decided to make the words "Ya-hoh!" mean 'Push NOW' in all their
languages.  And so it was."

"So, the council went back to everyone with the day that they were to push,
and everyone made ready or the big day by making poles out of giant fir
trees with which to push.

"The day came, and everyone readied their poles.  The wise men shouted
'Ya-hoh!' and *everyone*... puuuushed."  David pulled the word out as he
pushed against an imaginary low ceiling sky.  "And... the - sky - moved -
Up."  David's eyes were wide.  "but only by a little bit."

"So, everyone got ready again,"  David spread legs and held an imaginary
pole, "'Ya-hoh!'" by this time some of the kids joined in with the shout,
"and everyone puuuuuushed as hard as they could push..." some of the kids
started pushing at David with giggles.  "and they pushed the sky up another
couple of inches."

"They just kept pushing and kept yelling..." he paused to let all the kids
join him, "'YA-HOH!' until the sky is where it is now, on top of the
biggest of the fir trees..." David smiled.  "And since then no one has
bumped their head on the sky and no one else has climbed into the Sky
World."  He sat back down by the fire, and grinned as the kids sat around
him.

"Now, in the middle of the pushing, there were three hunters chasing four
elk and none of them had known about the poles and the raising of the sky
by all the humans, animals and birds.  Right at that moment, as the sky
was lifting, they jumped from the earth to the sky; and since the people
didn't know about them and just kept lifting the sky higher and higher
away, they were trapped in the Sky World forever."

David leaned back against the big log at his back.  "Look, up there!"  He
points at the Big Dipper.  "You can see them.  The three hunters trail
behind the four elk running in an almost square, we usually call the bowl
of the Big Dipper.  The middle hunter has his dog with him, now a tiny
star."

For a moment he fell silent, just watching the splendor of the star
studded sky.  "And that is how it was when the people all cooperated and
pushed the sky into place."
----
David
li@inigo.Data-IO.com
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