THE SUN AND THE MOON (Bagobo Tradition)

 The Sun and the Moon

(Bagobo Tradition)

Long ago the Sun had to leave the Moon to go to another town. He knew that his wife, the Moon, was expecting the birth of a child; and, before going away, he said to her, "When your baby is born, if it is a boy, keep it; if a girl, kill it."

A long time passed before the Sun could come back to the Moon, and while he was gone, the Moon gave birth to her baby. It was a girl. A beautiful child it was, with curly hair like binubbud, with burnished nails that looked like gold, and having the white spots called pamoti on its body. The mother felt very sad to think of killing it, and so she hid it in the bigbox (kaban) where they kept their clothes.

As soon as the Sun returned, he asked the Moon, "How about our baby?"

At once the Moon replied, "It was a girl: I killed it yesterday." The Sun had only a week to stay at home with the Moon. One night he dreamed that a boy with white hair came to him from heaven. The boy stood close to him, and spoke these words:—

"Your wife got a baby, but it was a girl; and she hid it away from you in the box." When the Sun wakened from sleep, he was very angry at the Moon, and the two fell to quarrelling about the baby. The Moon wanted the child saved.

"You ought to keep it with you," she urged. "No, no!" protested the Sun. "I cannot keep it, because my body is so hot it would make your baby sick."

"And I cannot keep it," complained the Moon, "for my body is very dark; and that would surely make the child sick."

Then the Sun fell into a passion of rage; and he seized his big kampilan, and slew the child. He cut its small body into numberless little bits,—as many as the grains of sand that lie along the seashore. Out of the window he tossed the pieces of the shining little body; and, as the gleaming fragments sparkled to their places in the sky, the stars came to birth.