Articles and Stories - ATAYAL - The worldwide voice of the aboriginal tribes of Taiwan

Atayal Legend of Shooting the Sun

By Unknown

In ancient times there were two suns in the sky. Because one of them was much bigger than the today's sun, the weather was exceedingly hot, the grass and trees were withered, the creek water had dried up, and no crops could grow. And because the two suns took turns appearing in the sky, there was no distinction between day and night, and the people led lives of great misery. The people discussed this situation among themselves, and decided that there was no way they and their children could survive unless one of the suns was shot down. At that time three warriors declared themselves ready to go shoot a sun out of the sky. The warriors took some dried food and everyday articles and set out that same day, each one carrying a young child on his back. The journey to the sun was very long, and the men planted the seeds of oranges along the way so that they would grow into trees by the time they came back. Day followed day and year followed year. Before the warriors reached the place of the sun, they had already turned into feeble old men, and the children who had gone with them had grown up. The old men eventually died and their children continued on the journey. One day they finally reached the place of the sun. There they rested and waited for the second sun to come up so that they could shoot it. The three men waited at the mouth of a valley as dawn approached. As they saw the sun appear, they drew their bows and let their arrows fly. Hit by the arrows, the stricken sun released a stream of boiling blood. One of the men was soaked from head to feet by the blood and died instantly. The other two were scalded, but managed to escape and flee homeward. On the journey back they saw that the orange trees their fathers had planted were now tall and full of fruit. The two were white-haired and stooped-backed old men by the time they arrived at their village. But from that time on there has been only one sun in the sky, and the night and day are clearly distinguished. The moon that we see in the nighttime is actually the corpse of the sun that was killed.

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