In which we begin the Gift of Stories with a tale about the stars

Coyote Places the Stars in the Sky (Navaho)

In the very beginning days, Old Woman stood on the high hill to the East. 

Old Woman had a big basket full of stars, and she was carefully placing each star into the sky. 
She placed a star here, and a star there. And then a star here, and here and there. 

Old Woman was writing all the rules for the world in the sky,
so everyone in the world would know how to behave and everything in the world would be right.

Coyote saw Old Woman there.  He wanted to help. 

“Give me a basket of stars!” he begged her.  “I’ll be very careful and put them in the sky.”

Old Woman was reluctant.  It was important to put the stars up in the sky properly.

But Coyote kept begging.  “I can do it!” he told her.

Finally, Old Woman gave Coyote a basket full of stars.
“Put each star into the correct place,” she said. 
“Then, everyone in the world will know how to behave and everything will be right.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Coyote said, and he wagged his tail. 

He took his basket of stars to the high hill to the West, and started putting them up in the sky. 
He placed a star here and a star there. He stood back to admire his stars.
He put up a star here and here and there.  Old Woman would be so proud of him.
He wagged his tail.

He looked into his basket.  There were still a lot of stars inside it. 
He looked at the sky.
Not many stars up there yet.

Coyote took a handful of stars, and threw them up in the sky. 
They looked great! He wagged his tail. 

He threw up more handfuls, and more. 
His part of the sky was filling up with beautiful stars. 
His basket was almost empty.
He wagged his tail. 

Then he picked up the basket and threw all the stars in the basket up into the sky. 
He stood back to admire his stars.
They looked great!
But…

The stars in the sky didn’t spell out the rules of the world. 
Some parts of the sky had clumps, where a bunch of stars had stuck together. 
Some parts of the sky hardly had any stars at all.
And the rules of the world weren’t written up there at all!

“Old Woman will be mad at me,” said Coyote to himself, and he ran away to hide from her. 

To this day, Coyote runs and hides from people. 
To this day, sometimes bad things happen because people don’t know how to behave. 
Rules were supposed to be written in the sky, but they aren’t there.

And now you know the reason why.

Luna and Mimsy, 2010