The trees in one small Okanagon village were growing barren, and the sun grew more distant each day. However, the villagers weren’t concerned with the coming of winter. Instead, they were busy preparing for a contest: the chief had announced that the village’s best hunter would earn the right to marry his daughter.
She was named Nak, and known for her beauty, with her freckled skin and glossy hair. Many of the village’s unmarried men pursued her—and she had refused them all. Exasperated, her father had told her, “If you don’t choose one, they’ll only get more restless for your attention.”
“I think they’re all caught up in competition,” she’d replied.
The chief thought on this. The candidates were plentiful and he wanted the strongest, most qualified man as a husband for his daughter.
And so, he had declared a contest.
The village was so intent on preparing that hardly anyone noticed the lodge that suddenly appeared on the outskirts of the village. It was shoddy and dirty, and looked like it was in the process of falling apart.
The boy who emerged from it was even more ramshackle. His eyes were sickly sunken into his skull, and his short hair stuck out in all directions. His limbs were so bony and knobby it was a wonder he could walk.
The other villagers ignored the boy, until he said, “I’d like to try my hand at this marriage competition."
~
Nak’s younger sister, Uko, was curious about this stranger. Just as the townsfolk treated him with contempt because of his muddied, skinny form, they often ignored the unsightly Nak in favor of her sister.
When she approached his abode, she noticed a strange, intense light radiating through cracks in the makeshift roof. It disappeared as she rapped her knuckles on the door.
“What happened to that bright firelight?” she asked after she had introduced herself and stepped inside.
The boy, laid out on a blanket, shrugged his bony shoulders.
“Are you the one who wants to marry my sister?” Uko asked.
“I’m considering it,” he replied.
“You’ll have to compete with Raven and Coyote,” she said. “They like her, too.”
“What’s so special about her?”
“She’s beautiful, but she’s so independent. I guess it makes them want her more.”
“Not you, though?”
She shook her head. “Nobody pays attention to me. Mostly I wander around and pick the wild herbs and flowers that grow nearby. Maybe…” She grew a little embarrassed, pulling at her short hair nervously. “Maybe you would want to come with me sometime? It wouldn't be as lonely, and nobody would bother with us."
“Their dismissal doesn’t bother me,” the boy said simply.
“How’s that?” Uko asked.
“Instead of looking at the ground,” he said, “I look up to the sun.”
~
That night, Uko dreamed of a tall, hooded figure in a tawny cloak. The figure's eyes shone with pinpricks of glimmering white light from the darkness until the hood fell and revealed the face of a woman. Her skin glowed with beauty and radiant power.
"Who are you?" Uko asked her.
"My name is Star," the woman said. "I'm searching for my brother. He radiates light, like I do. Have you seen him?"
Uko shook her head. "Where did you last hear from him?"
"He spoke with me about winning the hand of a girl in a competition before he disappeared."
"I see--maybe he means my sister! The village says she's radiant. Maybe he thinks she's one of you."
Star nodded slowly. "Perhaps. He did mention finding someone with whom he believed he could share a sense of understanding." She pulled back her cloak with one glimmering arm and held out a golden vial dangling on a red string. "I have a feeling you'll encounter him soon. Give this to him when you do."
So Uko took it, and when she awoke, the vial hung from her neck, tightly sealed.
~
The morning of the competition, the chief announced that each man would go out and spear a fish. The largest fish would win its fisher his daughter’s hand.
The boy’s gnarled spear looked like it would snap after one thrust.
Instead of waiting for the competitors to return, Nak tagged along with Raven and Coyote. They came to the stream where the villagers often laid fishing nets. Nak waded in with a spear of her own.
The boys seemed more concerned with her than with catching fish.
“Here, you hold the spear like this… no, not like that, put your thumb here,” said Coyote.
“You’ll never catch a fish with that stance, too weak. Your legs are all wrong,” Raven admonished.
Nak huffed. “Well, if you’d just let me try, maybe you’d be surprised!
~
Uko tagged along with the boy, and was surprised when he walked past the small stream altogether.
“What are you doing?”
“Sometimes you have to travel farther to get a better reward. Even if something looks appealing, it doesn’t always hold the best value.”
~
Nak’s fish turned out to be the most colorful one among all competitors. It was also the largest, followed by Raven’s fish and Coyote’s fish, which they insisted were the same size as Nak’s.
Then the boy appeared. The crowd went silent. Nobody knew how his small shoulders could even support the large fish he toted along with him. It was all black and bulged with fat. Its large, white eyes rolled heavenward.
“Clearly,” the chief said with a resigned sigh, “you have shown yourself to be more capable a hunter than any other man in my tribe. You earned the right to marry my daughter.”
The boy said, “I accept your offer, sir. I choose to marry Uko.”
Coyote burst into laughter at Nak rejection. Nak’s face darkened like a thunderstorm and she turned to Coyote. In a flash, he was on the ground and Nak dusted her hands off primly.
“Clearly,” she said, “hunting is more my speed than marriage.”
~
The villagers had been shocked at the boy’s initial decision to marry the ugly sister, but they were even more shocked on the day of the wedding ceremony.
When Uko approached the boy’s house, dressed in her best clothes, he waited outside, the same dirty, emaciated form as had arrived to the village before the competition. Beside him, however, stood the tall form Uko recognized as the woman from her dream, Star.
"I thought I would find you here, Sun," Star said, looking at him. "You've been gone for long enough. There will be no more sunlight left if you stay here for much longer." She glanced at Uko, who was marveling at Star's glimmering skin in her waking clarity. "Is this the girl, after all?"
Realization dawned on Uko just as her father began the rites of the wedding ceremony. The boy, Sun, took Uko's hands. “I’m sorry I never told you," he said, just as the chief declared his and Uko's marriage in front of the village.
He took the golden vial around her neck and opened it, melting the sealing wax with a burst of warmth. Tilting the viscous gold liquid inside into his palm, he smoothed it over his face and hair, and transformed. In a flash, his skin lost its dirt-smeared façade and
gained a bronze glow. His thin limbs swelled with muscle, and his short
hair grew into a mane that brushed the ground. He poured out another few drops and let them fall onto Uko's hair and cheeks. It clung like syrup and glowed like sunlight.
"The sky is a lonely place," he said. "Even Star disappears during the day. But I needed someone who could understand me. Would you like to come with me?" he asked with a small smile. "Nobody would bother with us."
Recognizing her own turn of phrase, Uko laughed, and she accepted.
Author's note:
The original story involves a competition in which the winner will earn the privilege of marrying both of the chief's beautiful daughters. Sun, with his sister Star, decides to enter the competition and wins. In the original, both sisters are beautiful and practically indistinguishable in terms of character. Since lots of heroines and important female figures in myths are beautiful, I decided to write a story involving one who wasn’t. As a result of her looks, Uko bonds with the outsider who come to the town. Her sister Nak doesn’t bond with anyone, partially as a result of being put on a pedestal, which is why she chooses not to get married at the end.
I spent two weeks making changes to this story after initially posting it. In the first version, Star and Sun had the same role. Sun was an old woman who was the dirty boy's grandmother. The next version, I cut Star from the story altogether. In the final version, I added her back in and gave her a different role, as someone who adds more magic elements into the story as she searches for her brother. In a longer version of this story, I would give her a bigger role, and have her meet Uko before Sun appears in the village. She would also have a bigger role in explaining why Sun left the sky, the effects it had, and what he is searching for.
Sources:
"Dirty-Boy" from
Tales of the North American Indian by Stith Thompson
Okanagon Indian Fact Sheet
Mourning Dove's "Coyote Tales"
