[Story] The Sky and the Women

[Jubal]

The Sky and the Women

Introduction
This is the story of how two women caused the sky to be distant, the stars to form, and rain to fall.

Story
Abridged and paraphrased from Hanghe: details such as the attributes of characters are in their respective threads, and what is preserved here is the essentials of the plot.^{1, 2}

In  the beginning, the sky was so low that it could be reached by somebody standing on the earth. It provided shelter and warmth and provided protection from cold wind and hot sun.

One day, two women accidentally pierced holes in the sky as they lifted their pestles into the air to bring down on millet for dinner. The sky became angry and shouted for them to stop, warning them of the sun and the wind, but the women didn't listen and continued. The sky, in pain, retreated to where it now sits, and the sun shines through its holes as stars. This is why the sky is called "daldaloole", meaning holed thing.

The clouds are a beautiful girl, carrying water from a well and spilling it through these star holes as rain. When this happens, she shouts to the daldaloole to hold up the water, but the daldaloole replies that it cannot, as below water is needed.

Without these women there would be no rain and no life – women facilitate life, as well as its destruction.

Variants
~Nothing as yet~

Links



REFERENCES/NOTES

• Paraphrasing work by Rachael Ayres.
• Folk Tales from Somalia, pp.110-11

BIBLIOGRAPHY/FURTHER MATERIAL

• Hanghe, Ahmed A. - Folk Tales from Somalia (1988)

Analysis
~None as Yet~