In a Tsalagi tale which reminds me of the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone, the sun is a female whose daughter died and was taken to the Ghost Country. It happened like this.


Sun lives high in the sky, as we all know, but her daughter lived in the middle of the sky, just above the earth. As Sun made her circuit across the heavens each day, she'd stop to have dinner with her daughter. Sun hated the People because, as she told her brother Moon, she thought them quite ugly when they wrinkled up their faces in squinting to look her in the face. Her brother had not this experience, and told her that humans always smiled when they saw him. Jealous, Sun decided to kill herself some humans. Every day when she visited her daughter, Sun sent down a terrible heat which caused fevers amongst the People and caused hundreds of them to die.

In desperation, the People went to the Little Men for help. These friendly spirits who advised their petitioners that their salvation lay in killing Sun. The Little Men made medicine to change two of the people into snakes, Adder and Copperhead. As snakes, they could lie in wait for Sun and when she visited her daughter, bite her. Unfortunately, Sun's light blinded Adder as he was about to attack, and he could only spit out some yellow slime, which he does to this day when he tries to attack. Seeing the failure of his companion, Copperhead slunk off into the woods without even trying.

Again the People went to the Little Men, and this time they changed one of the men into Uktena, a large horned water monster, and another of them into Rattlesnake. But Rattlesnake got too excited with his task and ran ahead to wait for Sun. When her daughter came out of the house to watch for Sun, he didn't even look first to see who it was, but bit her, and she fell down dead on the spot. So unnerved was Rattlesnake at what he'd done, he went back to the People without waiting for Sun, and Uktena was so angry at the mistake that he went back too.

When Sun arrived for dinner and found her daughter dead, she shut herself up in the house to grieve. This solved the problem of the heat wave and the fever, but now the People were living in total darkness. Once again they sought aid from the Little Men, who advised that seven men must make the journey to Tsusgina'i, the Ghost Country, to bring back Sun's daughter. These men were told to each carry a sourwood rod of a handbreadth's length, and they were to take along a box. Once they arrived, they were told that they'd find the ghosts all dancing in a circle. They were instructed to stand outside the circle and strike Sun's daughter with their rods as she passed, put her into the box and carry her back to Sun. But they were not to so much as crack open the box until they had arrived back into the upper world.

The seven men traveled west for seven days and came to the Darkening Land. The ghosts were dancing just as the Little Men had described. The seven followed their instructions and managed to get the girl into their box without notice from the ghosts. But Sun's daughter quickly revived from her flailing with the rods and began to call from her prison within the box, begging to be let out, saying she was hungry and thirsty. The men were able to ignore her until they were almost home, until she cried out in desperation that she was smothering. Afraid that she would die before they could reach her mother, they cracked the lid, just a bit, to let in some air. Suddenly they heard the fluttering of wings and felt something fly past them into the bushes. There came the voice of a redbird then, "Kwish, Kwish, Kwish!" When the seven reached their home, they opened the box, only to have their triumph turn to dismay when they found nothing inside.

When Sun realized that her beloved daughter was forever beyond her reach, she wept copious tears, so many that there came a great flood. In hopes of abating this new difficulty, the council sent a group of their most attractive young men and women to dance and sing for Sun, in hopes of distracting her from her grief. It was quite some time before Sun paid any attention to this entertainment, but when she finally did, she the beauty of her entertainers caused her to smile, and she forgot her tears.

Redbird is the daughter of Sun, and had the men been able to withstand her pleas, today we would be able to to retrieve our friends from the Ghost Country. But because they opened the box, those who travel on are lost to us forever.


source:
American Indian Myths and Legends, edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz (Pantheon, 1984)