Moon - Folktale week 2021

This illustration is based on a folktale told by the Akas(Hrusso) tribe, about how death first came to the world.
The story :
In the beginning, there were two Suns - a male and his wife and two moons - a male and his wife. The Sun's wife falls in love with the Moon's Husband. They used to come to earth to meet one another. But whenever they met everything caught fire around them, the humans and animals ran away and hid for fear of being burnt to death. There were the two mighty brothers who saw the pain caused by these two, they decided to kill them. After a little while, Sun's wife and moon's husband came to the earth, and the two brothers shot bows at them. Sun's wife dies there on the ground but Moon's husband fled away with the arrow in his body, and he dies in his wife's arms. Weeping bitterly Moon's wife curses all the men, animals, and birds to die. And This is how death came to the world.
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Even though this story is about death, to the people of Aka tribe, death is not the end. They believe that the soul lives on and it returns to earth in another form.🌻
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I came across this story in a book called When the world was young, which is a rich collection of tribal stories, written by Dr. Verrier Elwin. If you are interested in reading folktales of the tribal community of India, you should add this to your list. 💛