Page 99 - SpringBoard_ELA_Grade7_Flipbook

aCTIvITy 1.15
continued
Creation Myths from around the Globe
My Notes
3 When Raven arrived at the chief ’s village, he said to himself, “I must find a way to live in the chief ’s house and capture the light.” Raven thought and thought. Finally he exclaimed, “I know just the way! I will change myself into something very small and wait in the stream to be caught.”
4 So Raven transformed himself into a seed and floated on the surface of the nearby stream. When the chief ’s daughter came to draw water, Raven was ready. No matter how she tried to drink some of the water, the seed was always in her way. Finally she tired of trying to remove it, and she drank it along with the water.
5 The woman became pregnant, and in time she gave birth to a son, who was Raven in disguise. The chief loved his grandson, and whatever the child wanted, his grandfather gave him.
6 As the boy crawled, he noticed many bags hanging on the walls of the lodge. One by one he pointed to them, and one by one his grandfather gave them to him. Finally his grandfather gave him the bag that was filled with stars. The child rolled the bag around on the floor of the
lodge, then suddenly let go of it. The bag immediately rose to the ceiling, drifted through the smoke hole, and flew up into the heavens. There it burst open, spilling the stars into the sky.
7 As the days passed, the boy still wanted to play with toys. He pointed
to this bag and that box, stored here
and there in grandfather’s lodge. His grandfather gave him whatever he chose.
8 Finally the child cried, “Mae! Mae!” His
grandfather took down a bag containing the moon and gave it to his grandson as a toy. The boy chuckled with delight as he rolled it around and around upon the floor of the lodge. Suddenly he let go of that bag just as he had let go of the bag of stars. The bag immediately rose to the ceiling, drifted through the smoke hole, and flew up into the heavens. There it burst open, spilling the moon into the sky.
9 The boy continued to play with bag after bag and box after box until one day he pointed to the last box left in the lodge. His grandfather took him upon his lap and said, “When I open this box, I am giving you the last and dearest of my possessions, the sun. Please take care of it!”
10 Then the chief closed the smoke hole and picked up the large wooden box he had kept hidden among other boxes in the shadows of one corner of the lodge. Inside the large box a second wooden box nestled in the wrappings of a spider’s web, and inside that box, a third wooden box nestled. The chief opened box after box until he came to the eighth and smallest of the wooden boxes. As soon as the chief removed the sun from this box, his lodging was flooded with a brilliant light.
11 The child laughed with delight as his grandfather gave him the fiery ball to play with. He rolled the sun around the floor of the lodge until he tired of the game and pushed it aside. His grandfather then replaced the sun in its box and replaced the box inside the other seven boxes.
72 SpringBoard® English Language Arts Grade 7
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