Holy Boy was not satisfied. He thought there should be more light. By himself he started to make a sun. He tried hard in many ways. The first time he tried by himself. He used all kinds of specular iron ore and pollen. The result was not very satisfactory though. He used abalone too, but that didn’t work any better. He tried turquoise and red beads and white beads, but without success. But he kept on. He tried over and over.
One time when he was at work the little whirlwind came. The little wind asked him, “What are you doing here all by yourself? You never go outside. I have not seen you for a long time.”
Holy Boy said, “I have not been doing anything. I’ve stayed right here.”
Wind said, “There must be some reason that you stay home.”
Holy Boy said, “Yes, there is. I am making a sun. But it is not very bright.”
Wind said to him, “There is a man who has a sun. Why don’t you go to him?”
“Who is he?”
“Oh, it is White Hactcin. You go and ask him. But don’t tell him who told you.” [The use of the whirlwind as a messenger or spy for the supernaturals is an ever recurring theme in Jicarilla folklore.]
So Holy Boy went to White Hactcin. He went into the home of White Hactcin.
“What do you want?” asked White Hactcin. “There must be some reason for your coming here. You never come to visit with us. What do you want, my grandson?”
Holy Boy said, “I came here to ask you for the sun.” White Hactcin said, “How do you know I have it? Who told you? No one could have seen that I have that sun.”
White Hactcin sat there. He tried to think who could have seen it and reported it. Then he remembered that there was one who came often to his house. It was the wind.
“I believe it was Wind who told you I have the sun.”
Holy Boy didn’t mention Wind’s name. He just continued to ask for the sun.
White Hactcin said then, “Yes, I have it.” He picked up his bag and looked into it. He found it and he took it out. It was a very small sun and hard to see. It was just like the present sun, but it was no bigger than a pin head. He gave it to Holy Boy.
“This is for daylight,” White Hactcin said.
Wind had told Holy Boy when he had talked to him, “There is a moon too, but another person has it. Black Hactcin has it [the association of Black Hactcin with darkness and the things of the night is here continued by representing him as the possessor of the “night light” or moon, thus contrasting him with White Hactcin, who owns the sun material]. You can get the moon from him.”
So now Holy Boy went over to Black Hactcin.
“What do you want, my grandson?” [the term ‘grandson’ is honorific in this context, referring to relative age and not to kinship] asked Black Hactcin. “You never came to see me before. There must be some reason.”
“Yes, I have come for the night light. I have come for the moon.”
“How do you know I have it? Who told you I have it?”
Black Hactcin thought a while. “I believe that little wind told you,” he said. “He’s the only one who comes to see me often.” So he looked in his bag and found it. He gave it to Holy Boy. It was a tiny one too.
Then he said, “You must go back and put it on a deerskin which has no holes [unblemished buckskin was much prized by the Jicarilla for ceremonial purposes. It was required, for instance, in the rite conducted four days after the birth of a child]. First make a circle to represent the sun and one for the moon too. Paint them with pollen and other coloring matter. Then put the sun that you have been given right in the center of the sun that you make with pollen. Make a painting of the moon in the same way with specular iron ore on the deerskin and put this moon that I have given you exactly in the center of it. [Pollen is often used to represent the light of the sun; specular iron ore the light of the moon.] When you get ready perhaps White Hactcin and I will come over, and Red Boy will come too [Red Boy and Holy Boy do not appear in other Jicarilla stories. Holy Boy is mentioned in the Navaho origin legend also]. There will be four of us. [The Black Hactcin and White Hactcin were leaders of all the Hactcin. All the rest were just helpers. I think that Holy Boy and Red Boy were the children of Hactcin, but I am not sure. (Inf.)]
“Make rays for each of your designs too. Let there be four black rays to the east, four blue rays to the south, four yellow rays to the west, and four glittering rays to the north. On each, within the first outer circle of pollen or specular iron ore, make a circle of red paint. Make this near the edge. This red one stands for the rainbow. Then bring downy eagle feathers and white tail feathers of the eagle and spotted feathers of the eagle so that we can sing over this sun and moon.”
Then Holy Boy went back to his own home. He worked on the sun and moon as the Black Hactcin had told him. He sent for Red Boy, and Red Boy came over and assisted him. They painted what the Hactcin had told them on the buckskin. They were nearly finished when the two Hactcin came in.
They walked in and looked at the designs. They said, “Oh, it’s pretty good!” They put pollen in their own mouths and the two boys did likewise. Then the Hactcin put some pollen on top of their own heads and the boys did it too. Then each threw some to the east, south, west, and north, then straight up in the air, and then on the sun and the moon both [this is one of the few references in Jicarilla mythology to offerings of pollen to upward and downward directions as well as to the cardinal points]. Each one of the four did that. They sprinkled pollen on the sun and the moon four times after throwing it upward in the air.
Then White Hactcin took the white feathers and the Black Hactcin took the spotted feathers. The downy feathers they gave to Holy Boy and Red Boy. One bead of a certain color was placed in each direction on the outer circle of each design: a red stone bead on the east side, turquoise on the south side, a white bead on the west side, and abalone on the north side.
The two drawings lay before them. Everything was ready. They asked each other who was going to start to sing and pray.
Then White Hactcin spoke to Holy Boy. “You are the one who started to make the sun. You had better start the singing too. You must know how.”
“Yes, I started it. I can’t deny that.”
So Holy Boy sang songs. He sang a song to the pollen. Then he sang a specular iron ore song.
Now Red Boy sang, and he sang to the beads. And he sang a song to the red ochre too.
That is why they rub paint on the face of the girl and the boy the last morning of the puberty rite. They put the red paint on then. If the boy and girl would go out without having their faces painted with red paint it would be like going out without being under the care of these holy things. Then if you prayed the Hactcin would not hear you or help you, nor would anything else.
And the pollen is just like a summer offering. After they used the pollen and sang of it, all kinds of fruit of the summer were mentioned. That song gives long life too. They sang it for both the sun and the moon, that they would have long life.
Then White Hactcin sang in the same way. He sang the same songs. He sang to make the sun and the moon come to life.
As he sang the pictures began to move a little. They began to come to life.
Then Black Hactcin sang too. He sang to make them move.
Red Boy helped each of them sing; he joined in. He didn’t sing alone himself though.
Now everything was ready. The sun and moon were ready to go. Then all went out, the four of them. White Hactcin had the sun in his hand. Black Hactcin had the moon in his hand. They stood in a single file facing the east. Holy Boy stood first, then White Hactcin, then Black Hactcin, and behind him Red Boy.
Holy Boy and Red Boy had pollen in their hands. Each threw some towards the north and then up and to the south. They were making a path, just the way the sun and moon were to go. Then White Hactcin and Black Hactcin released the sun and moon, and the sun and moon went up that path. In the sky they came up from the north and moved toward the south. [At first the sun and moon moved from north to south. For an account of the change to the present direction of movement see The Emergence.] It was a long time before they reached the sky. Then they could be seen faintly, just as at dawn. The light began to get stronger and stronger. The light began to show on the mountains.
The other people of the underworld didn’t know what it was.
Then the sun came out and in the bright sunshine everything could be seen clearly. It was just as it is now in daytime.
There were all kinds of shamans around there among the people. These were men and women who claimed they had power from all sorts of things. They saw the sun going from the north to the south across the sky.
These shamans began to talk. One said, “I made the sun.”
Another contradicted him and said, “No, I did it.”
They got to quarrelling about it.
Hactcin told them not to talk like that for four days. “After four days say what you want to.” That’s what White Hactcin told them.
But the shamans didn’t listen. They kept making claims like this and fighting. They talked all the more. One would say, “I think I’ll make the sun stop overhead so that there will be no night. But no, I guess I’ll let it go, because we need some time to rest too.” And another would say, “I might get rid of the moon. We don’t need any light at night.”
But the sun arose the second day and was overhead at noon. The birds and animals were happy. The third day it was the same way; the sun rose as before.
And the fourth day came. The sun rose early. But the shamans, in spite of what the Hactcin had told them, continued to talk and kept it up till noon of the fourth day.
Then, at noon, there was an eclipse of the sun. It grew black. The sun went straight overhead, through a hole, and on to this earth. The moon followed and came to this earth too. That is why we have eclipses today.
The rays of the sun came straight down through the little hole that connected the underworld with the earth above. The people could see the light faintly.