“Let me try,” said Buzzard. “I know better than to hide a piece of stolen light in my tail. I’ll put it on my head.” He flew to the other side of the world and, diving straight into the sun, seized it in his claws. He put it on his head, but it burned his head feathers off. The people grabbed the sun away from him, and ever since that time
Buzzard’s head has remained bald.
Then Grandmother Spider said, “Let me try!” First she made a thickwalled pot out of clay. Next she spun a web reaching all the way to the other side of the world. She was
so small that none of the people there noticed her coming. Quickly Grandmother Spider snatched up the sun, put it in the bowl of clay, and scrambled back home along one of the strands of her web. Now her side of the world had light, and everyone rejoiced.
Spider Woman brought not only the sun to the Cherokee, but fire with it. And besides that, she taught the Cherokee people the art of pottery making.
