Origin Myth: The Possum Who Gave Up Its Beauty By: The Tlacuache Group

The Story… Once upon a time there was a creature in the vast sky world, his name was Possum The Beautiful. He was the only animal in the sky world at this time, the rest were human beings. Although he was the only animal during this time, he was the most beautiful creature the world had ever seen. His eyes were deep and you could see his very spirit by looking into them, his tail was fluffy and soft as any material known to man, and his coat was very thick, shiny and well kept. But the price of his beauty was that he had no other animal as a companion, thus he grew lonely. He was wondering the universe one day when he came up with an idea to fix his predicament. He went to the sky people for help in his endeavor friend ship. The sky people feared Possum, they always have because they did not know who or what he was. There fear of them lead them to succumb to his request. But Possum assured them that there fear was not needed, as he was a gentle creature. So they worked together to make the world we call Earth.

The story continued… Now the humans were first stumped on how to help Possum, so they went to their elder to find an answer. As Possum explained his story to the elder understood his predicament and agreed to help in any way he could. The elder then cast a spell upon Possum in his aid to make a new world. With this spell Possum was able to sacrifice some of his beauty for the beauty of the world, he did so. His left eye became the moon, and his right eye became the sun, his fur became the soil, plants and trees on the Earth, the fluff of his tail became the clouds and his will maintained claws became the animals. Through out all this, he became ugly. He returned to the human dwelling and was grimly greeted by the humans.

The Ending They threw stones at him, and feared how ugly he had become, and in there fear they fled to earth, all but the elder. The possum had gone down to earth in hopes that the animals would not be so cruel, being his creation and what not. As he found the animals they mocked and laughed at him, calling him names and over all shunning him from there community which they had made. In a fit of rage the possum went back to the elder and greeted him. The elder was not phased by the ugliness of the possum for he had seen this before as he had cast the spell on many humans for there own wishes. Possum had asked for the claws and teeth to match that of razor blades, the ability to see even in the darkest of shadows and the hiss of a thousand blood curdling screams. He told his story to the elder and the elder granted him his wishes. Possum returned to earth, and went to the animals that had shunned him, he hissed at them and bit and clawed them to show dominance over them, as he did to the humans as well. Now Possum lives in the darkness of night to hide his ugliness, in shame knowing that he created the universe, but no one will ever remember his name, only his ugliness.