"Pushing Up the Sky"
by Joseph Bruchac

Student Edition
Unit 3, pp. 308–319

A myth is an old story that tries to explain something in nature. Think about two things this Snapshot explains about nature.

The Snohomish are Native Americans who live in the Northwest corner of the United States, now known as the state of Washington. Their ancestors were fishers and gatherers. The forests provided tall trees that they used to build homes and to make many other things they needed. The Snohomish are known for carved totem poles that tell stories of nature. Imagine a narrator telling this totem-pole story about how the sky developed overhead.

Long ago the sky hung very low over Earth. Tall people were always hitting their heads on it. Shorter people could leap up and touch it. Children could climb trees and play in the sky all day. On Earth, their mothers looked for them.
The low sky was a problem that the people wanted their seven chiefs to solve. The chiefs discussed the problem with each other. All agreed that something needed to be done. Yet none ever really imagined there was anything they could do. They would have to live with the problems the low sky created.
Then the seventh chief had an idea. "Let's push on the sky and force it to go higher," he suggested. "We need long poles made from the tall trees. We can ask the birds and the animals to help us push. The sky gets in their way too. We've all seen elk trying to get their antlers out of the sky."
The chiefs explained the plan to the people and animals in their own languages. All agreed to try the plan and gathered to push up the sky. But sadly, the people and animals were not organized. Some pushed at one time and some at another. The sky simply would not budge.
The six chiefs went to the seventh chief, who was just arriving with his own long pole. They complained that his idea was not working.
The seventh chief reminded them that they had to push together with their poles. He said, "The long poles will push the sky as far as possible. But we need a signal when everyone needs to push."
Then everyone, including all the birds and the animals, picked up their long poles again. When the signal was given to push, they all pushed as hard as they could.
Slowly the sky began to move. Before long, it was high above the Earth. The people and animals cheered. They had worked together, and they had solved their problem.
Now no one would ever bump against the sky again!
But that night they noticed something very different. Now light shined through the holes that their poles had poked through the sky. The night sky was filled with twinkling stars! And that is why the stars are there to this day.

"Pushing Up the Sky," from Pushing Up the Sky by Joseph Bruchac, copyright © 2000 by Joseph Bruchac, text. Used by permission of Dial Books for Young Readers, A Division of Penguin Young Readers Group, A Member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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