The Boy Who Went to the Sky

The following story is a Cherokee Indian tale about fair play and takes place in the Blue Ridge country of what is now western North Carolina. Playing by the rules a big part of “how to play the game,” both on and off the field. I wanted to include this tale today in honor of Cherokee frontier lawman Sam Sixkiller and the book that is set to be released about this incredible men. And now, The Boy Who Went to the Sky. There was once upon a time a boy who was a fine ball player of his village of the Cherokee nation. He could catch well, run swiftly to the goal, and almost never did he lose a game for his side. And one season it was decided that his village should play a ball game with the village of the Cherokees on the other side of the Ridge. So the two teams met not far from Pilot Knob, and the game began. This boy was anxious, just as a boy of today would be, to help win the game for his village, and for a while the game seemed to be going against him. Time and time again the players from the Indian village on the other side of the Ridge ran and made goals. This made the boy discouraged, and it also made him forget his honor. His village must make the goal, he thought, so he did a thing which was forbidden in the rules of ball playing. He picked up the ball in his hand and tried to throw it to the goal. The Indians kicked the ball. It was not considered fair to touch it with their hands. He thought that no one had seen him, and he was successful. The ball went straight to the goal, but it did not stop there. He boys and girls and the braves who sat in a wide circle on the grassy field to watch the game saw a strange thing. Bounding away from the goal, the ball went up into the air. Following the ball went the boy who had forgotten the rules of the game. His feet left the ball field. He seemed to be leaping up towards the sky to try and bring back the ball, but neither he nor the ball stopped. Up, up, higher and farther through the blue air they went until the ball was out of sight, and then the boy could no longer be seen. It was magic which had happened, and the people rubbed their eyes with their wonder, and then they silently went home to their villages. It seemed to them to have been a lesson, for the boy’s wrong play had been seen, not only by the Great Spirit of the Cherokee People, but by some of the ball players. They knew why the boy had been taken away from his friends. The was the ancient days before the Moon had appeared in the sky, but that night a strange thing happened. Sitting late beside their campfires the braves of all the villages of the Cherokee country saw a huge, round ball of silver rise in the sky and then hang there, lighting the forest trees with its wonderful, pale light. And on the surface of this ball of silver could be seen the face of the boy who had not played fair in the ball game. It was the ball which had been taken from the ball field up to the sky, and fastened there. In its light could be seen the boy had been taken from the earth with it. The Moon had some to the heavens, a ball taken from the game field. Sometimes it was seen that the Moon was smaller. It was sometimes eclipsed. Everybody was amazed at an eclipse of the Moon, for the night would suddenly darken and the tribes would gather and fire guns and beat a drum. The eclipse came about because of a great Frog, who tried to swallow the Moon, and the drum frightened him away. But the oddest thing about the Moon was its way of waxing and waning. From night to night it would become so large that the Indians could see the face of the Boy-in-the-Moon, and then it would be nothing but a silver thread in the sky above the pine tree. This happened, the Boy-in-the Moon told them, to remind ball players never to cheat. When the Moon looked small and pale it was because someone had handled a ball unfairly. So it came about in the Cherokee country that they played ball after that only in the full of the moon. Sam Sixkiller: Cherokee Frontier Lawman is currently available through Amazon.com. Register to win a free copy of the book by sending an email to www.chrisenss.com