Читать книгу The Starship and the Canoe - Kenneth Brower - Страница 21

According to the Tlingits, the Creator tried to make human beings out of a rock and out of a leaf at the same time. The rock was slow, while the leaf was very quick. Therefore human beings came from the leaf. The Creator showed a leaf to the first human beings, and told them, “See this leaf. You are to be like it. When it falls off the branch and rots, there is nothing left of it.” That is why there is death in the world. If men had come from the rock there would be no death.

“We are unfortunate in not having been made from rock,” people used to say, as they grew old. “Being made from a leaf, we must die.”