In the beginning there was nothing but the dance, and of time there was as yet no knowledge, for the night and the day remained shrouded in mystery and imagination. Even so, adrift in the grey mist of the dreamtime, there arose a music that filled the dance with a prophesy of morning, and all eyes began to seek the distant horizon for the first sign of the new age still to come.
Yet lost in the timeless void, the vision was soon reduced until all that remained for the faithful remnant was a story whispered softly in the music and the dance: “When the east comes to light,’ they sang, “look west for the bow.
And though their song was swept up in a mighty storm that altered even the face of the earth and seemed to have no end, in its darkness the vision did not die, and the guardians never forgot the sun dance or to seek the light that it would bring.
So long they waited; their hope grew thin as air. But then, at last, there was a faint lessening of the darkness, and all eyes turned to face the silver light that spread first in a line on the horizon, then leapt upon the departing rain clouds. Moving as one, all the tribe turned from east to west and there beheld a great silver bow that grew in magnificence until its radiant light was filled with living color.
And so it came to pass that time was born, and the people grew up and turned their eyes once again upon a distant horizon, and there was music and dance and the promise of the next new day still to come.
