THE STORY OF THE SUN

In the beginning of the world there were two moons in the heaven. One of them WQS a male moon and the other was a female moon. The two of them always arose in the east.

On earth there lived a man named Sigunting, a hero among the folk at that time. One day he had a dream. He dreamt that an old man was very cold and complained that there was no heat to warm the world.

"What must we do to obtain heat to warm this world?" Sigunting asked. The old man replied, "Young hero, take your magic bow and arrow, climb to the top of Mount Kinabalu and shoot an arrow eastward".

Upon awakening from the dream, Sigunting climbed the mountain as asked by the old man. He shot an arrow with his magic bow. The arrow struck the male moon and blinded him. As a result, the earth was even darker than before, as there was only one moon left. The owls began to cry because the male moon did not appear as usual. However, Sigunting and the folk began to celebrate their success with a big feast. As usual, according to tradition, they beat the gongs, slaughtered cattle and drank wine tapai and had a good time. However, they realized that they felt even colder than before.

After some time, when the situation seemed quite hopeless, the male moon suddenly appeared.

To their surprise there was an arrow stuck in the eye of the moon. In a mournful mood, the moon told them that he was very ashamed to meet his wife, the female moon, and he promised that if anyone could help him to remove the arrow he would help to generate heat for them. The folk sat down in a meeting to discuss on how they could help as the moon was so far away.

In olden days, some animals and birds could communicate with human beings. A huge bird came along in the midst of their meeting. "Whoever is brave enough to sit on my back will be flown by me up to the moon to remove the arrow". Sigunting agreed to follow the bird on this mission. They flew off at the first light of dawn. When they reached the moon, the moon begon to cry and related to them his sorrow. He was ashamed to meet his wife because he was blinded by the arrow. Howevec he was delighted that they had eventually come to remove the arrow. On completion of their task the male moon instructed them to fly back immediately as he had promised to generate heat in return for removing the arrow. Sigunting was told to show the arrow to the villagers and wait for the heat the moon had promised.

When they returned to the village, the people were still seen praying to the stones and trees hoping for a miracle.

They were happy indeed on seeing Sigunting safely returned with the arrow in his hand. By now they were feeling the heat. Only this village knew the secret. Other villages, not knowing the secret, enjoyed the heat as well and began to celebrate.

There was much relief everywhere when the heat touched them. They celebrated as usual, beating gongs, feasting and dancing. But the funniest of all were the dancing animals such as the dogs, cats, goats, pigs, monkeys and cows.

This funny sight caused the hot moon to laugh and drips of red hot saliva flowed from his mouth. The saliva was believed to have accidentally caused many of the folk to turn into stone boulders, some in small, others in huge groups. The unlucky individuals who had turned into stones were mainly the farmers as well as some of their animals. These stones can still be seen scattered along the foothills of Mount Kinabalu.