The Road between Heaven and Earth
A long time ago, the Murle said that when the world could talk, people had a link between heaven and earth and could easily travel from earth to heaven using a string that connected the two. If someone wanted to go to heaven, he or she could easily go and return back to earth. And when somebody wanted to come from heaven to visit earth, he or she could come and go back depending on his or her needs.
This string was very good and important for the communication at that time. One day, a woman wanted to go to heaven while carrying her grinding stone. On her way to heaven, she accidentally let the stone fall out of her hands, and the stone fell down cutting the string that was used to reach heaven.
Since then the communication and the travel that existed between heaven and earth came to an end. People could no longer travel from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven. This is why we currently have no connection between heaven and earth.
1) Can you identify similarities between this story and other creation stories?
2) What is the significance of the woman carrying the grinding stone to heaven? Why was it not a man?
Storytelling Session Details
A Version of a well-known folktale
Community: Murle
Story Researcher: Docklace Api
Place: Pibor
Date: 2015