In the days when the people lived on Strawberry Mountain and worshiped the moon goddess Nati, a stranger appeared at sunrise and walked slowly into their village. A distinguished fellow, he was older than the women and men, and yet, he seemed so very young. He walked without a cane and stood upright like a man twenty years old. His hair was as long as the tallest wheat in the fields, as soft as fine silk wrapped around corn, and as red as the reddest tomatoes Strawberry Mountain ever grown.
The stranger walked as if on air, his arms like wings to spring himself into the wind before the children could blink themselves out of bed at dawn. And as the stranger walked, the children heard his airy footsteps outside their huts and recognized the steps as not belonging to the village of Strawberry Mountain. Soon enough, they gathered and held hands in a silent circle of friendship, remembering the elders’ words: When a stranger enters the village, man or woman, the children accept the visitor as a harbinger of peace and goodwill.
The children remembered the words the elders had taught them from the first time they gathered at the throne of Nati: “Guide the visitor to the Tree of Life at the center of the village where the goddess Nati lives,” and within a matter of minutes, the children led the man to Nati, so that he, too, could offer his praises to the Tree of Life.
Soon, the entire village awakened. Fathers returned from the fields, mothers from their hunting chores, and children joined hands at the Tree of Life. The people of the village never believed that a king or queen should govern the village, so the goddess Nati was the closest spokesperson the village of Strawberry Mountain had ever had.
And then there was Elknah, the oldest child, who stood beside Nati, translating and watching her silently beckon the stranger into the circle of the Tree of Life with Peace and Goodwill.
Thus began the evolution of the man of air in the village of Strawberry Mountain.
