Howell Eglin

Mrs. Pritchard
English II-American Literature
16 August 2015
How Thunder came to be

The Puebloan peoples had been suffering from great drought. All of the rivers
surrounding our ancestors had dried up. Nothing could be grown. No food could be
grown without any water. People had beginning to die because of the lack of water. The
leader had become desperate. He swore that he would do anything to keep the rest of his
people alive. For many months, he had heard no response. However, one evening, all of
the people saw bolts of light flash across the sky. Soon after, there was a loud rumbling
noise that seemed to be saying one word, wait. And so the people waited. A few months
later, a downpour of rain occurred, for about two minutes. The people were so happy that
they danced in the rain, but it had stopped so suddenly. They forgot to collect any of the
water. Again, they ask for more water because their people are still dying and there is still
no water in the land. All of the fish have died. The Puebloan people have reverted back to
hunting and gathering with no form of agriculture. Due to the death of all of the fish,
many people had no job. The whole society had reverted back to the ways of their
ancestors. The leader had continued to pray day after day for a massive rain to restore the
civilization of the Puebloans. There had been no rain for six months. There had then been
another large bolt that flashed against the night sky. The same rumble began to say, be
patient, and you will be rewarded. The people were terrified because the sky was talking

to all of them, but they desperately needed the rain, so they remained patient. They
needed the rain to be able to survive another year. The Puebloan population had dwindled
town into the hundreds. The Puebloan people had seen signs from the gods before, but
they had never heard the sky speak in a low rumble before. This really terrified them.
However, they had no fish, a dwindling population, and no more crops, so they did not
mind. They had tried to plant more corn, but they had no success. Corn did not need
much water to begin with, but it did actually need SOME water. With no water being
consumed by the corn, it could not grow. Nothing could be grown for food. They were
about to run out of their reserve water that was used for drinking. When this happened,
the last few hundred people in the civilization were going to die and the entire population
would have gone extinct. The leader gathered the remaining people together, and they
decided that they needed to do a ritual. They began by all praying to the voice in the sky.
As the ritual was going on, many bolts of light were striking in all directions throughout
the sky. Then, the voice came back and it said, You have shown perseverance, and
therefore, I will give you rain. Then, rain poured for a month straight, and the Puebloan
people rebuilt their civilization and went back to their farming of corn, beans, and squash.
This was the origin of thunder. Thunder was used to communicate that rain was about to
come.