German Tale
The cosmogony according to the pupils of the Yehudi Menuhin Stiftung Deutschland
Düren, Germany, 2008
A work guided and directed by the storyteller Regina Sommer
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“In the beginning was nothing. Nothing but black and white. Black and white lines, then triangles, then squares, then lines again. They were bored.
Black and white flew through the Universe and discovered colours. Green, yellow, blue, red, brown, pink, skin colours, grey.
They became friends and boredom was gone. Fun and joy came together.
They glided to and fro, over and under one another, and a sphere came into being.
And there was green! And from green came grass, leaves, herbs, snakes, frogs, flowers, skin!
And there was yellow! And from yellow came the sun, the flowers, golden living beings like birds, butterflies, caterpillars, fruit, sand, stars, ducks, grains: rye, barley, maize, straw, feathers, leaves, mushrooms!
And there was blue: the waterfall, the pond, the stream, the river, the sea, the lake, the ocean, the sea, the sky, the clouds, icicles, ice, snow, winter, rain and flowers!
And there was red: fire, sunset, love, feather, blood!
And there was brown: the branches, the earth, sand, feathers!
And there was pink: the good times, luck, feathers, friendship, lips!
And there were skin colours: the skin, feathers, pigs!
And there was grey: the stones, the mountains, feathers.
Black is darkness, bad luck, sadness, feathers, the night, misfortune, the eagles!
White is freedom, happiness, feathers, beauty, the day, the moon!
All colours are cheerful and aware that they need each other. They interbreed. Brown and green become trees, the waterfall flows from a mountain. There are different coloured fish in the water.
The earth was formed and the plants and animals.
Feelings interbreed too: love and blood (red), good times, luck and friendship (pink), freedom, happiness and beauty (white), bad luck, sadness and misfortune (black), warmth (yellow). And feelings beget human beings: men, women and children.
Every one of them is given a name. They see and speak with each other. New feelings arise: shame, curiosity, merriness and death.
Many people meet. Many stem from the same place. They all live together in small groups.
These are the people of the mountains: four in all, three boys and one girl.
I belong to the mountain people. My name is Thomas and I like beauty and freedom. I do not like to dance. My name is Gruselmean, and I like being wicked. My name is Sisi, and I like to gaze at the sunset.
It’s cold where we are; there’s snow everywhere. We live in a cave, where it is warm because we always keep a fire burning in the middle. Gruselmean discovered fire when he threw a stone out of sheer rage (for he always has bad luck). The stone hit another stone, and sparks flew.
We build traps to catch animals, skin them, roast their meat on the fire and eat it. We use the skin to make clothes. We use snow to drink and to play. And we ramble in the mountains. We have made our beds from animal skins. We cut down trees and made a dining table. We also have animal lovers in the cave.
The people on the shore
We live on the shore. There are seven of us. We live in a house made of bamboo and covered with leaves, so that no rain can get in. There are fish, jellyfish and thirty-tree palm-trees, eight turtles and four hares on the shore.
My name is Christine. I like freedom, happiness, good times, but not so much bad luck, sadness and misfortune. I have blond hair and a pink nose, a red mouth and am skin-coloured.
We eat fish and coconuts from the palm trees. The girls make our clothes, and we fish for them in return. The girls wear a hula skirt with coconuts on top. The boys wear shorts and a T-shirt. The girls make a shell-chain for all. We have a pet: a crab, to fetch us fish.
We build a toilet from bamboo, but without flush. We make fire from sticks, where we cook our fish. We do the washing in the sea. And use our finger to brush our teeth with coconut milk. We all make a bed together out of sand and cushions and blankets out of leaves. When we go to shower, the girls wear a hula and the boys shorts made out of leaves. When our hair gets too long, we use the crab to cut it.
The people of the waterfall
We live in a cave behind the waterfall. That is really nice, because we always have water to shower and to drink.
It is very warm where we live. In the cave we sleep on a lot of leaves. Our floor is made out of wood from the forest. The waterfall drops in a gigantic lake. There are lots of beautiful fish and edible mussels in the lake. We have made tools out of stone. We chopped bark of trees in the forest and built a boat and a fishing rod. We have clothes made out of leaves from the forest.
The banana-tree people
We come from the banana tree and live on the banana tree. There are five of us: three girls and two boys. My name is Minnie. I like hot and cold. I hate night and the moon. My friends are Michael Kronhardt, Fee Kacufrakis, and Luka Toni.
We collect the rainwater, and dip the bananas in the water, because they taste better. We grow the best, gigantic bananas where we live.
Beside our tree, there are many other trees that bear fruit. We pluck them and make our fruit salad with them. Our clothes are made of banana leaves sawn together. When it rains, it is 7 degrees in the shade for us, so we keep the water in a water-butt and use it to water the trees so that they can survive.
We go for a shower every day in salt water, because we always get dirty when we work.
Michael always builds the tree houses for us. We go walking once every week, and always a bit further. And we always discover something new. One day, we saw a gigantic shore where many creatures and people live. We observed only the people. We are vegetarian, and when we saw the other people eat fish, we were shocked. Three of us carry love in our head, that means that we think only good thoughts.
Michael carries love in his hands, which means that he can keep people away from something wicked.
Mini carries her love in her heart, which is ever so special, because she is very good natured and has nothing wicked in her heart.
Toni has love in his belly, so he is always most jolly and always makes us laugh.
Jin
Jin, being with wings, that is destruction itself, lives in the mountains.
One day, they took a close look at Jin and noted that he is not only wicked, but also has a red love eye on his forehead, and that his wing tips carry love in them.
They want to show him what love is. They gave him food to eat, and offer him a place to sleep in their cave. Jin waits to see what will happen. He looks at everything and wants to discover the world. With his wings, he can fly over everything. So he flew away and after two days he came back to say that there were other people.
He then got bored again in the mountains and flew to other people. These people noticed that something in the sky was observing them. They panicked and hid. It is a flying thing. A man and yet not a man! It goes in their tree houses and asks: “Anybody home?”
Jin flies to the highest Bananas, which get most of the sun and are the most delicious, plucks them and says: “Come out, I will not harm you!” Tony comes out first and then all the others. Jin tells them that there are other people. People in the mountains, who have fire and eat animals. People on the shore, who play ball, eat fish and have a lot of fun. These people have seen them.
Tony and Michael decide to get to know the people in mountains. They let Jin take them to the mountains and take bananas as presents. Minni and Fee would like to go to the people on the shore. Jin carries them on his back ad they too take bananas along. Jin knows all the people and can bring everyone together. They learn from each other, exchange visits, and have big parties.”
