One of the old people had said that the strange sun of the last few days was a bad omen. He did nothing more than say out loud, with his voice of authority, what we were all fearing in silence. Other older people contradicted him but, to nearly all of us, it was obvious that they were only doing this in order to calm us and not because they truly believed that the no longer shining orange ball was not a bad sign sent by the Gods.
The winter that had come to an end had been particularly mild. Only the very highest summits of the mountains had been covered in snow and in the west, no child had died of the cold and the freezing southern wind had hardly blown. For all this we celebrated and each night we thanked the Gods by singing and dancing around the campfires that we had made bigger and more numerous than was the custom.
However, despite the fact that we were all praying to the Gods in this way, there were many of us who, for various days, had been feeling unsettled and afraid without knowing why. That strange image of the sun only sharpened our fears.
One dark moonless night, my frightened wife woke me up. She had left the tent in silence and had seen on the sea ´some strange little yellow stars that walk in the air´ as she told me. Shóon was not an easily frightened woman and so I was somewhat shocked. I threw the fur over my shoulders and we left together.
- Over there. Do you see them? She asked me.
I saw them, but to my understanding, they were not stars but small fires suspended in the air two or three metres above the surface of the black, serene sea of that night.The small fires were moving slowly towards the south, the quadrant that some of the older people called with the same word given to the colour white. I was not afraid but I felt a profound anxiety.
The two of us, Shóon and I, stayed there watching them as though hypnotised, without saying a word. When I started to feel cold, I suggested that we go back to the tent. We returned and went to sleep . Shóon lay face down with her head turned away from me. She stretched out her thin arm to place her hand on the chest of our young son who was sleeping.
- Lets not say anything about all this. I said to her.
- I am scared. She replied to me.
That night we didn´t exchange another word. I don´t know if she was able to sleep but I couldn´t. The next morning, very early, we heard the loud and nervious voices of the men. I had hardly left when I saw the reason for all the fuss: in the distance, in the calm blue sea, were five buildings of white cloth like the snow on the summits. They were sailing away from us southwards. In frenzied excitement, thousands of seagulls were flying behind them. The sun was rising again with the same red colour of the past few days but now with horrifying violet blotches. At times it could be seen between the grey clouds (or behind them, lighting them up) and other times, it was hidden completely. It was a monster that, knowing that it instilled panic, took pleasure in hiding only to then reappear renewing our fear.
Now none of the older people denied that it was a sign of a dark future. Now nobody could conceal their anxiety.
We were always naturally silent people, but in those days following the episode (and perhaps forever) we spoke even less than usual. That night we lit enormous fires, perhaps the biggest that we had ever ever made. Around the fires and with the best singing and dancing of our entire lives, we asked the Gods to take pity on our docile race. However, although we didn´t say anything to one another, we all went to sleep with the certainty that we had not been heard.
During the following years, we came to understand that those white buildings on the sea were beautiful ships which, with increasing strength, brought our destiny nearer to death and oblivion.
( This story was told to me by my father, and he was told by his father who in turn was told by his father and it continues in this way for generations. And I, Cachil Cachil, a sóijen baptised Mariano, for the first time have written it down so that when there is noone left of our docile race, whom the Gods set out to punish, someone can repeat it)