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Legend of the Singing Maracas!

By Niene Pugliano


Once there was a pair of Maracas; one named Maneh & the other Hheway. Both dreamed of becoming something else, and would spend most hours of their days and nights, fantasizing about the lives they couldn't have together. On the 17th year of their anniversary, the anniversary of the day they were fashioned together to form one perfect instrument, the most unusual thing occurred...


After much rattling, shaking, and singing around the council fire, Maneh & Hheway were once again stored in their leather-lined tortoise shell, and placed outside to be bathed in the moon's light near the edge of the Susquehanna River.


Goddess Moon peered her large, luminous gaze into Maneh & Hheway's tortoise shell bed, and as she brimmed over its edges, she could see Maneh & Hheway inside. Much to her surprise, their were crying. They were crying so much that their tortoise shell bed had begun to flood with their tears. So confused she was by this, and from fear that they may drown themselves, Goddess Moon repelled from her crystal palace in the starry sky. Down, down, she drifted till she sat softly beside them at the edge of the Susquehanna River.


"Whatever is the matter Maracas?" she whispered to them softly. "You both played so beautifully tonight. I enjoyed your many songs."


Maneh & Hheway shaked and shimmied in unison:

"We are oh so tired of being only Maracas, Goddess Moon. Everyday is the same. We never grow, we never change, all stages of our life remain the same. We do not know what it means to reproduce, to persevere, to exist among the other elements, nor what it means to live and die. We are a respected tool, it is true. But we have so little friends, no community, no control...it is not the life we wish to have."


"And what is the life you wish to have, beautiful Maracas?" Asked Goddess Moon.


Shaking and shimming once more in unison, they rattled:

"We wish to transform, we wish to connect and to mingle, we wish to see more of this world and it's elements, to know what it's like to EAT and FEAST, and we wish to know what it means to be a part of the life, death, and rebirth cycle."


"And all shall you have, beautiful Maracas." Whispered Goddess Moon. "You will always be Maneh & Hheway, but are Maracas nevermore!"


And with these sweet and gentle words, Goddess Moon transformed Maneh & Hheway into an entirely new species of her own making. Goddess Moon transformed Maneh & Hheway into a mated pair of Cicadas!


They immediately ascended the nearest tree with their newly shaped legs and large, shiny new wings. And it was up in the nearest tree, that tree along the Susquehanna River, that they took to mating. Hheway laid her eggs up in that neartest tree, Maneh singing to her all the while. For two full weeks they sang their love's song, until Hheway passed away as nature intended. The first death among them, and oh was Maneh inconsolable.

Maneh fluttered down, down from that nearest tree, to weep next to his now lifeless Hheway. He cried and cried his mourning song over her dulling wings. For ten straight weeks he cried. And on the tenth week, his mourning song attracted another being named Snapping Turtle, who snapped Maneh up into their mighty beak, and swallowed him and his mourning song whole!


But on that tenth week, the week Snapping Turtle ate Maneh, ten weeks after Maneh & Hheway made love for the first time, eight weeks after Hheway died a natural death, their eggs hatched! Their eggs, still up, up in that nearest tree, along the Susquehanna River, along the bank where Goddess Moon repelled down, down from her crystal palace to transform Maneh & Hheway into a beautiful mated pair of Cicadas, began to hatch! The larva from these eggs fell down, down, from that nearest tree and burrowed themselves deep, deep beneath the soil along the Susquehanna River. And it was there they transformed, it was there, where they built community. It was deep, deep beneath the soil, along the Susquehanna River, where they shed their skins again and again, where they evolved and grew, and patiently waited for 17 years.


And on their 17th year, they emerged from their underground feasts on root sap, and they would climb, up, up that nearest tree. And it was up that nearest tree, where they would sing their love's song again. They would sing their love's song so that the spirit of Maneh & Hheway would live on, and be reunited within every mated pair. And once every mated pair found each other, would they begin the love cycle of Maneh & Hheway again.

And though Maneh & Hheway got everything they ever wanted, and they got to evolve, and got to become something new, and to connect, and to grow, and die, and be reborn, there was one thing that Goddess Moon left untouched.... Goddess Moon could not bear the the thought of the beautiful music Maneh & Hheway would make with their rattles, shimmies, and shakes, no longer existing. And so though she transformed them into something new, she left their song within their new bodies. And so when you hear the love song of Maneh & Hheway, to this day, you hear the song of the 17 year old Maracas! To this day, you hear their original form; their form before Goddess Moon granted their wish, and transformed Maneh & Hheway into legs, wings, and flight.


The End.

Two Cicadas sitting on a green leaf.

Photo Credit unknown but may possibly belong to Marlowe Hood? https://phys.org/news/2011-05-evolution-reverse-insects-recover-lost.html



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