myth for alanda

There was a man who was born by a lake that was so beautiful it even shone in the night. During the day it was the place where animals found rejuvenation. On the shores of this lake were plants and trees, but all around the lake were mountains of sand. There was not much in the desert that the people could gather. At the summit of the dune there was nothing beyond but more dunes and desert as far as the eye could see.

This man was a weaver and a builder. One day he had to travel much further up the draa than he ever had before. He gave his weaving to his nephew whom he had taught since he was very young. The man could hear, at the top of the dune, someone weeping, a wailing such as he had never heard before. It was a deep sob that was carried on a breeze from the north. And for the first time since this community had moved to this wadis, he passed to the other side of the dune. There, over the side he saw a child.

The child could have been no more than ten. She was thin as a stick and her skin was tougher than leather.

Despite his insistence the child refused to leave. She told him she was waiting for her mother to return, but could he offer her some water while she waited. She was so thirsty and she was beginning to believe that her mother would never return. He brought her food every day, and some of that precious water so she could drink it. He brought her a tent so that she might have shelter from the winds and the sun, but she told him she did not need it. She never moved from her spot. But she loved his water. She would sometimes just keep it in the beautifully decorated sacs he brought her so that she was surrounded by water on all sides.

One day she told him that she thought her mother would soon return. In the distance beyond the draa, the sky was a dark orange the depth of which he had never seen. The child gave the man a root “plant this where you go, but you must go, my mother will not wait for you. So when the man returned to his community he pointed to the cloud and they left, that night, many of them did. Each of them took a bit of water from that beautiful lake. It did not take long for the sand to cover the place and bury the lake.

Where the people went next, they planted the root. Now wherever the people have gone there is an alanda plant in honor of the daughter of the wind who taught them how to read the clouds.