The Cherokee tell how the Sun stopped every day at her daughter's house for her midday meal. People looking at her screwed up their faces. She told her brother the Moon that all the people were ugly, but he said they were beautiful, because they smiled at him. #MythologyMonday

The Sun was jealous and decided to get hotter and hotter and kill all the people. The spirits of the mountain caves told the people their only hope was to kill the Sun, and turned two men into snakes, the Spreading Adder and the Copperhead. They lay in waiting for the Sun.

When she arrived at Daughter of the Sun's house, they were blinded by the light and failed in their task. So the spirits changed another man into the Uktena, the great horned snake, and another into the Rattlesnake, and sent them to wait outside the house of Daughter of the Sun.

But as soon as Daughter of the Sun opened her door to look for her mother, the Rattlesnake bit her, and then he and the Uktena returned to earth. When the Sun arrived and found her daughter dead, she locked herself inside her daughter's house and refused to come out.

Now all the world was dark and cold. This time the spirits advised the people to go to the Darkening Land and bring the Daughter of the Sun back from the Ghost Country. Seven men undertook the task. When they found all the ghosts dancing, they abducted Daughter of the Sun.

They put her in a box given them by the spirits, and took her back to her mother, under strict instruction not to open the box. As they carried her back east, Daughter of the Sun came back to life, and begged to be let out of the box. At first they didn't listen.

But when Daughter of the Sun said she couldn't breathe, they were afraid she might die all over again, so they opened the box just a crack, and Daughter of the Sun flew out in the form of a redbird. So now no one can ever bring anyone back from the Ghost Country.

The Sun was so sad that she wept and wept, till it seemed as if everyone would be drowned. The people danced for her and sang her songs, but she took no notice. At last the drummer changed the rhythm and began to play a funny song, and the Sun couldn't help but laugh.

She uncovered her face, and the world was once again filled with light. Since then, the Sun has never shone so fiercely as to cause people to die, but they still cannot look at her without squinting.

See James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee.

There a a number of Native American myths with the "Orpheus" motif of trying and nearly succeeding to rescue someone from the land of the dead. A Plateau myth tells how Coyote nearly rescued his daughter and many others, if he had not been spooked by their laughter in his pack.

If Coyote had not thrown down the pack, in future no one would have stayed dead for more than two or three days. Yellow Wolf, a Nez Perce who told Lucullus McWhorter a version of the myth in 1924, placed this story of lost immortality just "about five generations back."