The origin of the death between the Qiang

It does a lot of, a lot of time, when the people were coming to old woman it was changing a leather layer and it was transforming again in young man.

In that time there was an equal oldster, that in spite of having lived more than 800 years, they still had not died. There was one day in which both were tired of the life had to be looked. The woman said: "To have always to be looking to us for the life like that changing skin has me quite angry. Will not it be better that the people stop changing skin and he does not have to worry about making the living?"

The conversation of this couple was listened by a snake that by chance was close to them.

This night, when it became dark the man did not return to house. The woman was waiting for him and was waiting. The midnight came and the man continued without appearing. Then the snake appeared before her pretending:
"Sister: are you waiting here for your partner?" The woman said: "This way it is. The midnight has already happened and it still has not returned." The snake said then: "Sister, do not worry, I know where it is. Only I want that we change a thing and I will say to you where to find him."

"What do you want that we change?", him asked the woman.
The snake said: "You say to me the way of changing skin and I will say in return the way of dying to you."
The woman said: "It costs, it costs".

Thus the woman taught to the snake the way of changing skin, learning for his part the way of dying. Since then, the people do not change of skin and die, while the snake changes skin and does not die.

That's why at present the men keep on saying: "If you see a snake and you her do not give three blows, you commit an absence."

The snake is associated by the woman from the most primitive mythologies. This association of the snake and the woman is a topic extended all over the world. On having read this story, most of the western ones will have remembered quickly the scene of Eva in the paradise. There, like here a snake is the causer of the appearance of the death between the humanity. Ours mythologies, by means of the temptation, not clearly definite; and in the story here exposed, by means of the desire to rest once and for all.

An episode very similar to this one is in the poem of Babylonian Gilgamesh of the mythology, in which the protagonist turns into a mortal one also after being cheated by the snake. Gilgamesh de facto, is eaten by a snake, since then the snakes can change skin to be born again, while the persons are mortal and must die

Nevertheless, a good number of authors makes sure that the snake in general is a symbol of the eternal life, and that so much in the myth of the Bible, as in that of Gilgamesh, the hero of Mesopotamia, and this one that we have presented of the Qiang, his role would be inverted.

In them the snake is not a symbol of the eternal life, but of the death. Although perhaps both there are two faces of the same currency.

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