The Great Mountain, He Who Touches the Sky, was in the process of creating the world. As he made each animal, he asked them which color they wanted to be, and then honored the request. Some foolishly chose garish colors and were quickly eaten, while others chose mundane colors that were so shy as to be cowardly.

Chewink and Joree, the great Father and Mother of Feathers, were fashioned by the Great Mountain and then asked what color they would like to be. To his surprise, they immediately fell to arguing.

Chewink felt that a bright color was needed so the towhees would know their own, and Joree held equally strongly that a dark color was the proper choice for concealment. They also both repeatedly argued for and against a camouflage pattern, changing their mind and then doubling back upon themselves.

Exasperated, the Great Mountain suggested that Chewink and Joree each choose their own colors, as the bluebirds had done, only to have them immediately choose different colors, decide they liked the others’ colors better, and then switch, before switching back. And the issue of a pattern was still in the mix as well.

Eventually, they told the Great Mountain that they would like to be brown or black, but also a bright color, but also white, and with a cryptic pattern to lose their enemies. Confronted with the impossibility of this request, the Great Mountain nevertheless fulfilled it. Chewink would be black on top, orange on his sides, and white beneath, and Joree would trade black for brown. When both protested that their request for camouflage had been ignored, the Great Mountain assured them it had not, and sent them on their way.

It was not until they hatched their first brood that Chewink and Joree understood. Their chicks were born with the pattern of the forest floor, only growing in the bold colors they had asked for with time and experience.

In this, as in all things, the Great Mountain showed both its wisdom and its mercy.