Long ago,a young and beautiful girl lived in the Wolong
valley with her family. She was a shepherdess, loved by all
who knew her for her kindness and good nature. Whenever she
took her sheep into the hills a young panda would come to
join her flock, perhaps mistaking them for its own kind for
in those days pandas were all white.
One day the panda arrived as usual, but it had not been
playing with the flock for long when a leopard jumped from a
tree and begun to savage the helpless cub. Careless of her
own life, the girl picked up a stick and began to beat the
leopard. The panda ran off, but the leopard turned on its
attacker and killed her.
When the other pandas heard this, they were stricken with
grief. All came to attend the girl's funeral, and as a mark
of their respect they covered their arms with ashes as was
the custom. At the funeral, they could not contain
themselves. They wiped their eyes to dry their tears, and
hugged themselves as the sobbed. The cries became so loud
that they covered their ears with their paws to block out
the noise. Wherever they touched themselves the ashes
stained their fur black and since that day all pandas have
carried these marks.
Overcome with sorrow, the girl's three sisters threw
themselves into her grave, whereupon the earth shook and in
place of the grave a huge mountain appeared. That mountain
still stands, and is called Siguniang-the four sisters
mountain. Each sister was transformed into one of it's
peaks, and between the ridges that spread from it the
sisters continue to protect the pandas to this day."
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