MYTHOLOGIC PHILOSOPHY. 799 



rents and again deflected by a thousand geographic features, so that 

 the winds sweep down valleys, eddy among mountain-crags, or waft 

 the spray from the crested billows of the sea, all in obedience to cos- 

 mic laws. The facts discerned are many, the discriminations made 

 are nice, and the classifications based on true homologies, and we have 

 the science of meteorology, which exhibits an orderly succession of 

 events even in the fickle winds. 



Sun and Moon. The Ute philosopher declares the sun to be a 

 living personage, and explains his passage across the heavens along an 

 appointed way by giving an account of a fierce personal conflict be- 

 tween Ta-vi, the sun-god, and Ta-wats, one of the supreme gods of his 

 mythology. 



In that long ago, the time to which all mythology refers, the sun 

 roamed the earth at will. When he came too near with his fierce 

 heat the people were scorched, and when he hid away in his cave for a 

 long time, too idle to come forth, the night was long and the earth 

 cold. Once upon a time Ta-wats, the hare-god, was sitting with his 

 family by the camp-fire in the solemn woods, anxiously waiting for 

 the return of Ta-vi, the wayward sun-god. "Wearied with long watch- 

 ing, the hare-god fell asleep, and the sun-god came so near that he 

 scorched the naked shoulder of Ta-wats. Foreseeing the vengeance 

 which woiild be thus provoked, he fled back to his cave beneath the 

 earth. Ta-wats awoke in great anger, and speedily determined to go 

 and fight the sun-god. After a long journey of many adventures the 

 hare-god came to the brink of the earth, and there watched long and 

 patiently, till at last the sun-god coming out he shot an arrow at his 

 face, but the fierce heat consumed the arrow ere it had finished its in- 

 tended course ; then another arrow was sped, but that also was con- 

 sumed ; and another, and still another, till only one remained in his 

 quiver, but this was the magical arrow that had never failed its mark. 

 Ta-wats, holding it in his hand, lifted the barb to his eye and baptized 

 it in a divine tear ; then the arrow was sped and struck the sun-god 

 full in the face, and the sun was shivered into a thousand fragments, 

 which fell to the earth, causing a general conflagration. Then Ta- 

 wats, the hare-god, fled before the destruction he had wrought, and as 

 he fled the burning earth consumed his feet, consumed his legs, con- 

 sumed his body, consumed his hands and his arms all were consumed 

 but the head alone, which bowled across valleys and over mountains, 

 fleeing destruction from the burning earth until at last, swollen with 

 heat, the eyes of the god burst and the tears gushed forth in a flood 

 which spread over the earth and extinguished the fire. The sun-god 

 was now conquered, and he appeared before a council of the gods to 

 await sentence. In that long council were established the days and the 

 nights, the seasons and the years, with the length thereof, and the sun 

 was condemned to travel across the firmament by the same trail day 

 after clay till the end of time. 



