SUN WORSHIP — SPINDEN 453 



and Tonallan, City of the Sun. He concluded that "the ever-living 

 light-and-darkness myth of the gods Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca" 

 had glorified legend. 



But Brinton's etymology was erroneous. Moreover, there actually 

 was a supremacy in Toltec arts while Nacxitl Quetzalcoatl was an 

 historical ruler although confused with a Maya divinity whose wor- 

 ship he introduced into Mexico. Perhaps Tezcatlipoca also was a 

 real politician whose scheming was disastrous. Shortly after 1900, 

 students began to suspect that solar symbolism has been laid on too 

 thickly. Ehrenreich, comparing American and Old World myths, 

 accepted some proofs of diffusion which broke the pattern of psychic 

 unity. Lowie in 1908 took solar and lunar myths in which heros 

 had been tested, and tested the myths themselves. He concluded that 

 "solar and lunar heros are human beings named after or somehow 

 identified with Sun and Moon" — the pendulum had swung to an 

 opposite extreme ! 



But primitive myths help to define the kind of ideas which early 

 man held about nature. We cannot even give in summary the vast 

 array of ancient and modern tales in which the sun figures. Of 

 course, the possession of a sun myth does not prove the existence of 

 sun worship among a given people, although when sun worship does 

 exist it is generally reflected in vivid tales. Let us take the Navajo: 

 they live in proximity to the Pueblo Indians among whom well- 

 developed sun cults are practiced. A digest of their solar mythology 

 is typical of knowledge and imagery found in an early stage of sun 

 worship. 



The Navajo have a powerful god called Day-bearer who carries 

 the sun, which is described as a disk made of clear stone with inlaid 

 turquoise around the edge and a fringe of rays consisting of red 

 rain, lightnings, and many kinds of snakes. This Day-bearer is 

 a somewhat impersonal god who travels a sunbeam or rainbow path 

 across the sky and who has an eastern and a western wife. He re- 

 ceives little direct worship, but his western wife, Woman-who-reju- 

 venates-herself, is the most powerful of the Navajo deities, and their 

 son is also most conspicuous. Washington Matthews translates the 

 son's name as Slayer-of-the-alien-gods. Here is a verse from a 

 Navajo song: 



The Slayer of the Alien Gods, that now I am, 

 The Bearer of the Sun, arises with me 

 Journeys with me, goes down with me 

 Abides with me, but sees me not. 



The sun does not appear in the cosmic myth of the Navajo until 

 the Twelfth or Uppermost World has been reached in the ascent of 

 rudimentary human creatures. "When First Man had made all 



