SUN WORSHIP — SPINDEN 463 



are two paintings of the Ascension. In both cases we see Christ 

 against a great auriole like the disk of the sun. The wheels of the 

 chariot are diminished in size but still visible, and Eoos, Aithiops, 

 Bronte, and Sterope, the four steeds of Helios, are in process of being 

 transformed into the animals of the evangelists (pi, 4, fig. 1). 



During the Middle Ages the chariot of Helios in modified fashion 

 is pictured on an Alexandrine textile of the seventh century. In the 

 Saxon World Chronicle, Khosro, the Sassanian king, is shown on his 

 throne under the name of Cosdras. The design represents this ruler 

 on a divine seat between the sun and moon and surrounded by the 

 stars — a final echo of the Helios tradition. 



Chinese religion centers around the worship of heaven rather than 

 of the sun. In Chinese art the sun disk generally encloses a three- 

 legged crow to which there are ancient references and of which there 

 is an example in early Han sculpture. Sun disks containing ravens 

 are frequent at Tun Huang, the site of the Thousand Buddhas, more 

 particularly as emblems held in the hands of the Bodhisattva of 

 Mercy. On a silk coffin cover from Astafia an attractive painting 

 of Fu-hsi and Niiwa, a legendary emperor and his wife, shows inter- 

 twined serpentine bodies surrounded by the sun, moon, and stars 

 (pi. 4, fig. 2). 



The Japanese religion called Shinto recognizes the sun goddess 

 Amaterasu as the head of the pantheon. A mirror at the national 

 shrine at Ise is sacred to this goddess, who is regarded as the ancestor 

 of the Imperial family. Amaterasu is adored by pilgrims who climb 

 Fujiyama to view the sunrise from its summit. The raven is the 

 messenger of Amaterasu, and the cock announces her coming. 



Elsewhere in the Old World there are sun gods and sun cults of 

 minor standing. The Arabs cultivated astronomy as a science and 

 astrology as a ritual and implanted the latter wherever they went. 



SUN WORSHIP IN AMERICA 



"The details of Sun-worship among the native races of America," 

 says Tylor, "give an epitome of its development among mankind at 

 large. Among the ruder tribes of the northern continent, the Sun 

 is looked upon as one of the great deities, as representative of the 

 greatest deity, or as that greatest deity himself." Much information 

 has been collected since the above was written, but the conclusions are 

 still valid. 



Among some American Indian tribes the sun is treated with con- 

 tinuous respect and adoration without being the object of any highly 

 dramatic ceremonies. The Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Ari- 

 zona greet the sun ceremoniously at dawn with thrown offerings of 

 sacred meal and hold special rituals at the solstices. Then the sun 

 reaches a sun house and rests for several days before reversing his 



