HEAVENLY BODIES IN S.A. MYTHOLOGY. 431 



sun did not wax and wane like the moon, and the answer was that 

 the moon was the child of the sun, who could do with it whatever 

 he liked. In another tale a different origin for the moon is given. 

 The mantis is overtaken with darkness on its way home, and 

 throws its shoe into the sky, ordering it to become the moon. The 

 bhape of the gibbous moon may lave suggested this explanation. 



The moon also figures prominently in the stories relating to 

 the origin of death. The Bushman story is somewhat different 

 from both Hottentot and Bantu. The latter are very much alike, 

 the Bantu story being manifestly borrowed from the Hottentot. 

 In the Bushman tale the hare is lying dead, and the moon strikes 

 the young hare with its fist in the mouth, telling it to cry loudly 

 as its mother is quite dead and will never return to life again, as 

 the moon herself does. Hence owing to the moon's blow, the hare 

 has a cleft lip. There are several variations of this story. In 

 some of them the moon ig angry if people laugh at it, and thus 

 hides itself, or disappears for a time, but it always revives. 



The Bushmen seem to have paid more attention to the moon 

 than to the sun. Their dances always took place at full moon, 

 and were generally kept up all night, or until the performers could 

 no longer continue through sheer exhaustion. Sometimes they 

 began their dances with the new moon, and continued them till 

 the full moon. The appearance of the new moon was an occasion 

 •of rejoicing, and much reverence was undoubtedly paid to her. 

 Prayers were often sung to the new moon, of which Dr. Bleek* 

 gives examples, but they all refer to hunting or making provision 

 for bodily sustenance, of which the Bushmen often had experience 

 when drought or a spell of bad weather prevailed and game was 

 wild and scarce. 



The origin of the stars is thus, explained by the Bushmen. 

 A girl who wanted some light for the people to return home when 

 it was dark threw a handful of wood ashes into the sky, and they 

 became the Milky Way, but having had a quarrel with her mother 

 who had given her too much food she threw portions of it into the 

 sky, and they became the stars. There are some other variant 

 accounts of the origin of the stars. Most of the more conspicuous 

 stars and planets had names. These were usually animals, but 

 some of them had been men in a former state of existence, such 

 as the two pointers of the Southern Cross. These afterwards 

 became lions, and certain other stars of the same constellation 

 became lionesses, and long and elaborate myths explain how this 

 came about. Amongst the Tati Bushmen the Southern Cross is 

 the giraffe star, the two pointers being the head and neck of the 

 animal standing in a certain position. Other stars such as 

 Aldebaran, Procyon, and Orion's Sword are called the male harte- 

 beeste, the male eland, and the male tortoises, while Orion's Belt 

 is called the female tortoises. Amongst the Tati Bushmen similar 

 designations are applied to them, and many of the same tales are 

 current also. 



* Bleek and Lloyd, "Bushman Folklore," p. 415. 



