HEAVENLY BODIES IN S.A. MYTHOLOGY. 435 



Rev. John H. Weeks, in describing the Congo peoples, states 

 that the view is held among the primitive Bakango peoples that the 

 sun is a place of punishment for bad spirits, and that the moon is 

 supposed to be the place where the good spirits converse with one 

 another. After death they say there is a branching of the roads, 

 one leading to the sun and the other to the moon. The spirits 

 of bad folk always take the former, and that those of the good 

 take the latter road. When there is a halo lound the sun, they 

 point to it as a proof that a "judgment court" is being held there, 

 and the punishment allotted to the bad is being confirmed by the 

 Supreme Being, and should this halo appear about the time of a 

 death the relatives of the deceased will wail long and loudly 

 hecause their departed one has gone to be punished. The shooting 

 stars are believed to be spirits travelling or playing about in the 

 sky, and anyone seeing them will rush into his house from fear of 

 one of them falling on and entering him. Mothers will not allow 

 their children to remain out of the house when there are shooting 

 stars about, lest one of them should enter her child.* 



There is nothing closely corresponding to this in Bantu 

 mythology that I can discover. There is no notion of heaven and 

 hell of this sort amongst the Bantu peoples. Certain dances of a 

 religious character take place at full moon that may be connected 

 with her worship. Any of the tribes from which I endeavoured 

 to obtain information said there was no particular connection, and 

 resented the suggestion of moon worship. At the changes of the 

 moon certain particular dances were held, but what part they had 

 u moon worship 1 cannot say. The moon must have played some 

 part in primitive Bantu religion, or a most peculiar tale, current 

 amongst the Basuto, would not have come down to us. The tale 

 is called "The Child with the Moon on his Breast," and bears a 

 most extraordinary resemblance to one given by Day in his "Folk 

 Tales of Bengal," with much the same title. The Basuto tale may 

 be found in Jacottet's "Treasury of Basuto Lore," Part I., p. 190. 

 When I first heard this story amongst the Basuto I paid little 

 attention to it, beyond thinking it was very curious. My astonish- 

 ment and interest were great when I found an almost exact 

 parallel to it in Day's collection. The following is an outline of 

 the story: — There was once a chief called Bulane who had a moon 

 en his breast. He had two wives. One had children, the other 

 had none, and was spitefully used by the one who had children. 

 After a time the childless woman gave birth to a boy with the 

 moon on his breast. The other woman, who was acting as mid- 

 wife, took the child and threw him away among the pots in the 

 oack of the hut, and then she went out and got a little dog and 

 placed it beside the mother. She had fainted in the interval, and 

 when she came round the other woman said to her, "Look, you 

 have given birth to a dog." The sick woman was very sorry. 

 Bulane was then told that his wife had given birth to a dog, and 

 he was very angry, and ordered it to be destroyed. Some time 

 after the other wife went into that hut and found a mouse playing 



* J. H. Weeks, "Among the Primitive Bakongo," pp. 279-2S] . 



