436 HEAVENLY BODIES IN S.A. MYTHOLOGY. 



with a child with a moon on its breast. She was terribly 

 frightened as she thought the child was dead. The mouse had, 

 however, taken him into its hole and nursed him. Immediately 

 she persuaded her husband to burn down the hut, as to go into it 

 always made her ill. He wondered at the request, but consented, 

 and the hut was burnt. The mouse heard the conversation, and 

 determined to save the child, so he took him to the wall of the 

 cattle kraal before the hut was burnt down. A long time after- 

 wards the same wife went to the cattle kraal, and found the child 

 with the moon on his breast sitting under a cow. She was again 

 very frightened and alarmed, and immediately informed her hus- 

 band that she had been very ill in the kraal, and that he must pull 

 it down at once. Again the mouse removed the child, and took 

 him to some traders for safety. By this time the boy was nearly 

 grown up, so the mouse left him and returned to its hole. Some 

 time afterwards a man came from the chief's village to the traders 

 and saw the young man. He went back and told the chief what 

 he had seen. Bulane was very interested and went himself. He 

 asked the youth how he came to be there. The young man told 

 him the story of his birth, of the substitution of the dog, and how 

 the mouse had saved him, and had brought him up. Bulane was 

 convinced when he saw the moon on the youth's breast that he was 

 his own son, so he took him home and hid him in his hut. He 

 called a meeting of his people, killed many oxen, and brewed much 

 beer. During the feast he brought out the youth, and explained 

 to the people the story of his birth and the treachery of his other 

 wife. The mother of the young man was beside herself with 

 delight, and received beautiful clothes from her husband, but as 

 for the other wife and her children she was sent away to her own 

 people, as they said she was a wicked person. 



The Bengali tale has much more mythological drapery about 

 it, but in all essentials it is the same. What is the explanation of 

 the extraordinary resemblance 1 It cannot be conscious borrow- 

 ing, as the Basuto have had no intercourse with any natives from 

 India to such a degree as to account for this. Is it part of the 

 deposit of primitive lore, which was common to the ancestors of 

 Basuto and Bengali. This is a very great assumption to make, 

 and is not warranted by our present knowledge. The parallelism 

 of the two tales, though interesting of itself, does not prove the 

 descent of Basuto from Bengali, as has been attempted in a recent 

 book on negro religion. 



The South African Bantu pay little attention to the stars. 

 They have names for certain prominent stars, but they do not pay 

 them divine honours. It h?i been remarked how little notice they 

 take of the constellations. The Bantu have never troubled them- 

 selves about astronomical calculations in the past, so far as we can 

 discover, any more than they do now. 



Amongst the Bushmen we find sidereal worship in its incep- 

 tion, amongst the Hottentot much more developed, and amongst 

 the Bantu hardly at all, far less so than one would have expected, 

 taking their superior culture into account. Has the supposed 



