494 ANNUAL KEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1918. 



two great magic powers of nature — the sun with the male and the earth 

 with the female element. With this fundamental idea firmly fixed in 

 the human mind, in time myths would cluster about these conceptions ; 

 the imagination through poetry would define them objectively until 

 science should lead to rational explanations. When once symbolized 

 or conventionalized they became more and more complicated and took 

 a strong hold on the primitive mind. In the absence of realism a 

 knowledge of causation due to direct observation was of slow growth. 

 The magic powers of earth and sky were personated, and when once 

 personated the possibility of man influencing these personations arose 

 in the human mind, and with it the belief that man could control them 

 by a more powerful magic. Influenced by this belief, he invented 

 many ceremonies, which as time went on also became more and more 

 complicated. These ceremonies not only increased in complication 

 but also derived much from myth, surviving in modified form even 

 into an epoch when changed culture has rendered them little else than 

 folklore. Stripped of the incrustations of time and modifications due 

 to locality, two great objects stand out prominently in the Hopi re- 

 ligion, viz, growth of crops, by which is understood the fertilization 

 of the seed, and abundant water and warmth to make the plants grow 

 to maturity. 



Climate is then the all-important factor in religious beliefs and 

 practices of the Hopi. They recognized its connection with the sun's 

 motions and devised a method of determining accurately by observa- 

 tions of the position of the sun on the horizon, the time for planting 

 and the period of the rainy season. This constant observation of the 

 sun naturally led them to what is ordinarily called sun worship. The 

 sun itself is not worshiped, but in their minds became a symbol, a 

 representative of powers back of the sun controlling meteorological 

 phenomena. This power when personated by an anthropomorphic 

 symbolism is called by various names as the " Heart of the sky," or 

 the magic power of the sky. 'There clusters about this conception 

 of primitive man many other secondary ideas, some of which are 

 incomprehensible to the civilized mind with a more exact knowledge 

 of cause and effect. 



We know that rain in clouds is water evaporated from the earth, 

 falling on account of changes of temperature in the air. The primi- 

 tive man did not know this. Our scientific explanation of lightning 

 is that it is the result of electrical difference in tension. The mind 

 of primitive man had no such idea. The primitive agriculturist 

 ascribed forces of sky and earth to supernatural magic powers, and 

 from their influence upon the life of the agriculturist these powers 

 are regarded as above all others; sky and earth are considered par- 

 ents of all life. It is not possible for scientific men of our century to 

 analyze all the conceptions of the Sky god in the Hopi mind, but by 



