CONCEPTS OF THE SUN AMONG AMERICAN INDIANS 1 



By M. W. Stirling 



Chief, Bureau of American Ethnology 

 Smithsonian Institution 



[With 6 plates] 



Webster's dictionary defines the sun as "The luminous heavenly 

 body, the light of which constitutes day, and absence of the light of 

 which constitutes night." Astronomers might object that this rather 

 oversimplifies the subject, but it has the advantage, at least, that primi- 

 tive people all over the world would agree with it. 



The American Indian was concerned much more with the effects of 

 the sun than he was with the nature of the sun itself. Apparently the 

 average man did little if any thinking about the matter. He accepted, 

 vaguely, explanatory information as given in myths. Such incon- 

 sistencies and conflicts as might appear to a person of another culture 

 did not bother him since most of it was in the realm of the super- 

 natural. He interpreted the universe just as it appeared to him. The 

 earth was a flat disk covered with a hemispherical blue dome or firm- 

 ament which fitted over it like a bell jar. Attached to it or moving 

 across it like flies on a ceiling were the various heavenly bodies. These 

 as a rule were personified. 



We might infer from the sun myth of the California Indians that, 

 because Coyote stole the sun and put it in a sack which he carried off 

 on his back, the sun was considered to be of a size that a man could 

 carry. However, in the same myth, when Coyote paused to dig up 

 a worm, Mount Diablo was formed by the back dirt. In fact, in Indian 

 myths generally, there is a rather complete abandonment of all dimen- 

 sional concepts. As supernatural beings, the cricket can engage in 

 combat with the elk on equal terms. 



We all remember the childhood pastime of asking "How big does the 

 moon (or the sun) look to you?" "Does it look as big as a dime or as 

 big as a dinner plate?" We judge size by eye, only through compari- 

 son with some object of known size, so that the sun and the moon in 



1 The thirteenth Arthur lecture, given under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution 

 January 17, 1945. 



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