396 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 194 5 



Among many of the Pueblo tribes of Arizona and New Mexico, the 

 sun is very important. Typically, when the first people emerge from 

 the underworld they find the world is dark. This is very inconvenient 

 so a culture hero or the war twins are sent out to look for the sun 

 and, having found it, to place it properly in the sky and plot its 

 path. The Pueblo Indians believe that at the winter and the summer 

 solstices the sun remains motionless for 4 days each, during which 

 time he rests in one of the two houses that exist for this purpose at 

 each end of his path. It is also believed that for a short time at mid- 

 day the sun stands still in its path across the heavens. In myth this 

 is explained when his course across the sky is interrupted when he 

 permits his twin sons to carry his shield. 



In Hopi myth, Sun had to be helped to move on across the sky by 

 killing a child, and his transit is still dependent on someone's dying 

 every day at morning, noon, and evening. Sun has two houses for 

 daily use. In the morning he "comes out standing to his sacred place." 

 In the evening, he "goes in to sit down at his other sacred place." The 

 fartherest point on the horizon that he reaches at sunrise or sunset, 

 the northernmost point in summer, the southernmost point in winter, 

 is the "house" where he remains 4 days before turning back to winter 

 or to summer. 



In no Pueblo myth except at Oraibi is Sun described as a creator. 



The Hopi hold special ceremonies on observing the solstices for the 

 purpose of slowing up the sun on its way toward winter, and hastening 

 it on its way toward spring. 



Eclipses are viewed with fear as portents of evil. One year there 

 was a lunar eclipse on the eve of the day the school children at Santa 

 Fe were to return to Taos. The Governor of Taos telegraphed the 

 school authorities to postpone the children's journey, and it was post- 

 poned for a week. (Parsons, 1939.) 



The Natchez were one of the civilized tribes of the lower Mississippi 

 Valley for whom, fortunately, we have rather complete data before 

 the native culture broke down under the impact of European civiliza- 

 tion. They were mound builders and their beliefs and customs re- 

 sembled more closely those of Mexico than any other group north of 

 the Rio Grande, and probably resembled the beliefs of the former 

 occupants of the great mound groups of the southeastern area gen- 

 erally. 



The Natchez believed the universe to be filled with spirits in human 

 forms who differed in power, the most powerful of all being a sky 

 deity who lived in, or was connected with, the sun. Here we find our- 

 selves a step in advance of the usual northern concepts regarding the 

 sun. 



The Sun clan was considered to be descended from this sky deity 

 and hence had a divine right to the unusual honors and regard lavished 



