THE ASTROXOMY OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLES. 625 



nesians of Tokelau may be nearly abreast of them in the compe- 

 tition. 



The facts we have adduced abundantly illustrate the various in- 

 terest with which primitive peoples regard the two principal stars of 

 the earthly sky. They have also their theories, or rather their myths, 

 respecting the periodical changes to which the appearance of these 

 bodies is subject. The phases of the moon are particularly the sub- 

 ject of much concern. In the belief of the Hottentots, the living 

 being we call Moon suffers from a chronic headache, in consequence 

 of which it becomes greatly reduced in appearance by laying its hand 

 on its head. The Caffres bring the Sun into play in accounting for 

 the phenomena, and say that she pursues the Moon and reduces him, 

 but that he is cunning enough to escape, and then recovers his strength. 

 More curious still is the part the waning moon plays in the eyes of 

 some Polynesians, who say that it is eaten from by departed spirits. 

 Another extremely materialistic explanation is found in some Green- 

 land stories to the effect that the Moon pursues his sister the Sun in 

 love. When he has become exhausted and thin, he goes seal-hunting, 

 and disappears from the sky. In time he reappears, well fed, fat, and 

 shining, as the full moon. 



Purely fanciful and obscure are the myths in which animals are 

 found in confidential relations with the moon. The Dakota Indians 

 have a fiction of mice that periodically attack the moon to satisfy 

 their hunger, and eat of its substance. An old Slavic saga makes the 

 ruler of the night the husband of the Sun, who faithlessly gives his 

 heart to the Morning-Star. In punishment for this offense, he is cleft 

 through the middle, and must exhibit himself periodically in this 

 plight as a warning example. The Hos, in Northeastern India, also 

 fable the moon split in two and growing together again. In some 

 of the stories these love-attacks become very violent, and then the 

 aggressive party is made to receive a kind of retributive justice ; and 

 we accordingly have the spots that are to be seen upon the moon ex- 

 plained by saying that they are the marks which the vexed solar beauty 

 has made upon her pursuer in defending herself against his importuni- 

 ties. Thus, according to Mr. D. Hooker, the Khasias in Northwestern 

 India say that the Moon, an over-ardent son-in-law of the Sun, bums 

 with love for her at each new change, while she, in her aversion, throws 

 ashes into his face, which stick upon it as dark spots. The Esquimaux 

 have two opposite, yet fundamentally harmonious, explanations. One 

 is that the Sun smuts the face of her younger brother, whose atten- 

 tions have become troublesome ; the other, given by Bastian, that her 

 heart warms toward her lover during his periods of darkness, and the 

 spots are the marks left by her sooty hand caressing his face. 



A variety of sagas of another kind discover living beings, not in 

 the whole moon, but only in the dark points of its surface. The Hin- 

 doos fancy a hare in it, or a deer ; the Japanese, a rabbit. According 



TOL. XXT. 40 



