Feb. 1, 1886.] 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



121 



2. THE NIGHT SKIE.S IN AISTEALASIA :- 

 At 9 o'clock Febrnary 6 ; at S.30 o'clock February U ; and at 8 o'clock February 21. 



towards the south in northorn skies at any given hour, 

 are almost exactly overhead in the latitude for which the 

 present maps are drawn. (For this, and for the circum- 

 stance that the southern stars circle around a polar point 

 precisely as the northern stars do, the southern skies 

 should make their apologies to Mr. Hampden.) 



INDIAN MYTHS. 



By " Stella Occidens." 



OME of the North American Indian 

 tribes " allowed themselves the alter- 

 native of supposing a dream to be either 

 a visit fi-om the soul of the person or 

 object dreamt of, or a sight seen by the 

 rational soul, gone out for an excursion 

 while the sensitive soul remains in the 



body."* And others believe that the dreamer's soul 

 leaves his body, wandering in quest of things attractive 

 to it. " These things the waking man must endeavour 

 to obtain, lest his soul be troubled and quit the body 

 altogether, "t 



During sleep the body apparently remains lifeless and 

 dead, although on awaking the Indian, and all men alike, 

 can distinctly remember events which they dreamt of, 

 and which to the ignorant mind appear as realities. " So 

 strong was the Xorth American's faith in dreams, that 

 on one occasion an Indian dreamt he was taken captive. 

 He induced his friends to make a mock attack on him, to 

 bind and treat him as a captive, and actually submitted to 

 a considerable amount of torture in the hope thus to fulfil 

 his dream. "J 



As savages are anjrthing but temperate in their habits, 



* Tylor's " Prim. Culture," vol.'^i., p. 413. 



I " Origin of Civilisation." Sir J. Lubbock, p. 207. 



t liul., 443. 



