274 



♦ KNOVVTLEDGE ♦ 



[October 1, 1887. 



The moon was not always supposed to be inhabited by a 

 man. Thus a Chinese tale represents the moon Jutho as a 

 beautiful lady, with a double sphere behind her head, and a 

 rabbit at her feet. 



On a gold throne, whose radiating brightness 



Dazzles the eye — enhaloing the scene, 

 Sits a fair form, arrayed in snowy whiteness. 



She is Chang-o, the beauteous Fairy Queen. 

 Rainbow- winged angels softly hover o'er her, 



Formintr a canopy above the throne ; 

 A host o£ fairy beings stand before her. 



Each robed in light, and girt with meteor zone.* 



In Mangaia, the southernmost island of the Hervey 



cluster, the woman in the moon is Ina, the pattern wife, 

 who eternally weaves beautiful cloth, i.e., white clouds. 

 Among the Sottth Slavonians the moon is represented in a 

 Servian song as a beautiful maiden, with " arms of silver 

 up to the elbows," sitting on a silver throne which floats on 

 water. A suitor comes to woo her. She avoids him, and 

 sheds tears of anger, wailing with sorrow. f Every reader 

 will remember the Hiawatha legend told by Nokomis : — 



Once a warrior, very angry. 



Seized his grandmother, and threw her 



Up into the sky at midnight, 



Right against the moon he threw her : 



'Tis her body that you see there. 



In the story of Iosco, the moon is represented as an aged 

 woman with a white face and pleasing air, who advanced 

 from behind a hill to greet them. She talks of the sun as 

 her brother.:]; 



In Polynesia a story tells how the moon came down and 

 picked up a woman and her child during a time of famine. 

 She was working in the evening twilight, beating out 

 some bark with which to make native cloth. The moon 

 was just rising, and reminded her of a great bread 

 fruit. Looking up to it, she said, " Why cannot you come 

 down and let my child have a bit of you 1 " The moon, 

 indignant at the idea of being eaten, came down forthwith 

 and took her up, child, board, mallet, and all. The people 

 in Samoa still speak of the woman in the moon. " Yonder 

 is Sina," they say, " and her child, and her mallet and 

 board." The same belief exists in the Friendly Islands and 

 the Tonga group. § 



A quaint story, told by the Indians in British Columbia 

 to Mr. W. Duncan, relates how a child awaking in the 

 night and feeling thirsty asked its mother for a drink. The 

 mother not heeding, the moon came down and brought the 

 child water from heaven. The child drank some, and was 

 then enticed by the moon to return to her home above. 

 After passing underground till they were clear of the 

 village, they ascended to heaven. There they are to h& seen 

 to this day, and the child still holds the little round basket 

 which it had in its hand when it went to sleep.]| 



A iSTew Zealand myth tells how in old days, before the 

 moon gave light, a New Zealander named Rona went out in 

 the night to fetch some water from the well ; but he fell 

 over something which happened to be in his way, and 

 sprained his ankle. He cried aloud in his pain, and to his 

 great horror he saw the moon approaching him. He caught 

 hold of a tree and clung to it; but it gave way, and fell 

 with Rona upon the moon. Another version says that 

 Eona was falling into a well ; he laid hold of a tree, which 

 gave way, and which was afterwards removed to the moon 

 with Rona, where he is visible to this day. 



* Harley, " Moon-lore," p. G3. 



t Ralston, "Russian Folk-lore," p. 183. 



X Schoolcraft, " Hiawatha Legends," p. 289. 



§ Harley, " Moon-lore," p. .57. 



II Jbid. p. 36. 



The Selish race of North-west American Indians have a 

 tradition which Captain Wilson relates as follows : — " The 

 expression of ' a toad in the moon,' equivalent to our ' man 

 in the moon,' is explained by a very pretty story, relating 

 how the little wolf, being desperately in love with the toad, 

 went a-wooing one night, and prayed that the moon might 

 shine brightly on his adventure ; his prayer was granted, 

 and by the clear light of a full moon he was pursuing the 

 toad, and had nearly caught her, when, as a last chance of 

 escape, she made a desperate spiiog on to the face of the 

 moon, where she remMns to this day." The Cowichan 

 tribes think that the moon has a frog in it.* 



A Buddhist legend relates how Sakyamunni was at one 

 time a hare. Indra, disgui.sing himself as a hungry beggar, 

 asked for food. The hare offered himself, and as a reward 

 Indra took him up to heaven and placed him in the moon. 

 A Sanskrit legend describes the moon as a watcher of the 

 sky, who sleeps with her eyes open like the hare. The 

 mythical hare is undoubtedly the moon. In the first story of 

 the third book of the Pantschatantra, the hares dwell upon 

 the shore of the moon's lake, and the king has for his palace 

 the moon itself.t 



Among the Hindoos and Egyptians the mouse was sacred 

 to the moon. De Gubernatis says: — "The Pagan sun-god 

 crushes under his foot the Mouse of Night. When the 

 cat's away the mice will play. The shadows of night dance 

 when the moon is absent." J 



AMERICANISMS. 



Gerrymaxder. This word has been already discussed in 

 Knowledge. The term has been used in America since 

 1811, when during the governorship of Mr. Gerry the 

 State of Massachusetts was so artificially divided up into 

 electoral districts, that the Federal votes were massed 

 together and in large part wasted ; while by bringing into 

 effective action Democratic votes which before had been lost 

 in minorities, the Democratic party were enabled to carry 

 everything before them. It appeared on counting the votes 

 returned that two-thirds of the State voted Federal, yet 

 through the artificial distribution of districts, the Democrats 

 secured an overwhelming majority in the Legislature. 

 Essex County, strongly Federal, was so peculiarly divided, 

 that the majj presented a ridiculous appearance. GObert 

 Stuart, a painter of some distinction, remarked to Mr. 

 Russell, the editor of the Boston Centinel {sic), that the 

 map looked like some monstrous animal. Carrying out the 

 idea he added a few touches, representing a head, wings, 

 claws, and tail, and being apparently less familiar with 

 natural history than with art, he suggested laughingly that 

 the creature thus adorned " would do for a Salamander." 

 Russell looking at the figure exclaimed, " Salamander 1 call 

 it a Gerrymander ! " and ever thereafter, in America, the 

 name of Governor Gerry was associated with that kind of 

 iniquity, though he was probably innocent of all part in the 

 process of dividing up the State, " gerrymandering," of 

 INIassachusetts. 



Get. a variety of uses of this word, familiar Ln England 

 so far back as the memory of man goeth, are included by 

 Bartlett among Americanisms — as " get out," used to ex- 

 press incredulity ; to " get one's back up " ; to " get 

 round " ; " to get the wrong pig by the tail " ; and " got 

 you there 1 " But 



To GET RELIGION is probably purely American. A man 



* Harley, •' Moon-lore," p. 69. 



t Baring-Gould, " Curious Myths of the Middle Ages," pp. 202, 

 206. 



} Andrew Lang, " Custom and Myth," p. 117. 



