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Dec. 1, 1881] 
had recently intended to have published some articles which I 
had prepared on the connection of the Pleiades with primitive 
ideas as to Paradise, but it seemed prudent to defer doing so, 
and to bring out the whole subject in one volume. To show, 
however, how widely spread these traditions as to the Pleiades 
are, I may attempt to give the information which Dr. Tylor 
invites, as to the myth of the lost Pleiad being a heritage among 
savages. Those stars are only apparently six, yet all the world 
over, among civilised and savage races, in Europe, in India, 
China, Japan, America, and Africa, this diminutive star group 
is not merely regarded as seven stars, but what is still more sur- 
prising, as ‘‘ 7Ze Seven Stars,” though the far brighter seven 
stars of the Great Bear might seem to deserve the title, 
There are various myths to account for the missing Pleiad, but 
one I think will suffice to show that the Australians did not 
borrow the idea from Europeans. 
I once asked a native of the Gold Coast, a negro Hercules in 
strength, who had therefore been christened (probably by some 
pious naval officer) Fivehorsepower, whether he knew anything 
of the stars. ‘‘No!” He replied, ‘‘I know nuffin about de 
stars.” ‘* But don’t you know anything of ‘the seven stars’?” 
**Oh yes, of course,” he answered ; ‘‘every nigger knows de 
seben stars.” ‘Why do you call them seven?’’ I asked him ; 
‘ean you count seven stars?” ‘*No,” he replied, ‘‘ you count 
one, two, three, four, five, six; then todder one hide herself, no 
let you count her.” There is also a savage tradition, which I 
can recollect, that the Pleiades are young women, six of whom 
are very beautiful, but the seventh is so plain that she conceals 
herself from sight. 
Some tribes of the Australians dance in honour of the Pleiades, | ; 
; cumstance, which was contested by M. Blanchard, has already 
because ‘‘they are very good to the black fellows.” Was this 
borrowed thrcugh Europeans from ‘‘the sweet influences of the 
Pleiades” which Job celebrates ? 
Ask a negro inthe Southern States to look through a tele- 
scope, and he will invariably turn it towards the Pleiades, ‘‘ for 
they are berry good to the darkies.” The natives of America, 
both North and South, regard the Pleiades as beneficent stars, 
and dance in their honour. ‘‘Oh what do we owe to thee!” 
is the grateful salutation of one tribe. Whence then did this 
arise? It was not merely because those stars announced spring, 
and were ‘‘stars of rain,” or because they were ‘‘ for signs, and 
for seasons, and days, and years,” but also because they were 
connected with the idea of Paradise and the abode of the Deity. 
The problematical theory of Moedler, that Alcyone, the brightest 
of the Pleiades, is the central sun of the universe, is most inte- 
resting on account of the singular fact that such was actually the 
belief of early ages, Ihave within the past year found unex- 
pected, and I think conclusive, proofs that the name A/cyone (or 
rather, d/kyonre), meaning a centre, pivot, or turning-point, was 
not given without some reason to that star, for the ancients in 
very remote ages undoubtedly believed that it was the centre of 
the universe, and that Paradise, the primeval home of our race 
and the abode of the Deity and of the spirits of the dead, was 
in the Pleiades, traces of which ideas we even find among 
savages, 
The Al/kyonic Lake, the waters of which led to the world of 
spirits, must have meant simply ‘‘the waters of death”’ leading 
to Alkyone or Paradise, and reminds us of Ulysses’ voyage to 
the abodes of the dead and to the Gardens of AlkynGos. 
With the Pleiades, too, sacred birds (birds of paradise) were 
connected. In my journal of researches (1863) I expressed my 
conviction that Zanu (a word meaning, in the Indian Archi- 
pelago, a fowl or bird) would be found to have been connected 
with the Pleiades. I have been recently gratified at finding that 
in far-distant Samoa there is a sacred bird called, not Manu-alii, 
the royal bird, as some European writers have assumed, but 
Manu-lii, the bird of the Pleiades. 
What a singular link we have here between the folk-lore of 
these savages and that of the Old World, for to this very day, 
from Britain to Japan, the Pleiades are popularly known as ‘‘ the 
hen” or ‘‘hen and her chickens.” 
In Mexico the beautiful kingfisher was a sacred bird. May 
not the name of the same bird in Greece have been a survival of 
similar ideas, as it was called the Halcyon, 7.e. belonging to 
Alcyone, or a bird of paradise ? 
The bright sunny days, too, at the end of autumn, that shining 
season of the Pleiades, called in America the Indian summer, 
were falcyon days among the Greeks, which we should now 
render heavenly days. 
Even if the theory of prehistoric astronomers and of some 
NATURE 
IOI 
modern men of science, that the Pleiades are the centre of the uni- 
verse, should prove to have been unfounded, I am persuaded that 
the day is coming when the learned will admit that those stars are 
the ‘central sun” of the religions, calendars, myths, traditions, 
and symbolism of early ages—an era, however, so marvellously 
remote, that investigations respecting it bear the same relation to 
the study of anthropology and to the science of religion that 
palzeontology does to natural history. 
I shall be greatly disappointed if I cannot satisfy even so 
cautious and careful an observer as Dr. Tylor, that there is a 
mass of original and primitive traditions as to the Pleiades 
among isolated savages in various quarters of the globe. 
In the meantime, until these conclusions are submitted in a 
proper and scientific shape to the learned, Dr. Tylor is perfectly 
justified in adopting the prudent legal maxim, De non apparentibus 
et non existentibus cadem est ratio. ~ 
I may however invite his attention to Mr. Ernest de Bunsen’s 
recent work on the Pleiades—‘‘ The Pleiades and the Zodiac,” 
published in German (Berlin, 1879), and his recent learned 
work, the ‘‘ Angel Messiah.” The former he has kindly dedi- 
cated to me as the pioneer in this new and difficult field of 
research, R, G, HALIBURTON 
The Pronunciation of Deaf-mutes who have been 
Taught to Articulate 
In Nature (vol. xxv. p. 72) it is reported that at the last meet- 
ing of the French Academy M. Hément made some observations 
to show that deaf-mutes who have been taught to articulate 
speak with the accent of their native district. This curious cir- 
been recorded. One case is given in an old number of the 
Philosophical Transactions, No, 312. About the age of seven- 
teen a young man, a congenital deaf-mute, was twice attacked 
by fever. ‘‘Some weeks after recovery he perceived a motiou 
of some kind in his brain, which was very uneasy to him, and 
afterwards he began to hear, and, in process of time, to under- 
stand speech. This naturally disposed him to imitate what he 
heard, and to attempt to speak, The servants were much an- 
noyed to hear him. He was not distinctly understood, however, 
for some weeks ; but is now understood tolerably well. But what 
is singular is that he retains the Highland accent, just as High- 
landers do who are advanced to his age before they begin to 
learn the English tongue. He cannot speak any Erse or Irish, 
for it was in the Lowlands he first heard and spoke.” The 
curious circumstance of his possession of the Highland accent 
is confirmed by the testimony of similar phenomena in the 
deaf and dumb schools of Spain. ‘‘ One fact,” says Ticknor, 
**T witnessed, and knew therefore personally, which is ex- 
tremely curious. Not one of the pupils, of course, can ever 
have heard a human sound, and all their knowledge and prac- 
tice in speaking must come from their imitation of the visible 
mechanical movement of the lips and other organs of enuncia- 
tion by their teachers, who were all Castilians, yet each sj eaks 
clearly and decidedly, and with the accent of the province from 
which he comes, so that I could instantly distinguish the Cata- 
lonians and Biscayans and Castilians, whilst others, more prac- 
tised in Spanish, felt the Malagan and Andalusian tones ” 
(“Life and Journals of George of Ticknor,” vol. i. p. 196, 
London, 1876). A similar case has been mentioned to me by 
Mr. J. J. Alley of Manchester. E. R. became deaf and dumb 
at a very early age, and did not talk until he was about seven- 
teen, when he was taught articulation by Mr. Alley. He speaks 
with the accent of his native county of Stafford. These facts are 
cited in my paper on ‘‘ The Education of the Deaf and Dumb,” 
in the ‘* Companion to the Almanac ” for 1880. 
WILiiAM E, A, Axon 
Tanganyika Shells 
In the Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. for May, 1881, pp. 558-561 
Mr. Edgar A. Smith has described two new species of shell 
from Lake Tanganyika, Africa, for which he has proposed the 
new generic name of Paramelania. These forms are, without 
doubt, generically identical with the Pyrgulifera humerosa of 
Meek (see U.S. Geol. Sur. goth Parallel, by Clarence King, 
vol. iv. p. 176, pl. xvii. Figs. 19 and 19a), which antedates Mr. 
Smith’s name by at least five years. Mr, Meek’s species has 
hitherto been the only known member of the genus, either fossil 
or recent, and was only known to occur in the strata of the 
