proven by the fact that within a very short time she would aban- 

 don her struggle with the sun, and the eclipse would pass. That 

 this was a most logical conclusion is demonstrated by the fact 

 that since man has studied eclipses, they have — in their totality — 

 been of but a few minutes' duration. Was there ever a better 

 proof of the efficacy of the beating of dogs at the beginning of 

 the phenomenon? 



Whether the moon is swallowed by the sun or the reverse, 

 eclipses have been for untold centuries considered omens of im- 

 pending calamity by countless numbers of inhabitants of our 

 planet. 



]\Iore cultured primitives, or such as held more advanced 

 ideas — like the Araucanians — believed that an eclipse indicated a 

 sickness of either the moon or sun. It was their custom, as in 

 the case of the illness of their fellows, to make hideous noises 

 and clamor of musical instruments, and assemble in great gath- 

 erings chanting and uttering loud cries in order to frighten the 

 angel — or devil — of death away from their "mother of the world." 



The beating of tom-toms, playing of cymbals and rattles, 

 flogging of dogs and of slaves, was practically universal among 

 primitive tribes of Asia and Africa, and from Canada to Pata- 

 gonia. And this general practice is readily explained by the fact 

 that these peoples, unacquainted with the causes of disease and 

 death, were gradually led — by cunning and self-interested necro- 

 mancers and shamanas — to believe in potions, charms and incan- 

 tations as the sole means of salvation from those afflictions. 



Among the Xavaho it was the belief, which still obtains,' that 

 disease was a demon which possessed the body of the afflicted. 

 The only successful means of ridding the victim of his presence 

 was by wierd incantations and incessant beating of tom-toms, the 

 health or even the life of the patient being quite a secondary con- 

 sideration. If this remedy was good for human beings it was 

 evidently equally efficient to cure the illness of the Moon, mother 

 of us all. 



The Pomos, since 1856, tell a wonderful story of how the 

 white man cured the Aloon of her sickness. 



It seems that Lieutenant W'hipple in his westward voyage 

 of exploration, knowing that an eclipse would occur had brought 

 with him a portable telescope. This instrument was of course 

 unknown to the aborigines and they gathered in great numbers 

 to look at it. 



"What are you going to do with this new gun?" asked one 

 of the Pomo chiefs of the officer. 



"Shoot the moon, of course," was the traveller's unthinking 

 answer. 



This remark came near turning into a tragedy the harmless 

 observation of the eclipse, for the angry savages crowded about 

 the Lieutenant ^nd his scant guard threatening tn wreck the in- 



55 



