>lruim'nl. ( hir of llu' srinils iniirkl\- sciisini; llic inc;iiiiiiL; of llic 

 turiDdil, cxplaiiu'd til tile lii(li;m^ lh;il the iiilriu imi of his t-liicf 

 was s(i skillfuIK {<> -^luml willi liis ,miu lliat llir sun would l)c 

 compelled to let i^o ihe moDU, hei^i^in;;' them to wail a few minutes 

 to see the marvellous restilt of his chief's fine marksmanship. 

 Instead of destroying;; the instrunuul (he I'duios were awestruck 

 at the result of their white hrother's superior skill. 



A most curious and unusual myth concern in, il,^ the sun's 

 eclipse was common to the tribes of Northern Yucatan, who be- 

 lieved that the phenomenon was due to the illness of the moon, 

 suffering from fever and experiencing the first stages of jaundice. 

 The women would w'ail and weep and the men smite themselves 

 on the mouth. In latter days they fired off muskets, "To prove," 

 as a sarcastic writer puts it, "that they were not strangers to the 

 beneficent progress of civilization." 



In earliest days, how^ever, the occasion was one of gruesome 

 and barbaric celebration. It was thought that the eclipse, once 

 becoming permanent, the evil spirits of darkness would come and 

 devour the inhabitants of the earth. To avert such a catastrophe 

 a hunt w'as immediately instituted for wdiite-haired and white- 

 skinned people, and these were sacrificed amidst the din of mus- 

 ical instruments and noisy incantations. 



In Tlaxcallan this ceremony took a different form. To 

 soothe the ruffled spirits of the sun, angered at some misdeed of 

 his wafe, the moon, a sacrifice was made of victims of a ruddy 

 complexion ; w^hen, however, it was the moon whose domestic 

 happiness had been disturbed by her husband, the sun, albinos — 

 specially kept for that purpose — were sacrificed. 



Alegre and Sahagun, the famous Hispanic historians, agree 

 that both in Sinaloa and Southern California eclipses were 

 thought to be caused by the dust of celestial battles, and to aid 

 the luminary in her conflict arrows were shot up into the sky to 

 distract and confuse her adversary. 



The moon has, for obvious reasons, ever been associated 

 with the birth of children. Among our own Indians, as well as 

 with the Aztecs and Toltecs, "]\Ietzli" (under which name the 

 Toltecs w^orshipped the moon) was the deity presiding over hu- 

 man destinies. It may have been because the mood-god was 

 identical with Joaltecutli, the god of night, that the glossy black 

 obsidian, "iztli," was dedicated to his worship. It was the 

 custom for women wath child at the time of an eclipse to place a 

 piece of iztli in their mouths, and a crescent-shaped ornament 

 of the same material in their girdles, lest the unborn child become 

 a mouse, or be born without lips or nose, through the temporary 

 anger or lack of attention of the protecting god. 



There lived on this continent, how^ever, one ancient nation 

 which looked upon an eclipse without fear and with deep scientific 

 interest. 



56 



