198 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



while she was suckling Hercules. It was the celestial river of the 

 Chinese, a shark -infested creek to the Tahitians ; to another tribe, 

 the field where their ancestors hunted ostriches ; star-dust to the 

 Peruvians. The Pleiades were regarded by the Iroquois and some 

 of the ancients as a group of dancers, and are still figured in some 

 parts of Europe as a hen and chickens. A tribe called the Choki- 

 tapia are said to have regulated their festivals by the appearance 

 and disappearance of this group. When they disappeared, in the 

 autumn in that country, was the time for beginning farm- work, 

 the feast of the men ; and the feast of the women was celebrated 

 on their reappearance. The former festival referred to the burial 

 or combustion of the seed ; the latter to the return of the absent. 

 The day before the reappearance of these stars the women rejoiced 

 and danced around a pole. In the autumn, the dance of the dead 

 was held. Women swore by the Pleiades, and men by the sun. 

 In all religious festivals the calumet was presented toward the 

 Pleiades, and prayers for happiness were addressed to them. These 

 Indians believed that the Pleiades were seven young persons who 

 guarded the holy seed during the night and executed a sacred 

 dance over it. Epizors, the morning star, charmed with their 

 grace, took them to the sky, where the stars were cheered by their 

 gambols. The sand-dance of Malay warriors may convey some 

 idea of this celestial dance. The bath of purification, prescribed 

 by some of the medicine-men, comprised a triangular hole in which 

 seven hot stones were dropped and covered over with cold water. 

 In their invocations, the medicine-men prayed the Pleiades to help 

 them heal bodily diseases. For talismans, they had seven bones, 

 seven balls, or seven buttons. 



The period of fifty-two years formed a complete era for the 

 Aztecs, and they questioned whether at the end of that period the 

 great heavenly clock, having performed its revolution, might not 

 stop forever. This era menaced a considerable number of the 

 population once in their lives, and some of them perhaps twice. 

 The night on which the fifty-second year would expire was a 

 solemn moment to them, and. was signalized by extinguishing 

 the sacred fires in the temples and those on private hearth- 

 stones, and by breaking all vessels that had contained provisions ; 

 and the evening was passed in darkness, with trembling and fear. 

 The day was in November, when the Pleiades would culminate at 

 midnight, and this moment was the termination of the century. 

 As the hour appeared, the human victim was sacrificed, and the 

 sticks were rubbed over his still quick body for striking the fire 

 for his funeral pile and the inauguration of the new era. Men 

 were waiting with torches ready to be lighted, with which the 

 new fire was to be distributed to all the provinces. The moment 

 of midnight was hailed with shouts of joy. The world had not 



