228 Traces of Solar Worship in North America. [ April, 
monkeys began to surpass the power of receiving impressions 
which existed in other animals, he would be most liable to con- 
ceive great dread of that enemy which inflicted upon him wounds 
of a very different sort from those which he received from his own 
kind or from animals which approached more or less to his own 
form, and which also produced effects so subtle in their character 
and operation, that they would be apt to leave lasting impressions 
on those animals which were frequently subjected to witnessing 
them. It should be remembered, also, that the home of the 
monkey and the spot where, in all probability, the earlier Pri- 
mates first saw the light, is in those regions of the earth which are 
most infested by numerous and venomous serpents. 
These facts will at once suggest to all who put their faith in the 
theory of gradual development, that the fear of the serpent be- 
came instinctive in some far distant progenitor of- man, by reason 
of his long exposure to danger and death in a horrible form, from 
its bite, and that it has been handed down through the diverging 
lines of descent which find their expression to-day in Homo and 
Pithecus. How strongly marked it is in the latter, the experiment 
detailed above, corresponding in each of its results with that of 
Mr. Darwin, bears testimony; and for the evidence of its influence 
on the mind of the former, turn to the story of the serpent in 
Paradise; to the signs and symbols of many ancient mythologies, 
and to the feeling which few men ‘can deny to themselves when 
they are brought into association with even the most beautiful 
and harmless member of the order Ophidia. 
:0: 
TRACES OF SOLAR WORSHIP IN NORTH AMERICA. 
| BY EDWIN A. BARBER. 
T an article published in the October Naturatisr, entitled “On 
the Ancient and Modern Pueblo Tribes of the Pacific Slope 
of the United States,” the writer made use of the following €x- 
pression: “Both paid homage to the sun, or at least looked for 
a Messiah daily to come to them from the east,” to which asser- 
tion exceptions have been taken by some ethnologists. i 
It is held by this class of scientists that the heavenly bodies 
were never deified by any of the American races. Granting 
-this to be, in some degree, true: That the luminaries, collectively 
