king had shut it up in a strong tower; but the signs of the zodiac had broken open the tower with this very hammer and released the sun. Therefore they adored the hammer.[1] When an Australian blackfellow wishes to stay the sun from going down till he gets home, he places a sod in the fork of a tree, exactly facing the setting sun.[2] For the same purpose an Indian of Yucatan, journeying westward, places a stone in a tree or pulls out some of his eyelashes and blows them towards the sun.[3] South African natives, in travelling, will put a stone in a branch of a tree or place some grass on the path with a stone over it, believing that this will cause their friends to keep the meal waiting till their arrival.[4] In these, as in previous examples, the purpose apparently is to retard the sun. But why should the act of putting a stone or a sod in a tree be supposed to effect this? A partial explanation is suggested by another Australian custom. In their journeys the natives are accustomed to place stones in trees at different heights from the ground in order to indicate the height of the sun in the sky at the moment when they passed the particular tree. Those who follow are thus made aware of the time of day when their friends in advance passed the spot.[5] Possibly the natives, thus accustomed to mark the sun’s progress, may have slipped into the confusion of imagining that to mark the sun’s progress was to arrest it at the point marked. On the other hand, to make it go down faster, the Australians throw sand into the air and blow with their mouths towards the sun.[6]
- ↑ Aeneas Sylvius, Opera (Bâle, 1571), p. 418 [wrongly numbered 420].
- ↑ Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. 334; Curr, The Australian Race, i. 50.
- ↑ Fancourt, History of Yucatan, p. 118.
- ↑ South African Folk-lore Journal, i. 34.
- ↑ E. J. Eyre, Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia, ii. 365.
- ↑ Curr, The Australian Race, iii. 145.
