Such animistic origin of nature-myths shows out very clearly in the great cosmic group of Sun, Moon, and Stars. In early philosophy throughout the world, the Sun and Moon are alive and as it were human in their nature. Usually contrasted as male and female, they nevertheless differ in the sex assigned to each, as well as in their relations to one another. Among the Mbocobis of South America, the Moon is a man and the Sun his wife, and the story is told how she once fell down and an Indian put her up again, but she fell a second time and set the forest blazing in a deluge of fire.[1] To display the opposite of this idea, and at the same time to illustrate the vivid fancy with which savages can personify the heavenly bodies, we may read the following discussion concerning eclipses, between certain Algonquin Indians and one of the early Jesuit missionaries to Canada in the 17th century, Father Le Jeune: — 'Je leur ay demandé d'où venoit l'Eclipse de Lune et de Soleil; ils m'ont respondu que la Lune s'éclipsoit ou paroissoit noire, à cause qu'elle tenoit son fils entre ses bras, qui empeschoit que l'on ne vist sa clarté. Si la Lune a un fils, elle est mariée, ou l'a été, leur dis-je. Oüy dea, me dirent-ils, le Soleil est son mary, qui marche tout le jour, et elle toute la nuict; et s'il s'éclipse, ou s'il s'obscurcit, c'est qu'il prend aussi par fois le fils qu'il a eu de la Lune entre ses bras. Oüy, mais ny la Lune ny le Soleil n'ont point de bras, leur disois-je. Tu n'as point d'esprit; ils tiennent tousiours leurs arcs bandés deuant eux, voilà pourquoy leurs bras ne paroissent point. Et sur qui veulent-ils tirer? Hé qu'en scauons nous?'[2] A mythologically important legend of the same race, the Ottawa story of Iosco, describes Sun and Moon as brother and sister. Two Indians, it is said, sprang through a chasm in the sky, and found themselves in a pleasant
Page:Primitive Culture Vol 1.djvu/306
288
MYTHOLOGY.
