book, published in the last century, and translated into French and German, which proved the sun to be hell, and its dark spots gatherings of damned souls.[1] And when in South America the Saliva Indians have pointed out the moon, their paradise where no mosquitos are, and the Guaycurus have shown it as the home of chiefs and medicine-men deceased, and the Polynesians of Tokelau in like manner have claimed it as the abode of departed kings and chiefs, then these pleasant fancies may be compared with Plutarch's description of the virtuous souls who after purification in the middle space gain their footing on the moon, and there are crowned as victors.[2] The converse notion of the moon as the seat of hell, has been elaborated in profoundest bathos by Mr. M. F. Tupper:
'I know thee well, O Moon, thou cavern'd realm, Sad Satellite, thou giant ash of death, Blot on God's firmament, pale home of crime, Scarr'd prison-house of sin, where damned souls Feed upon punishment. Oh, thought sublime, That amid night's black deeds, when evil prowls Through the broad world, thou, watching sinners well, Glarest o'er all, the wakeful eye of — Hell!'
Skin for skin, the brown savage is not ill matched in such speculative lore with the white philosopher.
Fifthly, as Paradise on the face of the earth, and Hades beneath it where the sun goes down, are regions whose existence is asserted or not denied by savage and barbaric science, so it is with Heaven. Among the examples which display for us the real course of knowledge among mankind, and the real relation which primitive bears to later culture, the belief in the existence of a firmament is one of the most
1 J. G. Müller, 'Amer. Urrel.' p. 138, see also 220 (Caribs), 402 (Peru), 505, 660 (Mexico); Brinton, 'Myths of New World,' p. 233; Taylor, 'Physical Theory,' ch. xvi.; Alger, 'Future Life,' p. 590; see also above, p. 16, note.
2 Humboldt and Bonpland, 'Voy.' vol. v. p. 90; Martius, 'Ethnog. Amer.' vol. i. p. 233; Turner, 'Polynesia,' p. 531; Plutarch. De Facie in Orbe Lunæ; Bastian, 'Psychologie,' pp. 80, 89 (souls in stars).
