Chapter XXX

CONCEPTS OF SUN, MOON, AND STARS

Mountain Maidu and Atsugewi believed the sun to be a female human—the wife—and the moon to be a male human—the husband. This is a reversal of the sex ascribed to these bodies by some other tribes. They believed that the figure of a frog was visible in the moon.

Atsugewi stated that Frog fought Moon and swallowed him and the next time that Moon swallowed Frog who is now in the center of the moon. When Moon and Frog fought, the former was not round, but crescent shaped. Yana stated that in the moon they could see Moon’s wife, Frog. Pine Marten snapped his evil father-in-law Moon into the sky by means of bending a springy tree ’way down and suddenly letting it go. He used the same system to snap Frog and her two daughters into the sky also.

To Atsugewi, as to most tribes, the phases of the moon: new, full, and waning, represented birth, life, and death—repeated every four weeks, although, of course, none of the Indians had the concept of a “week” such as we have. All through the year Atsugewi greeted the new moon. Old persons shook themselves, and their clothes and bedding in its presence. Younger folks ran and jumped toward the moon. If the points or horns of the new moon crescent were vertical it was a bad omen indicating sickness or death. Babies were shown the new moon, and in the case of both Atsugewi and mountain Maidu, babies’ faces and arms were rubbed in the new moonlight to make them grow fast. All local tribes addressed the moon aloud in friendly terms as if it were a personal relative. The Yana prayed to it. In contrast to Atsugewi reaction to vertical position of the two moon points, the Yana and mountain Maidu accepted this as meaning good fortune and good weather ahead. To these tribes horizontal position of the moon crescent in the winter sky denoted that it was full of water and indicated pending rains or storms. At other seasons both horns up foretold of death. Yana thought that both sun and moon were feminine.

After its daily trip across the sky, Atsugewi thought that the sun returned to the east in a blue cloud via the side of the earth. As the sun and the moon passed each other at the side of the earth, they decided on the weather for the following day. The moon supplied the cold and the sun the heat.

Eclipses of sun and moon were believed by Yana to be due to their dogs devouring them. Atsugewi and mountain Maidu felt that the heavenly bodies were dying. The former were of the opinion that Lizard was eating Sun or Moon as the case might be. They shouted loudly, shot arrows into the air toward the eclipse and beat all available female dogs. Mountain Maidu thought that Frog was eating Moon or Sun.

A reddish moon foretold of disaster and was a sign of war for Atsugewi, but to Yana it meant hot weather ahead.

Only a few star groups of the night sky were named.

Yana thought the constellation we call the Belt of Orion was Coyote’s arrow. All local tribes believed the Milky Way to be a road, or river in some cases, which was traveled by departing spirits or souls of the dead. Shooting or Falling stars, (more properly meteorites) presaged good weather to the Atsugewi who thought these were torches carried by spirits from one house to another in the sky. For this tribe too, a single conspicuous star—no doubt a planet—seen near the moon was an evil sign. If the star were on the left someone nearby would die soon; if it lay to the right of the moon someone farther away was doomed.

Atsugewi called the Seven Sisters wir-etisu. These girls were seduced by a little rabbit boy at a puberty dance. They became ashamed and went up in the sky to become stars. The Big Dipper was called Coyote’s Cane. Maidu thought that stars were made of something soft like buckskin.