Page:Illustrated Astronomy.pdf/92

 NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA

Among the diverse stories, we find Incas, who used to think that a jaguar, who devoured the Moon and covered it in blood, caused eclipses. Once the process finished, the animal came back down to Earth to keep eating. To avoid this attack, Incas reunited together, they were very loud and punched the animals, mainly dogs, to make them howl, so the jaguar got scared to then leave them alone.

In a tribe from northern California, the U.S, called Hupa, they believed that the Moon had many wives and animals as pets, including snakes and mountain lions.

If the Moon didn’t bring enough food, its pets would attack and hurt the Moon, which explained its reddish color, typical of a lunar eclipse. Then, its wives arrived, who fixed the Moon. The eclipse ended with them cleaning its blood.

On the other hand, the Eskimos believed that during eclipses, the Sun and the Moon had a kind of disease, resulting in their blinking light. They protected and warmed themselves to not infect from the stars, and they also covered the valuable things to carefully not spread out the supposed illness.

In the case of the pre-Columbian cultures from the south of Latin America, Chile and Argentina today, we found the Mapuches. According to these people, the physical Sun and the spiritual self always go together; in fact, it plays a crucial role in prayers. Regarding the eclipses, they called them malonji ta Antü (they came to block the Sun), and see them as lousy omen since they consider this as the defeat of the Sun at hands of the darkness. Considering this, people who live eclipses offer prayers dedicated to the Sun through songs, asking if it can back to life to light up the world again and don’t leave them.

In general, myths and beliefs have something in common in different parts of the world: they cause fear due to the sudden change of the most visible celestial bodies, those which affects the most in our lives, but also there are very noticeable changes you can tell by the environment and the threating dangers.

Even today that we know the Moon is a great rock and the Sun a giant ball of plasma, some people decide not coming out of their houses and not watch the eclipse just for fear. Other urban myths state that eclipses are dangerous for pregnant women sitting outdoor during the eclipse, or it is even more dangerous to look at the Sun during the eclipse instead at any other time. Even when there are no reasons to justify these superstitions, they are the beliefs passed down from generation after generation. 92 • • •