Page:Myth, Ritual, and Religion (Volume 1).djvu/149

 know that the sun is material and impersonal. They say that when all was dark in the beginning, the animals were constantly jostling each other. After a painful encounter the hawk and the coyote collected two balls of inflammable substance; the hawk (Indra was occasionally a hawk) flew up with them into heaven, and lighted them with sparks from a flint. There they gave light as sun and moon. This is an exception to the general rule that the heavenly bodies are regarded as persons. The Melanesian tale of the bringing of night is a curious contrast to the Mexican, Maori, Australian, and American Indian stories which we have quoted. In Melanesia, as in Australia, the days were long, indeed endless, and people grew tired; but instead of sending the sun down below by an incantation, when night would follow in course of nature, the Melanesian hero went to Night (conceived of as a person) and begged his assistance. Night (Qong) received Qat (the hero) kindly, darkened his eyes, gave him sleep, and, in twelve hours or so, crept up from the horizon and sent the sun crawling to the west. In the same spirit Paracelsus is said to have attributed darkness, not to the absence of the sun, but to the apparition of certain stars which radiate darkness. It is extraordinary that a myth like the Melanesian should occur in Brazil. There was endless day till some one married a girl whose father, "the great serpent," was the owner of night. The father sent night bottled up in a gourd. The gourd was not to be uncorked till the messengers reached the