Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/552

416 In South Africa, they were called the "hoeing stars," andtheir last visible rising after sunset has been celebrated with rejoicing all over the southern hemisphere as betokening the summons to agricultural activity.

The Bantu tribe called the group "the ploughing constellation," because its rising in the early morning in mid-winter told the black man to turn out in the cold and plough for mealies. With the Peruvians also the Pleiades governed the crops and harvest, and indeed were supposed to have created them.

Four thousand years ago this star group marked the position of the sun at the spring equinox, and this is the principal reason why, as we have seen, it was so universally associated with the apparent wax and wane of the forces of nature.

Many strange fables and fancies surround the Pleiades quite apart and entirely disassociated with their classical mythology. The Hottentots had a curious notion concerning them. They regarded the Pleiades as wives who shut their husbands out because they missed their game. It would be difificult to trace the origin of this singular idea concerning these stars.

The Pleiades was the favourite constellation of the Iroquois Indians. In all their religious festivals the calumet was presented towards these stars, and prayers for happiness were addressed to them. They also believed that the Pleiades represented seven young persons who guarded the holy seed during the night.

An Onondaga legend concerning these stars is as follows: "A long time ago a party of Indians journeyed through the woods in search of a good hunting ground. Having found one, they proceeded to build their lodges for the winter, while the children gathered together to dance and sing. While the children were thus engaged, an old man dressed in white feathers, whose white hair shone like silver, appeared among them and bid them cease dancing lest evil befall them, but the children danced on