Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/554

418 save one, while the Coyote was away from home. They then disappeared.

The Coyote, being unable to find his children, hunted everywhere, and asked all things as to their whereabouts. As he was searching he perceived a cloud of dust rising, and in the midst he saw the Coon's children and his youngest child. He ran after them in vain, and the children rose to the stars where they became the Pleiades." The Coyote's child is represented by the faintest star of the group.

In winter, when Coons are in their holes, the Pleiades are most brilliant, and continually visible. In summer, when Coons are out and about, the Pleiades are not to be seen.

The medicine men among the Malays, in their invocations, besought the Pleiades to help them heal bodily diseases. The Abipones, a tribe of Indians dwelling on the banks of the Paraguay River in South America, thought that they were descended from the Pleiades, and as that asterism disappeared at certain periods from the sky of South America, upon such occasions they supposed that their grandfather was sick, and were under a yearly apprehension that he was going to die, but as soon as the seven stars were again visible in the month of May, they welcomed their grandfather as if restored from sickness with joyful shouts and the festive sound of pipes and trumpets, and congratulated him on the recovery of his health. The hymn of welcome begins: "What thanks do we owe thee? And art thou returned at last? Ah! thou hast happily recovered."

Maunder tells us that in many Babylonian cylinder seals there are engraved seven small discs in addition to other astronomical symbols. These seven discs are arranged thus:

much as we would plot the Pleiades. In all probability these discs represent this celebrated star group.