Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 94, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 February 1916 — ODD THEORIES ABOUT MOON. [ARTICLE]

ODD THEORIES ABOUT MOON.

Some Curious Ideas Concerning ihe Spots in Its Disk Held by Various People. A great many curious ide is exist in various parts of the world regarding the dark spots in the moon s disk. In the eastern part of Asia the spots are believed tn be a rabbit or a hare; the Chinese in particular look upon them as a hare sitting Hip and pounding rice in a mortar. Most of the Siamese take the fame view. Some few. however, see in the moon a man ami woman working in a field. Curiously enough, the North American Indians have almost the same superstition as the Chinese, and on old monuments in Central America the moon appears as a jug or vessel, out of which an animal like a rabbit is jumping. , The South American Indians, on the other hand, believe that a girl who had fallen in love with the moon sprang upward toward tty was caught and kept by it, and that it is her figure which is seen on the moon’s face. The Samoan isitinders look on the spots as representing a woman carrying a child, and many other Southern peoples have similar beliefs, the woman and child sometimes being altered into an bld wTTTnan ; bearing a burden on her back. The Eskimos have an original su perst it ut ion. They say that one day Aniga, the moon, chased his sister, the sun, in wrath. Just as he was about to catch her, however, she suddenly turned around and threw a great handful of soot in his face and thus escaped him, and of that soot he bears the traces to this day. The. inhabitants of Northwestern India, who account for the moon's monthly dfsapearance by declaring th*t she is burnt up regularly and replaced by a fresh moon, explain

the dark spots by saying they are the ashes of the former moon. Other nations explain her disappearance in various ways. The Dakota Indians have it that she is eaten up by mice; the Polynesian supersition is that the souls of the dead feed on her; according to the f(ottentots, the moon suffers from headache, and when it gets very bad she hides her head with her hand and covers up her face from the gaze of the world; the Eskimos maintain that after shining for three weeks she gets tired and hungry and withdraws to take one enormous meal after their own fashion, and then reappears and begins to shine again.—Philadelphia Ledger.