ing lands of Central Africa where, as Sir Samuel Baker says, 'the rising of the sun is always dreaded ... the sun is regarded as the common enemy,' words which recall Herodotus' old description of the Atlantes or Atarantes who dwelt in the interior of Africa, who cursed the sun at his rising, and abused him with shameful epithets for afflicting them with his burning heat, them and their land.[1]
The details of Sun-worship among the native races of America give an epitome of its development among mankind at large. Among many of the ruder tribes of the northern continent, the Sun is looked upon as one of the great deities, as representative of the greatest deity, or as that greatest deity himself. Indian chiefs of Hudson's Bay smoked thrice to the rising sun. In Vancouver Island men pray in time of need to the sun as he mounts toward the zenith. Among the Delawares the sun received sacrifice as second among the twelve great manitus: the Virginians bowed before him with uplifted hands and eyes as he rose and set; the Pottawatomis would climb sometimes at sunrise on their huts, to kneel and offer to the luminary a mess of Indian corn; his likeness is found representing the Great Manitu in Algonquin picture-writings. Father Hennepin, whose name is well known to geologists as the earliest visitor to the Falls of Niagara, about 1678, gives an account of the native tribes, Sioux and others, of this far-west region. He describes them as venerating the Sun, 'which they recognize, though only in appearance, as the Maker and Preserver of all things;' to him first they offer the calumet when they light it, and to him they often present the best and most delicate of their game in the lodge of the chief, 'who profits more by it than the Sun.' The Creeks regarded the Sun as symbol or minister of the Great Spirit, sending toward him the first puff of the calumet at treaties, and bowing reverently toward him in confirming their council talk or haranguing their warriors to battle.[2]
