The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12) - Mirrors

362 The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12)at the present day the rising of the Pleiades is connected with thebeginning of spring, and feasts are held at this time, generallyof a markedly immoral character. 1002 The Guaranis of Paraguayknew the time of sowing by observation of the Pleiades; 1003 theyare said to have revered the constellation and to have dated thebeginning of their year from the rising of the constellation inMay. 1004 The Tapuiyas, formerly a numerous and warlike tribeof Brazil, hailed the rising of the Pleiades with great respect,and worshipped the constellation with songs and dances. 1005The Indians of north-western Brazil, an agricultural peoplewho subsist mainly by the cultivation of manioc, determine thetime for their various field labours by the position of certainconstellations, especially the Pleiades; when that constellationhas sunk beneath the horizon, the regular, heavy rains set in. 1006The Omagua Indians of Brazil ascribe to the Pleiades a specialinfluence on human destiny. 1007 A Brazilian name for thePleiades is Cyiuce, that is, “Mother of those who are thirsty.”The constellation, we are told, “is known to the Indians of thewhole of Brasil and appears to be even worshipped by sometribes in Matto Grosso. In the valley of the Amazon a numberof popular sayings are current about it. Thus they say that in thefirst days of its appearance in the firmament, while it is still low,the birds and especially the fowls sleep on the lower branches orperches, and that just as it rises so do they; that it brings muchdel Gran Chaco (Cordova, 1733). p. 67.1002 W. Barbrooke Grubb, An Unknown People in an Unknown Land (London,1911), p. 139.1003 Pedro de Angelis, op. cit. iv. 14.1004 Th. Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, iii. (Leipsic, 1862) p.418, referring to Marcgrav de Liebstadt, Hist. rerum naturalium Brasil.(Amsterdam, 1648), viii. 5 and 12.1005 M. Dobrizhoffer, Historia de Abiponibus, ii. 104.1006 Th. Koch-Grünberg, Zwei Jahre unter den Indianern (Berlin, 1909-1910),ii. 203.1007 C. F. Phil. v. Martius, Zur Ethnographie Amerika's, zumal Brasiliens(Leipsic, 1867), p. 441.