It is a curious fact that the sun in this Polynesian legend is Ra, precisely the same as the name of the god of the sun in Egypt, while in Hindostan the sun-god is Ra-ma.

In another Polynesian legend we read of a character who was satisfied with nothing, “even pudding would not content him,” and this unconscionable fellow worried his family out of all heart with his new ways and ideas.  He represents a progressive, inventive race.  He was building a great house, but the days were too short; so, like Maui, he determined to catch the sun in nets and ropes; but the sun went on.  At last he succeeded; he caught him.  The good man then had time to finish his house, but the sun cried and cried “until the island of Savai was nearly drowned."[1]

And these myths of the sun being tied by a cord are, strange to say, found even in Europe.  The legends tell us: 

“In North Germany the townsmen of Bösum sit up in their church-tower and hold the sun by a cable all day long; taking care of it at night, and letting it up again in the morning.  In ‘Reynard the Fox,’ the day is bound with a rope, and its bonds only allow it to come slowly on.  The Peruvian Inca said the sun is like a tied beast, who goes ever round and round, in the same track."[2]

That is to say, they recognized that he is not a god, but the servant of God.

[1.  Tyler’s “Early Mankind,” p. 347.

2.  Ibid., p. 352.]

{p. 185}

Verily the bands that knit the races of the earth together are wonderful indeed, and they radiate, as I shall try to show, from one spot of the earth’s surface, alike to Polynesia, Europe, and America.

Let us change the scene again to the neighborhood of the Aztecs: 

We are told of two youths, the ancestors of the Miztec chiefs, who separated, each going his own way to conquer lands for himself: 

“The braver of the two, coming to the vicinity of Tilantongo, armed with buckler and bow, was much vexed and oppressed by the ardent rays of the sun, which he took to be the lord of that district, striving to prevent his entrance therein.  Then the young man strung his bow, and advanced his buckler before him, and drew shafts from his quiver.  He shot these against the great light even till the going down of the same; then he took possession of all that land, seeing that he had grievously wounded the sun and forced him to hide behind the mountains.  Upon this story is founded the lordship of all the caciques of Mizteca, and upon their descent from this mighty archer, their ancestor.  Even to this day, the chiefs of the Miztecs blazon as their arms a plumed chief with bow and arrows and shield, and the sun in front of him setting behind gray clouds."[1]

Are these two young men, one of whom attacks and injures the sun, the two wolves of the Gothic legends, the two comets, who devoured the sun and moon?  And did the Miztec barbarians, in their vanity, claim descent from these monstrous creatures of the sky?  Why not, when the historical heroes of antiquity traced their pedigree back to the gods; and the rulers of Peru, Egypt, and China pretended to be the lineal offspring of the sun?  And there are not wanting those, even in Europe, who