them climb a hill to the east of his house in order to be touched by the first beams of the rising sun.  His wishes were fulfilled, for one of the damsels conceived and after nine months gave birth to an emerald.  So she wrapped it in cotton and placed it in her bosom, and in a few days it turned into a child, who received the name of Garanchacha and was universally recognized as a son of the sun.[173] Again, the Samoans tell of a woman named Mangamangai, who became pregnant by looking at the rising sun.  Her son grew up and was named “Child of the Sun.”  At his marriage he applied to his mother for a dowry, but she bade him apply to his father, the sun, and told him how to go to him.  So one morning he took a long vine and made a noose in it; then climbing up a tree he threw the noose over the sun and caught him fast.  Thus arrested in his progress, the luminary asked him what he wanted, and being told by the young man that he wanted a present for his bride, the sun obligingly packed up a store of blessings in a basket, with which the youth descended to the earth.[174]

[Traces in marriage customs of the belief that women can be impregnated by the sun.]

Even in the marriage customs of various races we may perhaps detect traces of this belief that women can be impregnated by the sun.  Thus amongst the Chaco Indians of South America a newly married couple used to sleep the first night on a mare’s or bullock’s skin with their heads towards the west, “for the marriage is not considered ratified till the rising sun shines on their feet the succeeding morning."[175] At old Hindoo marriages the first ceremony was the “Impregnation-rite” (Garbh[=a]dh[=a]na); during the previous day the bride was made to look towards the sun or to be in some way exposed to its rays.[176] Amongst the Turks of Siberia it was formerly the custom on the morning after the marriage to lead the young couple out of the hut to greet the rising sun.  The same custom is said to be still practised in Iran and Central Asia under a belief that the beams of the rising sun are the surest means of impregnating the new bride.[177]

[Belief in the impregnation of women by the moon.]

And as some people think that women may be gotten with child by the sun, so others imagine that they can conceive by the moon.  According to the Greenlanders the moon is a young man, and he “now and then comes down to give their wives a visit and caress them; for which reason no woman dare sleep lying upon her back, without she first spits upon her fingers and rubs her belly with it.  For the same reason the young maids are afraid to stare long at the moon, imagining they may get a child by the bargain."[178] Similarly Breton peasants are reported to believe that women or girls who expose their persons to the moonlight may be impregnated by it and give birth to monsters.[179]

Sec. 8. Reasons for the Seclusion of Girls at Puberty

[The reason for the seclusion of women at puberty is the dread of menstruous blood.]