Note (return) — Chapter II

The idea that women may be impregnated by the sun is not uncommon in legends. Thus, for example, among the Indians of Guacheta in Colombia, it is said, a report once ran that the sun would impregnate one of their maidens, who should bear a child and yet remain a virgin. The chief had two daughters, and was very desirous that one of them should conceive in this miraculous manner. So every day he made 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