Note 60 — RELIGION

View of the Forces of Nature. The earth is regarded as flat and stretching to an unknown distance in all directions. In the west, where the sky meets it, lives a big snake which sometimes causes earthquakes by moving its body.60 During an earthquake the meat rack over the fire and the vat in which the daily supply of rice is kept are seized and held by the inmates of a Lhota house. If this is not done it is believed that supplies will fail the next year.61 The sky is regarded as being hard like a stone, and forming the floor of the world of the Potsos, who in turn have another sky and Potso world above them, and so on for an unknown number of worlds. It used to be nearer to the earth than it is now, but for some reason not known it has gradually got further and further away. The sun is a flaming plate of hard metal as big as a piece of ground on which one basket of seed rice is sown. It travels along its path in the sky during the day and at night travels back under the earth and lights the Land of the Dead. The moon is like it. In fact, it was once the brighter and hotter of the two, till the present sun, seeing that the earth was being scorched and burnt with the terrible heat, smeared the face of the moon with cow-dung, so that it now gives a very feeble light.62 An eclipse of the sun or moon occurs when a giant dog which lives in the sky tries to eat them.63 An eclipse means that many great men will die, and the day after one is kept as an emung. Stars are little points of fire, and are vaguely regarded as being endowed with life. Shooting stars are the falling dung of stars. The clouds have nothing to do with rain, which is poured down by the Potsos from reservoirs in the sky. They are simply the accumulated smoke of thousands of fires all over the earth. The belief with regard to hail is a curious one. The Potsos who live in the sky have above them yet another world of Potsos, who are evil and try to injure the Potsos living nearest to us by throwing down huge lumps of ice on them. But whenever a fusillade begins the lower Potsos take care to walk about with the door of their houses held over their backs like rain-shields. The lumps of ice are shattered on the doors and only reach the earth as small fragments which men call hail.