Attos' Magazine

Volume #118, April / 2010

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Immanuel Velikovsky

Worlds In Collision

By Immanuel Velikovsky

Venus in the Folklore of the Indians

Primitive peoples often are bound by inflexible customs and beliefs that date back hundreds of generations. The traditions of many primitive races speak of a “lower sky” in the past, a “larger Sun,” a swifter movement of the sun across the firmament, a shorter day that became longer after the sun was arrested on its path.

World conflagration is a frequent motif in folklore. According to the Indians of the Pacific coast of North America the “shooting star” and the “fire drill” set the world aflame. In the burning world one “could see nothing but waves of flames; rocks were burning, the ground was burning, everything was burning. Great rolls and piles of smoke were rising; fire flew up toward the sky in flames, in great sparks and brands. . . . The great fire was blazing, roaring all over the earth, burning rocks, earth, trees, people, burning everything. . . Water rushed in . . it rushed in like a crowd of rivers, covered the earth, and put out the fire as it rolled on toward the south. . . Water rose mountain high.” A celestial monster flew with “a whistle in his mouth; as he moved forward he blew it with all his might, and made a terrible noise. . . . He came flowing and blowing; he looked like an enormous bat with wings spread . . . [his] feathers waved up and down, [and] grew till they could touch the sky on both sides.”

The shooting star that made the earth into a sea of flarnes, the terrible noise, the water that rose mountain high, and the appearance of a monster in the sky, like Typhon or a dragon, all these elements were not brought together in this Indian narrative by sheer invention; they belong together.

The Wichita, an Indian tribe of Oklahoma, tell the following story of “The Deluge and the Repeopling of the Earth”: “There came to the people some signs, which showed that there was something in the north that looked like clouds; and the fowl of the air came, and the animais of the plains and woods were seen. All of this indicated that something was to happen. The clouds that were seen in the north were a deluge. The deluge was all over the face of the earth.”

The water monsters succurnbed. Only four giants remained, but they fell, too, each on his face. “The one in the south as he was falling said that the direction he fell should be called south.” The other giant said that “the direction in which he was falling should be called west -Where-the-sun-goes.” The third fell and named the direction of his falli north; the last called his direction “east -Where-the-sun-rises.”

Only a few men survived. The wind also survived on the face of the earth; everything else was destroyed. A child was born to a woman (from the wind), a Dream-girl. The girl grew rapidly. A boy child was born to her. “He told his people that he would go in the direction of the east, and he was to become the Morning Star.”

This tale sounds like an incoherent story, but let us note its various elements: “something in the north that looked like clouds” which made people and animais huddle together in apprehension of an approaching catastrophe; wild beasts emerging from the forests and coming to human abodes; an engulfing tide that destroyed everything, even the monster animals; the determination of the new four quarters of the horizon; a generation later the birth of the Morning Star.

This combination of elements cannot be accidental; all these events, and in the same sequence, were found to have occurred in the middle of the second millennium before the present era.

The Indians of the Chewkee tribe on the Gulf Coast tell: “It was too hot. The Sun was put ‘a handbreadth’ higher in the air, but it was still too hot. Seven times the Sun was lifted higher and higher under the sky arch, until it became cooler.”

In eastern Africa we can trace the same tradition. “In very old times the sky was very close to the earth.”

The Kaska tribe in the interior of British Columbia relate: “Once a long time ago the sky was very close to the earth.” The sky was pushed up and the weather changed.

The sun, after being stopped on its way across the firmament, “became small, and small it has remained since then.”

Here is a story, told to Shelton by the Snohomish tribe on Puget Sound, about the origin of the exclamation “Yahu,” to which I have already referred briefly. “A long time ago, when all the animals were still human beings, the sky was very low. It was so low that the people could not stand erect. . . . They called a meeting together and discussed how they could raise the sky. But they were at a loss to know how to do so. No one was strong enough to lift the sky. Finally the idea occurred to them that possibly the sky might be moved by the combined efforts of the people, if all of them pushed against it at the same time. But then the question arose of how it would be possible te make all the people exert their efforts at exactly the same moment. For the different peoples would be far away from one another, some would be in this part of the world, others in another part. What signal could be given that all people would lift at precisely the same time? Finally, the word ‘Yahu!’ was invented for this purpose. It was decided that all the people should shout ‘Yahu!’ together, and then exert their whole strength in lifting the sky. In accordance with this, the people equipped themselves with poles, braced them against the sky, and then all shouted ‘Yahu!’ in unison. Under their combined efforts the sky rose a little. Again the people shouted ‘Yahu!’ and lifted the heavy weight. They repeated this until the sky was sufficiently high.” Shelton says that the word “Yahu” is used today when some heavy object like a large canoe is being lifted.

It is easy to recognize the origin of this iegend. Clouds of dust and gases enveloped the earth for a long time; it seemed that the sky had descended low. The earth groaned repeatedly because of the severe twisting and dislocation it had experienced. Only slowly and gradualiy did the clouds lift themselves from the ground.

The clouds that enveloped the Israelites in the desert, the trumpet-like sounds that they heard at Mount Sinai, and the gradual lifting of the clouds in the years of the Shadow of Death are the same elements that we find in this Indian legend.

Because the same elements can be recognized in very different settings, we can affirm that there was no borrowing from one people by another. A common experience created the stories, so dissimilar at first, and so much alike on second thought.

The story of the end of the world, as related by the Pawnee Indians, has an important content. It was written down from the mouth of an old Indian:

“We are told by the old people that the Morning Star ruled over all the minor gods in the heavens. . . . The old peopie told us that the Morning Star said that when the time came for the world to end, the Moon would turn red . . . that when the Moon should turn red, the people would know that the world was coming to an end.”

“The Morning Star said further that in the beginning of all things they placed the North Star in the north, so that it should not move. . . The Morning Star also said that in the beginning of all things they gave power to the South Star for it to move up close, once in a while, to look at the North Star to see if it were still standing in the north. If it were still standing there, it was to move back to its place. . . . When the time approached for the world to end, the South Star would come higher. . . . The North Star would then disappear and move away and the South Star would take possession of the earth and of the people. . . . The old people knew also that when the world was to come to an end, there were to be many signs. Among the stars would be many signs. Meteors would fly through the skv. The Moon would change its color once in a while. The Sun would also show different colors.

“My grandchild, some of the signs have come to pass. The stars have fallen among the people, but the Morning Star is still good to us, for we continue to live. . . . The command for the ending of all things will be given by the North Star, and the South Star will carry out the command. . . . Where the time comes for the ending of the world, the stars will again fall to the earth.”

In this narrative of the Pawnee Indians, elements are brought together which, as we know now, actually belong together. The planet Venus established the present order on the earth and placed the north and south polar stars in their places. The Pawnees believe that the future destruction of the world depends on the planet Venus. When the end of the world will come, the North and South poles will change places. In the past the South Star left its place a few times and came up higher, bringing about a shifting of the poles, but on these occasions the polar stars did not reverse their positions.

The change in the color of the sun and the moon was conditioned by the presence of cometary gases between the earth and these bodies; it is referred to in the Prophets of the Scriptures. Stones failing from the sky belong to the same complex of phenomena.

The Pawnee Indians are not versed in astronomy. For one hundred and twenty generations father has transmitted to son and grandfather to grandchild the story of the past and the signs of future destruction.

The belief that the world is endangered by the planet Venus plays an important role in the ritual of the Skidi Pawnee Indians of Nebraska.

Next in rank to Tirawa (Jupiter) stands the Morning Star. “Tirawa gave most of his power to the Morning Star.” “Through her four assistants, Wind, Cloud, Lightning, and Thunder, she transmitted the mandates of Tirawa to the people upon earth.” Next in rank to the Morning Star “were the gods of four world-quarters, who stood in the northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest and supported the heavens. Next in rank was the North Star. Below these in turn were the Sun and Moon.” “The greater part of the heavenly gods were identified with stars. The sacred bundle of each village was believed to have been given to its ancestors by one of these heavenly beings.”

The ceremony of sacrifice to the Morning Star is the main ritual of the Pawnee Indians. It is a “dramatization of the acts performed by the Morning Star.” A human offering was sacrfficed when Venus “appeared especially bright or in years when there was a comet in the sky.” The act of appeasing Venus when a comet was seen in the sky takes on clearer meaning in the light of the present research.

The sacrificial procedure took the following form. A captive girl was turned over by her captor to a man who would howl like a wolf. She was kept by the guardian until the day of the sacrifice. “Her guardian then painted her whole body red and dressed her in a black skirt and robe. His face and hair were painted red, and a fanshaped headdress of twelve eagle feathers was attached to his hair.” “This was the costume in which the Morning Star usually appeared in visions.”

The scaffold was erected between four poles that pointed to the four quarters (northeast, southeast, southwest, northwest). A few words were pronounced about the darkness that threatened to endure forever, and in the name of the Morning Star a command was addressed to the poles to keep upright “so that you will always hold up the heavens.”

The chief priest then “painted the right half of her body red and the left half black. A headdress of twelve black-tipped eagle feathers, arranged like a fan, was fastened on her head.”

“At the moment the Morníng Star appeared, two men came forward bearing firebrands.” The breast of the girl was cut open and the heart taken out, and “the guardian thrust his hand into the thoracic cavity and painted his face with the blood.” The people around shot arrows into the body of the victim. “Boys too young to draw a bow were helped by their fathers or mothers.” Four bundles were laid northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest of the scaffold and were ignited.

“There seem to have been astronomical beliefs connected with the sacrifices.”

These human sacrifices, as described by Dorsey, were executed by the Indians only a few decades ago. They recall the Mexican sacrifices to the Morning Star described by the authors of the sixteenth century.

The meaning of these ceremonies and their relation to the planet Venus, especially in the years of a comet, the references to the cardinal points and to prolonged darkness, the anxiety that the sky should not fall, and even such details as the black and red colors so important in the ceremonies, become understandable now that we know the role Venus played in world upheavals.

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