I have told
you that certain things had led me to think that they occasionally see
the sun here. It is a phenomenon of excessive rarity, and whole
generations sometimes pass without its recurrence. It is due to an
opening which at irregular periods forms for a brief space of time in the
cloud dome. I imagine that it may be in some way connected with sunspots,
but here they have no notion of its cause, and look upon it as entirely
miraculous.
"Whenever this rare event occurs it gives rise to extraordinary religious
excitement, and ceremonies concerning which there is some occult mystery
that I have not yet penetrated. I suspect that the ceremonies are not
altogether unlike the Bacchanalian festivals of ancient Greece. At any
rate the momentary appearance of the sun at these times is regarded as
the avatar of a supreme god, and their whole religious system is based
upon it. So universal and profound is the superstition to which it gives
rise that the most instructed persons among them are completely under its
dominion. The eagle-beaked individual who condemned you, and whom I have
since seen, is the chief priest of this superstition, and within his
sphere his power is unlimited.
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