---To be clear, I mean no disrespect nor offense in the below responses. I found your comments to be quite lucid and valid, for the most part. I do wish to express my own delight at dialogue with a qualified scholar of the appropriate field That is a rare event for me in my overly busy life.


> Ya gotta be careful about timelines, there. Most
> people take all the tales from all sources and
> lump them together as "Native American (tribe x)
> beliefs." Beliefs change as people come into
> contact with others and the stories of others.
> The tales collected by early anthropologists and
> story collectors often show a very different
> aspect than more modern collections do. And
> things change greatly after the Europeans come
> into the area.

I was trying to be careful to at least select pre-european as samplings. Beliefs do change, but it's the original version before each change where my interest often lays, which is the difficult part to find accurate sources for. Also, I've noted that what original storytellers told and what was recorded can vary from recording to recording, further obscuring the original The usual signs, in my opinion, of this are different stories from within the same body providing counters or flatly contradicting other stories. Finding the original sources for each becomes increasingly difficult... as an example, I once spent several *months* attempting to track down the belief systems of the axe-head culture that gave rise to the baltic sea coast cultures that eventually became the various nordic cultures. Talk about some rough sledding

>
> Again, generalized from the stories of a few
> tribes. This wasn't a widespread belief. For
> some (Navajo, for instance) the sun and the moon
> are created things and not deities:

I deliberately tried to cite a fair sampling of tribes across the continental US, and expanded out across the hemisphere. I didn't have the time to chronicle every tribe and their pantheon personally, but do rely on the works of others - in this case, some books from the local university library regarding comparitive mythology, from which came the postulate that I am attempting to not blindly accept nor reject.

The Navajo example fails, as was cited in my list, as they do have a solar deity, or at least a deified figure closely interrelated. Indeed, they have more than one - the Sky Father as well as the Sun Bearer (who is the character that Coyote stole from in some accounts). Contradictions are indicated amongst the body of folklore/myths we have from the Navajo (much like other bodies of myth and legend), which goes back to my belief that these are hodged together from older sources -- but nonetheless, solar related deific figures are present even for the Navajo.

Are my references post-European influence? Will double check. Or perhaps the Navajo nation was a conglomeration of tribes that we refer to as one, when it is in fact multiple - like Iroquois or Sioux/Lakota?

>
> We can find many tales on both sides of this issue
> -- my point is that you asked if there was any
> example of cultures where the sun was not
> worshipped as a deity, and I responded that there
> were many.
>

Well, I'm still looking I'm just trying to proof the postulate by failed negation - not the best tactic, agreed, but it's an intriguing field to me and this path yields the most sidetrips into research.

As to many tales on both sides of the issue - yes, there are always experts disagreeing with one another Does that mean my quest is futile? For every counterpoint I can identify, a counter-counter point can be found?


> > The existence of the solar deity is
> > merely a corresponding data point across
> almost
> > all ancient belief systems.
>
> I find that difficult to accept, given the number
> of tales that describe it as a hearth fire or some
> other (non-deity) fire (as in the tale of Coyote
> stealing fire from the sun to bring it to
> people.)

That's the postulate I'm attempting to disprove by finding a clear example of an ancient belief system that did *not* feature the deification of the sun in any form. No disrespect or offense intended, but the Navajo reference doesn't fit that bill unfortunately. It's close, as it is a possession or belonging of the Sun-Bearer, but I don't feel that it disproves the postulate completely.

>
> > Also note that the older the belief system
> > combined with the fewer reliable sources of
> > factual data regarding the system produces
> more
> > anamolous results when looking for these
> points or
> > correspondence.
>
> Speaking as an anthropologist with an interest in
> mythology, I don't think this is true. There
> exist many collections of stories but in many
> cases they're just re-sourcing another reference.
> Very few are collections of original tales
> "straight from the mouth of..." Some of them are
> heavily colored by the collector's belief
> systems.

Indeed. Looking back at the first point of yours I addressed, I realized I failed to consider something. All knowledge we have of native american legends are tainted by European contact... w/o that contact, we would have no written source. So perhaps the 'sun-deity' in Navajo was a by-product of stories being retold by non-natives?

>
> > Interesting side fact: The oldest known
> organized
> > worship based on artifacts was that of a
> very
> > large *snake* at an estimated 70kya.
>
> Do you have a source for this interesting claim?
>
> -- Byrd
> Moderator, Hall of Ma'at

See prior post where Pete was kind enough to relink the article:
[www.hallofmaat.com]

To be fair, it's not yet been published, peer-reviewed, and accepted. Thus, I should have placed appropriate disclaimers as to the veracity of the finding, for which negligence I do apologize.

Oldest 'alleged' organized worshipping