THE SKY.—Those who take the trouble to explain state the sky to be a material mass of a blue color, the composition of which they do not pretend to say, and think it has an oval or convex form, as apparent to the eye, resting for its basis on the extreme boundaries of the great plain, the earth. Hence their drawing, which is almost the only form in which they could represent it. Stars are small suns set therein, though they think they may be large bodies appearing small by seeing through space. Space is the intervening distance between earthly and heavenly bodies.
The Indians can not rationally account for an eclipse, supposing it to be a cloud, hand, or some other thing shadowing the moon, caused by Wakoñda to intimate some great pending calamity. Many are the prophecies on these occasions of war, pestilence, or famine, and their predictions are often verified. Predicting an eclipse does not appear to excite their wonder as much as would be supposed. The writer predicted the eclipse of the moon on December 25, 1852, months before, but received no further credit than that of having knowledge enough from books to find out it was to take place.
Their year is composed of four man-ko´-cha or seasons, viz., wai-too (spring), min-do-ka´-too (summer), pe-ti-e-too (autumn), wah-nee-e-too (winter). These are only seasons and do not each contain a certain number of days, but times—a growing time, a hot time, a leaf-falling time, and a snow time. These four seasons make a year which again becomes man-ko´-cha or the same as a season. This is difficult to explain. They count by the moon itself and its different phases, not computing so many days to make a moon, nor so many moons to a year.
They give each moon its name, beginning, say, with the March moon whenever it appears either in February or March, when it would be wee-che´-ish-ta-aza, sore eye moon; next would follow Ta-pa´-ghe-na-ho-to, frog moon; next pe-tai-chin-cha´-ton, buffalo calf moon; next wee-mush-tu, hot moon; next wah-pa´-ze-ze, yellow-leaf moon; next wah-pa-ich-pa´-ah, leaf-falling moon; next yo-ka´-wah-how-wee, first snow moon; next we-cho-kun, middle moon; next om-hos-ka-sun-ka-koo, lengthening days moon’s brother; and next om-has-ka, lengthening of days moon. Their year has no beginning nor end. They count and name the moons as they come, and these names are also varied. Any annual remarkably known fact respecting the season can be applied to the name of the same moon. Thus the sore-eyed moon can be called the snow-melting moon, and the falling-leaf moon be termed the moon when the buffaloes become fat. These moons suffer no divisions of time except their phases, viz., new moon, increasing moon (first quarter), round moon (full moon), eaten moon (second quarter), half moon, dead moon (invisible). Among themselves they have no division of time equal to a week, although they are aware that we count by weeks, or divining days (Sundays), and will often ask how many divining days (or Sundays) there are to a given period.