In that long
council were established the days and the nights, the seasons and the
years, with the length thereof, and the sun was condemned to travel
across the firmament by the same trail day after day till the end of
time.

In this same philosophy we learn that in that ancient time a council of
the gods was held to consider the propriety of making a moon, and at
last the task was given to Whippoorwill, a god of the night, and a frog
yielded himself a willing sacrifice for this purpose, and the
Whippoorwill, by incantations, and other magical means, transformed the
frog into the new moon. The truth of this origin of the moon is made
evident to our very senses; for do we not see the frog riding the moon
at night, and the moon is cold, because the frog from which it was made
was cold?

The philosopher of _Oraibi_ tells us that when the people ascended by
means of the magical tree which constituted the ladder from the lower
world to this, they found the firmament, the ceiling of this world, low
down upon the earth--the floor of this world, _Matcito_, one of their
gods, raised the firmament on his shoulders to where it is now seen.
Still the world was dark, as there was no sun, no moon, and no stars. So
the people murmured because of the darkness and the cold. _Matcito_
said, "Bring me seven maidens," and they brought him seven maidens; and
he said, "Bring me seven baskets of cotton-bolls," and they brought him
seven baskets of cotton-bolls; and he taught the seven maidens to weave
a magical fabric from the cotton, and when they had finished it he held
it aloft, and the breeze carried it away toward the firmament, and in
the twinkling of an eye it was transformed into a beautiful full-orbed
moon, and the same breeze caught the remnants of flocculent cotton which
the maidens had scattered during their work, and carried them aloft,
and they were transformed into bright stars. But still it was cold and
the people murmured again, and _Matcito_ said, "Bring me seven buffalo
robes," and they brought him seven buffalo robes, and from the densely
matted hair of the robes he wove another wonderful fabric, which the
storm carried away into the sky, and it was transformed into the
full-orbed sun. Then _Matcito_ appointed times and seasons and ways for
the heavenly bodies, and the gods of the firmament have obeyed the
injunctions of _Matcito_ from the day of their creation to the present.

The Norse philosopher tells us that Nigh