the
inanimate to the animate sense.]

That the Rainbow should be personified as wife of the Light-God and mother
of the rain-gods, is an idea strictly in accordance with the course of
mythological thought in the red race, and is founded on natural relations
too evident to be misconstrued. The rainbow is never seen but during a
shower, and while the sun is shining; hence it is always associated with
these two meteorological phenomena.

I may quote in comparison the rainbow myth of the Moxos of South America.
They held it to be the wife of Arama, their god of light, and her duty was
to pour the refreshing rains on the soil parched by the glaring eye of her
mighty spouse. Hence they looked upon her as goddess of waters, of trees
and plants, and of fertility in general.[1]

[Footnote 1: "Fabula, ridicula adspersam superstitione, habebant de iride.
Ajebant illam esse Aramam feminam, solis conjugem, cujus officium sit
terras a viro exustas imbrium beneficio recreare. Cum enim viderent arcum
illum non nisi pluvio tempore in conspectu venire, et tunc arborum
cacuminibus velut insidere, persuadebant sibi aquarum illum esse
Praesidem, arboresque proceras omnes sua in tutela habere." Franc. Xav.,
Eder, _Descriptio Provinciae Moxitarum in Regno Peruano_ p. 249 (Budae,
1791).]

Or we may take the Muyscas, a cultivated and interesting nation who dwelt
on the lofty plateau where Bogota is situated. They worshiped the Rainbow
under the name _Cuchaviva_ and personified it as a goddess, who took
particular care of those sick with fevers and of women in childbirth. She
was also closely associated in their myth with their culture-hero Bochica,
the story being that on one occasion, when an ill-natured divinity had
inundated the plain of Bogota, Bochica appeared to the distressed
inhabitants in company with Cuchaviva, and cleaving the mountains with a
blow of his golden sceptre, opened a passage for the waters into the
valley below.[1]

[Footnote 1: E. Uricoechea, _Gramatica de la Lengua Chibcha_, Introd., p.
xx. The similarity of these to the Biblical account is not to be
attributed to borrowing from the latter, but simply that it, as they, are
both the mythological expressions of the same natural phenomenon. In Norse
mythology, Freya is the rainbow goddess. She wears the bow as a necklace
or girdle. It was hammered out for her by four dwarfs, the four winds from
the cardinal points, and Odin seeks to get it from her. Schwartz,
_Urspr