The one on April 8th wasn’t the only one. Solar eclipses have always been a source of fear and unhappiness. Already in Babylon in 1062 BC. In the 1st century BC, society’s fear became clear: “On the 26th of the month of Sivan, in the seventh year of the kingdom, the day turned to night, and in the middle of the sky a fire burned.” ” Three centuries later, on March 19th In 721 BC, the Mesopotamian tablets recorded one of the earliest records: “On the 14th of the month there will be a solar eclipse; bad luck to the lands of Elam and Syria, good luck to the king; let the king be at peace.”
China and the Dragon
There was also a certain fear of solar eclipses in ancient China. In a series of texts commissioned in the 19th century by Nemesio Fernández Cuesta on Asian culture, the fear they aroused in society was made clear: “The Chinese still believe that the sun comes from a great pursued by a dragon trying to devour her; and when an eclipse occurs, they gather in large crowds in the squares and streets, each with the sound instruments he has at hand, and with them make an infernal noise to scare away the monster and force it to give up its prey . .
According to the same text, the oldest Chinese traditions spoke of a “giant dragon destroyed by one of the heavenly spirits that ruled the world in ancient times under the guidance of a supreme being.”
Eclipse vs. Alexander
But the most remarkable thing in this sense, according to our colleague Pedro Gargantilla in the report “The Battle of Gaugamela, when a black moon saved Alexander the Great,” occurred in 331 BC. 1500 BC Eleven days before the Battle of Gaugamela Alexander the Great and the Persian Darius IIIBoth camps were plunged into absolute darkness after the moon set. It was a terrible omen for both of them; It suggested that defeat was near. In the words of Gargantilla, “panic was greatest among the Macedonian troops, who at that time were crossing the Tigris in search of the troops of Darius III. The soldiers interpreted that the Black Moon symbolized the advent of chaos in the face of heavenly order, so there was a clear reluctance to proceed.
But the Greeks knew how to turn things around. The augurs insisted that the sun, the symbol of Macedonia, would eclipse the moon, the emblem of the Persians. It was a good idea. Alexander himself, after consulting with several priests, decided to go into battle. And the battle was seen as a decisive victory for his empire.
Mayan fear
The Mayans were one of the cultures that most promoted the observation of the celestial vault; to creating your own calendar. This is confirmed in the dossier by Marta Ilía Nájera from the UNAM Center for Mayan Studies “The fear of solar eclipses”: “Within the indigenous worldview, the sun and moon exert a strong influence on the lives of living beings.” Both stars are gods, supernatural forces, and as such, while benevolent and vital, they cause serious harm; “Any change they undergo causes confusion.” The biggest fear was that they would go out. And for this reason they found eclipses to be “tremendously unsettling”; a manifestation of the Holy and a power that frightens and that man cannot control.
Since pre-Hispanic times, priests have calculated the dates of solar eclipses. The clearest example is the “Dresden Codex“, one of the few papers of the time that collected astronomical data and studies with enviable accuracy. However, scientific knowledge was reserved exclusively for religious knowledge; The rest of society was afraid of him. He’Chilam Balam de Chumayel‘, a compilation of anonymous texts written between the 16th and 17th centuries, goes into detail about how these types of phenomena were viewed at the time and how they should be interpreted:
“It seems to people that there is a semicircle on their sides depicting the sun being bitten. Behold, it is the one in the middle.” What bites him is that he mates with the moon, which runs attracted to him, before biting him. It arrives large on its way north, and then they become one and bite the sun and the moon before reaching the trunk of the sun. It is explained so that the Mayan men know what it is and what happens to the sun and moon. The lunar eclipse does not mean that she will be bitten. It intersects the sun on one side of the earth. The eclipse is not one to be bitten. “It lies on one side of the Earth along with the moon.”
In practice, people felt fear when they assumed that the god would die. Just read one of his prophecies: “And the face of the sun was bitten, and his face became dark and faded.” And then they were afraid above. “He is burned, our God is dead!” said his priests. The way to overcome this fear was to “make a painting of the figure of the sun.” In addition to swallowing each other’s stars, they believed this would have dire consequences. These include the arrival of beetles, “those animals that are born from a ball of dung,” which “eat the trees, they will eat the stones and all food will be lost.” Given these wicks, it does not seem surprising that the solar eclipse even today it still has a certain obscurant appearance.
The solar eclipse of Christopher Columbus
The clearest example of the fear that solar eclipses caused among the natives occurred in 1504, during Christopher Columbus’ fourth voyage. The admiral couldn’t have been worse: he had run aground in Jamaica, he had no supplies and his relationship with the natives was terrible. According to Bartolomé de las Casas, in the midst of this situation, he used his ingenuity to save the lives of his men: “The admiral knew that there would be a lunar eclipse in three days, and he sent for the lords.” Chiefs and important people of the Region said they wanted to talk to them about something.
Columbus told them that “they are Christians, vassals and servants of God” and that he was ready to punish “evil.” In his words, an attack would cause starvation, disease and “other kinds of damage.” The arrival of the eclipse affected them so much that “the Indians became frightened, and their fear became so great that with great shouts and shouts they came to the ships loaded with provisions” to deliver it to the Spaniards.
