The Sun and the Moon in Cross-Cultural Perspective

The practical and symbolic significance of the sun and the moon was coded for a world sample of societies. Methods included use of the eHRAF World Cultures (hereafter eHRAF) Word Search function and the coding of relevant eHRAF materials. The sun, objectively of greater importance than the moon for many aspects of human existence, was expected to be ethnographically more prominent than the moon, and this was found in 55 of 60 cases. There was also a strong tendency for ethnographic mentions of the moon to be made in connection with magico-religious ideas, whereas statements about the sun tended to be more equally divided between the magico-religious and techno-econo-environmental domains. In exploratory investigation, it was found that both sun and moon were frequently mentioned in the ethnographies of foraging societies, which in turn were found to be at the low end of a scale of cultural complexity. Discussion centered on interpretation of the findings and on suggestions for further research.